GeCube SilenCool X700 PRO 256MB

[Steve]

GeCube pull off silent X700 PRO running with aplomb, for competetive money, by not going overboard on the bundle. If it lies in your price range and silence appeals, be sure and consider it. GeCube promise that availability will be strong in early 2005. Recommended based on that.

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD05Njg=

[davidstone28]

Silent is somewhat relative, given that there'll always be something in your computer system to make a noise. Having recently had the pleasure of spending time with a media center PC that's completely fanless, that system's noise-makers were the hard disk and optical disk, with disk seeks audible and the optical drive making a relative racket. So despite the rest of the chassis being extraordinarily well engineered to remove noise from the equation, the parts somewhat out of the vendor's control conspired to inject some sonic mayhem back into the mix.

That's just poor implementation by the manufacturer in its chasis design and poor choice of components. If they decoupled the HDD, and enabled acoustic noise managament, noise would be reduced by 80%-95%. If they used 2.5inch HDDs with decoupling and ANM, you're looking at a "silent" HDD.

I've yet to find an optical drive that is 'silent' but again, why don't they decouple the drive and DriveSpeed it down to x2? Makes a sigificant difference to noise levels. A media PC would do well to have that setup by default.

To sum up, it's a large, heavy passive cooling solution for a hot GPU. I'll examine how effective it is shortly.

Couldn't find the examination in the review.

It would be useful include temperature readings at stock / overclocked, effect on ambient temp, adjacent components etc. Some commentary on whether a fan over the passive heatsink improves overclocking levels / stability would be useful. The review could also mention that a Zalman fan bracket over the card with a ultraquiet 80mm fan will reduce temperatures anything between 30C and 50C and still be significantly quieter than any retail HSF solution.

[Rys]

It would be useful include temperature readings at stock / overclocked, effect on ambient temp, adjacent components etc. Some commentary on whether a fan over the passive heatsink improves overclocking levels / stability would be useful. The review could also mention that a Zalman fan bracket over the card with a ultraquiet 80mm fan will reduce temperatures anything between 30C and 50C and still be significantly quieter than any retail HSF solution.

I've got a Fluke 53 on order, but it's not with me yet. I trust software readings from on-board sensors about as much as I trust myself to not break a bone while skiing.

If I get the time, I'll revisit the SilenCool (I still have it) when the Fluke arrives and give you a more accurate description of its thermals.

Cheers,

Rys