Quiet, cool graphics card.

[quarryman]

I'm looking for a card that I can use in my Shuttle. I've had a lend of a GeForce Ti 4200 for a while but the fan is sooo loud and it runs quite hot. I'm looking for something that I can use that might allow me to control the fan speed. For this reason it would need to run quite cool.

The 9800 Pros are fairly cheap at the moment but I'd need to use a Zalman cooler to keep the heat down, which I can't do since its an SFF.

Anyone know of any good NVidias offering s that might be a good solution. Performance needs to be good since it'll be used quite a bit for gaming.

TIA

[Proplus]

Get a 9800pro, and remove the stock HSF and fit a Vantec Iceberg cooler on it.

[Darkmatter]

Sorry Proplus will have to disagree with you. The Vantec Iceberg my be a good cooler but it has a horrid high pitch wine. I had one briefly found that it was louder than my 9700pro cooler and then promptly sold it. That is my personal preference mind you.

I could certianly recommend the Arctic Cooling Silencer, got one today very quite, much better than stock 9800pro cooler, but does take up an extra slot.

[SilentDeath]

Vantec icebergs are rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishe. my 9700 had to be down clocked to 230mhz to maintain a good temp. Id suggest the artic cooling thing though I doubt it would fit..

[Proplus]

Thats strange, my Icerberg is virtually silent, and as for cooling, inside my CM case its real warm, and it keeps my 9700pro running without any problems :/

[SilentDeath]

case temps are not indicative of a coolers performance. The back of the pcb where the gpu is will never get as hot as the gpu becasuse of the thermal resistance but Its good for indicating temps. It was hot enough to burn my finger but I never had stabiility problems, though it was always clocked down becuase of the temps.

I agree they are nearly silent, but for a peice of copper and a fan they are making a LOT of profit from such a simple product.
Try and attach a 1U copper cpu cooler + low rpm fan, much more effective

[directhex]

can people remember that a shuttle has the AGP slot in the end slot, BEHIND the pci slot. a 2-slot solution therefor will not & cannot be fitted.

[Gunbuster]

I have a Sapphire Radeon 9600XT ultimate which just fits in my Soltek Qbic, I don't know if it will fit in your shuttle (it might just). Best place to check is www.sfftech.com forums specifically search for 'ultimate' in the shuttle forum, double check its the same as your shuttle and that yours is capable of removing the heat from your system quietly, otherwise the shuttle fans might over compensate. Another option might be Tyan's 9600pro as its uses a temprature controlled fan and large heatsync, but leaves the pci free.

[Byatt]

can people remember that a shuttle has the AGP slot in the end slot, BEHIND the pci slot. a 2-slot solution therefor will not & cannot be fitted.

ah, you forget the cunningness of the patented virtual upside-down AGP slot!

[Proplus]

case temps are not indicative of a coolers performance. The back of the pcb where the gpu is will never get as hot as the gpu becasuse of the thermal resistance but Its good for indicating temps. It was hot enough to burn my finger but I never had stabiility problems, though it was always clocked down becuase of the temps.

I think you misunderstood my point. I mentioned my case temps being warm to show the point that the ambient temp in my case is already quiet high (this is a Palomino system with the core running at a constant 60C full load, and only one case fan). And even with this constant high ambient temp within my case, the Iceberg still cools my GPU sufficiently enough in that it has never crashed, I don't need to underclock it, and I can push the overclock quiet far.

[SilentDeath]

with a gou temp of 100c+ doubt youd get a ver nice overclock. 350mhz max.

[Proplus]

Which goes back to the original point of this thread.....the guy didn't mention overclocking the GFX card, just so that it cools it sufficient and that its silent.

[quarryman]

Which goes back to the original point of this thread.....the guy didn't mention overclocking the GFX card, just so that it cools it sufficient and that its silent.

that's right, the overclocking really isn't important to me. I just want it to run quiet without having to mod the voltage on the fan etc. The heat isn't a major problem despite the fact that its in a Shuttle. The thing is I had a Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro but had problems with it moved it on. Now though, I really miss the fan-control feature - it really was possible to get it running whisper quiet.

Also the 9600 Pro rarely has problems with overheating according to Tyan in emails. The 9800 Pro is a great price at the moment but if its anything like the Ti 4200 in terms of noise - forget it.

Any other ideas on quiet cards or ways I can get one running quiet with major modding to the case (Artic cooler etc).

Thanks for all the suggestions btw

[SilentDeath]

9600's are done on 130nm and therfore lots less heat. 9800s are on 150nm and are as far as ATI can push them considering the heat output. I was using 350 max overclock as an example. all 9700/9800s at stock voltge are capable of quite a bit more and if heat is whats limiting them then they wont last that long. having thought about it I think 300 would have been a more realistic max, so maybe your cooler was a later revison or something. My case ambient might have just been much higher - I only used it in the summer.

back to cooling - how much space do you have from the middle of the agp slot?

Id recommend a 9800pro/xt anyway as you still get very good performance at 230mhz on core (on dx8/9 games anyway, example bloodrayne and enclave, which I played at this speed. I get crap fps on cs what ever speed so older games are slower...)

For mods put a blow hole so the graphics fan can suck in colder air.

[atifds9]

i'd second the ultimte saphire 9600xt as it has no fan, uses passive cooling heat sinks or pipes i belive, so totaly silent.

[directhex]

the saphire ultimate series uses a zalman zm80-hp, which uses up the space for the pci slot to the left, which doesn't exist inside a shuttle.