Passively Cooling a Midrange GPU

[2.71828183]

This topic is pursuant to this thread, where shortly after I posted asking about my GPU being defective, it answered the question for me by failing completely.

Anyway, what I want is to replace my GPU with another midrange model, more powerful than my previous GTS 450, and I want to passively cool it. I know my case can handle a passively cooled GTS 450 (106W TDP), so I want to stay around this level of power consumption.

I've narrowed my GPU search down to these:

AMD :
Radeon R7 260x (115W, $140)
Radeon HD 7790 (85W, $130)

NVIDIA:
GeForce GTX 650 Ti (110W, $125)

Expected use patterns are CAD (Pro/Engineer) and light gaming (Starcraft II, Kerbal Space Program, at 1920x1200). I will be driving a second monitor, but won't typically be using both for 3D work.

My questions for those knowledgeable about GPUs:

What's the difference in performance between the R7 260x and the 7790? I read the Anandtech article, and it seems like they use the same chip. Is there a performance or feature advantage to the newer card, or am I better off buying the older one?

How do these stack up compared to the GTX 650 Ti in my expected use patterns?

Is there a new release in this price segment (in the next couple months) that I should be waiting for?

What's a good, solid, reliable brand? I will almost certainly want a reference layout, and it would be a bonus if replacing the cooler didn't void the warranty.

---

My choices for passive cooling are as follows:

-Reuse the cooler that came with the GTS 450. It's free and I know it copes relatively well with this TDP. I may have to modify it to fit, but I have the skills to do that (would rather not take the time though) and if I screw it up, I'm not out any money. Disadvantage: it's a direct-touch heatpipe design, and only 2 of the 4 heatpipes rest on the GPU die, and there's a fair gap between them. This may be partly why the GTS 450 failed (there was a small area on the die that had no TIM on it when I took it apart). If I reuse it, I'd probably want to add a copper heatspreader, either soldering it to the heatsink (will be a smidge tricky, because it's a pretty effective heatsink--also because I don't know if those heatpipes will burst at soldering temperatures) or just adding another layer of TIM. It also gives me the problem that the assorted VRM and RAM heatsinks may not be compatible with the new card, so I'm probably looking at $10 to $15 in thermal tape/epoxy and new VRM heatsinks.

-Arctic Accelero S1 Plus ($40)
This is a relatively lower-cost cooler, but for one, it doesn't look too different from what I have in the cooler that came off the GTS 450. I haven't determined that it's off-the-shelf compatible with any of the cards I'm looking at. The link to the manufacturer's website comes up 404, which is not encouraging... Also, reviews seem to suggest that I'll need to provide my own thermal adhesive and maybe some extra VRM/RAM heatsinks, so that's another $10 or so to the cost.

-Prolimatech MK-13 ($60)
This is a more expensive option, but I think it'll be a higher-quality cooler. It doesn't seem to list any modern cards for compatibility, though. Does anyone know if this fits any of the cards I'm considering? It's also a little worrisome that the manufacturer doesn't actually suggest running it without a fan. It's about the same size as the GTS 450 cooler, though it looks to be higher quality...

-Prolimatech MK-26 ($75)
I'm confident this cooler will have the performance I need, but the price is steeper than I wanted to pay. It lists plenty of modern cards as compatible, but the 7790 is notably not listed. Does anyone know if a stock 7790 board is the same as a stock 7770 board (which is listed), or is it different? (Also, it's out of stock there, and doesn't seem to be sold in very many places, so I may have some trouble actually buying one.)

Is there anyone out there that has done the passive-GPU thing and has some feedback for me? I've had quite a bit of trouble even tracking these down, so maybe I've missed something.

Thanks for any replies.

 

[Headfoot]

Why are you going passive cooler? For noise reasons?

If so I would still very much suggest that you get a silent fan (many resources on the web for this) that runs at very low RPMs. It'll let you get a less obnoxiously large and expensive cooler and still maintain good temperatures while being completely silent considering normal office noise floor. 100% passive cooled usually doesn't gain you much on the noise front unless your noise floor is already extremely low which is atypical for most people.

Also consider getting a regular ol' 650 Ti or 7790 that has one of the nicer aftermarket coolers on it and using MSI Afterburner or similar programs to set a very quiet fan curve. Many of the aftermarket fans out there are very quiet at low RPMS with acceptable temperatures especially on small GPUs like 7790/260x or 650 Ti. They are the same price as the reference one, which saves you $40-70 dollars right there for the fan

 

[2.71828183]

Yes, for noise reasons. It may seem a little weird that I'm so picky about noise, but I really do want a passive GPU (also one with as little coil whine as possible, but that seems to be a lottery rather than something one can select for).

My noise floor is very much lower than the typical office environment. I will point out that my entire system is not passive (it's very difficult to do that with a high-performance system) but I'd rather not add another fan to it, especially because it was somewhat difficult to select the fans I have. I don't have a decibel meter, certainly not one sensitive enough to listen to my system, but for reference: At idle, the loudest part is coil whine in my monitors and the CFL lightbulb in my desk lamp. At full load, I can hear the processor fan, which I think is supposed to be rated about 18dbA at 1m--and of course it's inside a sound-dampened case. Of course, all this gets drowned out if a plane flies over or the central heating comes on, but most of the time it's that quiet, and that's the way I like it. I would like it even quieter, but I've done what I think is about the best that can be done on my budget and without spending inordinate amounts of time.

Forgive my skepticism about the quietness of those aftermarket coolers, because I haven't ever experienced one, but it's hard or impossible to find somebody that's actually measured the noise they make (the noise levels I care about are well below the noise floor of most reviewers' meters). SilentPCReview.com is the only site I've found that does testing that actually distinguishes between products in the 12~20 dbA range, and they don't have any reviews of the cards I'm looking at.

 

[IEC]

I ran crossfired OC'd 7790s with Arctic Accelero S1+ passive heatsinks I bought for $32 each. Temps were 32C/59C idle/load with a PC built for quiet operation, with the top card running a bit hotter.

Note that the heatsink is MASSIVE and needs to have some sort of support on the end away from the expansion slots in order to avoid card sag/droop. I used velcro cable ties to suspend the card using the black plastic bracket on the end of the card.

 

[IEC]

Also note that if you are in the US, 7790s have been as cheap as $60 after rebate recently.

 

[blastingcap]

7750 passive cooler gets good reviews at SPCR if you must have passive. I prefer passive for low-heat things myself, like server parts.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=64599

 

[Headfoot]

Yes, for noise reasons. It may seem a little weird that I'm so picky about noise, but I really do want a passive GPU (also one with as little coil whine as possible, but that seems to be a lottery rather than something one can select for).

My noise floor is very much lower than the typical office environment. I will point out that my entire system is not passive (it's very difficult to do that with a high-performance system) but I'd rather not add another fan to it, especially because it was somewhat difficult to select the fans I have. I don't have a decibel meter, certainly not one sensitive enough to listen to my system, but for reference: At idle, the loudest part is coil whine in my monitors and the CFL lightbulb in my desk lamp. At full load, I can hear the processor fan, which I think is supposed to be rated about 18dbA at 1m--and of course it's inside a sound-dampened case. Of course, all this gets drowned out if a plane flies over or the central heating comes on, but most of the time it's that quiet, and that's the way I like it. I would like it even quieter, but I've done what I think is about the best that can be done on my budget and without spending inordinate amounts of time.

Forgive my skepticism about the quietness of those aftermarket coolers, because I haven't ever experienced one, but it's hard or impossible to find somebody that's actually measured the noise they make (the noise levels I care about are well below the noise floor of most reviewers' meters). SilentPCReview.com is the only site I've found that does testing that actually distinguishes between products in the 12~20 dbA range, and they don't have any reviews of the cards I'm looking at.

I usually advise people about quietness like I did above because its highly unusual someone comes in actually understanding the concept of noise floor, etc. They just want something quieter than what they've got which is usually fairly loud objectively. As in so many things tech, I like to try to dig out the actual problem looking to be solved rather than advising on what one possible solution to that problem is.

But it seems you've got a good understanding of your set up, noise floor and all that. In that case I'd also suggest looking for a 7790 deal and slapping that S1 passive cooler on it. Check Slickdeals.com for 7790 deals, I saw them almost weekly for the last month about. You may be able to get away with the hotter GPUs too if you undervolt your card and keep clocks at stock to reduce total TDP.

 

[2.71828183]

I ran crossfired OC'd 7790s with Arctic Accelero S1+ passive heatsinks I bought for $32 each. Temps were 32C/59C idle/load with a PC built for quiet operation, with the top card running a bit hotter.

Note that the heatsink is MASSIVE and needs to have some sort of support on the end away from the expansion slots in order to avoid card sag/droop. I used velcro cable ties to suspend the card using the black plastic bracket on the end of the card.

Good to hear that they seem to cope well with the 7790. Did you have trouble with the stock VRM heatsinks/thermal glue? Most of the reviews I've read are complaining about that, but I can't tell if it's just people not doing it right, or if I need to buy that stuff separately because the stuff that comes with the card isn't good enough.

And yeah, I figured about needing outboard support. Actually, in hindsight, that may have contributed to the death of my previous card, which was also passive.

I see a couple recommendations for 7790. Is the 260x really just a rebrand of that card then? The 7790 is well within my budget, which is nice.

Headfoot: Yeah, I've been there before, with people who come in with a half-finished solution and you have to try to work out what the original problem was. Also, it's not the only time someone's raised an eyebrow at my rig before: I've come to the conclusion that most people either can't hear the sounds that bother me, or they subconsciously ignore them.

I'd be a bit nervous increasing TDP too much, even if the GPU cooler could handle it, because at some point the rest of the system will start to run out of thermal headroom. A silent system necessarily means low-airflow, so I'm fairly constrained in that regard.

 

[Erenhardt]

There is that aswell:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7850_SCS3_passive/30.html

Pricing should be around what you are looking for when combining midrange card with 3rd party passive cooler. Here you get better card and you don't loose warranty because of heatsink removal.

 

[2.71828183]

That's interesting. I looked hard for commercial passive options and didn't see anything more powerful than the low-end HTPC cards.

The 7850 makes me a bit nervous because of the higher TDP, and the reviews saying that the card runs hot and needs good case airflow (my case has very little airflow on purpose, but it does restrict stuff like this). Still, I might consider buying it and then underclocking it a smidge.

Only problem is, I can't find it for sale in the US. I found a couple of European sites that had it listed (including amazon.co.uk), but if my conversion math is right, it's running about $280, which is significantly more than I'd want to spend. Not to mention the increased price of overseas shipping.

One other thing I noticed on that review link: The 7790 seems to consistently outperform the GTX 650 Ti, except in Starcraft II, where the 650 Ti seems to perform much better. Should this make me consider Nvidia, because Starcraft II is basically the only game I play (but that doesn't count performance in Pro/E, which unsurprisingly isn't listed in the typical video card review)? In other words: is this an artifact of this one review, or just something that Nvidia does better than AMD?

 

[Deders]

you're going to need some airflow over the GPU heatsink to help the heat dissipate, otherwise it will just build up on the GPU.

 

[IEC]

Re: Passively cooled 7790s using Accelero S1+

I didn't use any VRM or RAM sinks, and had no issues. I did have a 140mm front intake fan (Arctic F14 PWM) blowing at around 700 rpm on the two cards, so I never had overheating on either VRM or RAM. I strongly encourage not using the included thermal adhesive as it is crap.

That said if your primary use is going to be Starcraft II, that game is optimized for nVidia cards and will run better on the nVidia equivalent card.

In the end I wanted to go high end graphics and compromised on noise by using the "Red Mod" and using a CLC on my graphics cards. That will tide me over until next month when I plan on going full custom water cooling, which is the best performance/noise ratio in my estimation. Though admittedly, the costliest option.

 

[2.71828183]

Okay, now I'm looking at GTX 650 Ti, Accelero S1 Plus, and some aftermarket thermal epoxy. It would be nice to go with something more powerful, but I just don't think I have the TDP headroom for it. I was seeing acceptable temps (~80°C at full load) on my GTS 450, but that doesn't have a whole lot of thermal headroom associated with it.

I don't think I could ever go water cooling. Expense aside, I don't think they make pumps quiet enough for me. It's certainly the way to go for a modestly quiet/super powerful system, though. My dream system would be a 100% passive affair with a metric ton of heatpipes hooking everything up to a truly massive heatsink (passive cooling on a ~600W system = a couple square meters of heatsink area--I actually worked it out once). Alas, that requires significantly more time and money than I have, and I really can't justify it since my current system is quite adequate. (Or, it will be once I'm off integrated graphics.)

Thanks for the advice.

 

[bigi]

I don't like too much noise either, but I find this post weird.

IMO, if you have a good case you can easily air cool GPU, CPU and Case itself and not hear anything.

No need for passive at all.

Unless you run an open case or some crazy fans.

 

[Deders]

My system is very quiet, even with 6 fans. have you seen BeQuiet's range of fans?

 

[2.71828183]

I think the problem is that I can't accurately communicate the perceptual nature of the noise I'm trying to get rid of.

By most people's measure, my system is "very quiet" or "silent". In fact, if I want to improve its silence at idle, I need to start chasing down coil whine before I worry about the fans. At full load though, I can hear the processor fan, which is the loudest. The 100% passive thing is kind of a pipe dream, not something I'll probably do anytime soon--although I don't think it's any crazier than dreaming of a water-cooled quad-SLI Titan gaming system, or something like that.

System specs, for the curious:

Fractal Design Define R4 case, with an additional baffle (a fuzzy blanket for now, though I have the materials to build something a little more professional-looking--just haven't gotten around to it) to muffle coil whine from my power supply. (Yes, there's a path for air to get out. I didn't close off the back vents of my case in pursuit of silence.)

Seasonic 650W power supply. Rated as high as it is (I don't need 650W) because this model has the option to run fanlessly at lower power. I've never heard the fan kick on.

i7-4770 with a CM Hyper 212 Evo, and a Scythe PWM fan (0-1200 RPM, I think). It would probably cut my fan speeds a bit to get a larger heatsink, but the Evo is respectable in performance considering how cheap it was. The stock fan that comes with it is garbage for silence though. The Scythe fan will turn all the way off at idle, or kick over and spin at about 300 RPM. It's audible at full load but not particularly loud (18dbA?)

256GB Samsung 840 Pro system drive. The spinner drives are in my HTPC, accessible over the network. If I had a conventional hard drive in my computer it would be the loudest thing there by a considerable margin.

Previously: Passively cooled GTS 450.
Now: Crappy Intel integrated graphics.
Future: Passively cooled GTX 650 Ti.

Asus Z87-A motherboard, 16GB DDR3-1600, cheapo optical drive (makes a racket when it's on, which is almost never--I can also grab stuff from the HTPC's optical drive if I really want to shut it up).

Two 120mm case fans. Air comes in the front, blows over the processor heatsink, and goes out the back. One fan is an Enermax magnetic-bearing fan. They're stupidly expensive for case fans and don't move much air, but they are pretty silent (no bearing noise!) The other fan is, I believe, a rebranded Nexus 120 (low RPM sleeve-bearing) that won the quiet lottery--it was intended to be a fan for another build, then I noticed how quiet it was and used it for mine--I traded with one of the stock 140mm fans from the Define R4, which were sort-of quiet but not up to my standards. Both case fans run below 500 RPM at idle. The magnetic-bearing fan maxes out at about 800 RPM. The other one maxes out much higher but I have an inline resistor on it that limits it to about 800 RPM too.

 

[bgt]

Cool@ultra quiet:7850 with Accelero cooler and NB fan(PWM version 4pin)

 

[PliotronX]

Cool@ultra quiet:7850 with Accelero cooler and NB fan(PWM version 4pin)

Nice! Acceleros are awesome and so cost effective too. Although a fan that barely spins (read: makes no noise) will drop temps like 15 degrees over running passive. The nice wide gaps between its fins bode well with quiet fans. I put two silent 120mm fans on mine, keeps an overvolted 7850 below 50 degrees at full load.