silent graphics cards pointless?

[jonn220]

Is it right that there is a need for an increase in case fan speed with a passive gfx- so does this mean the is no point in going for a silent one.?

[nvening]

It depends on the heat output of the card and how good your air flow is, we need more details

[jonn220]

antec p180 geforce7900gs or 7950.

[chrestomanci]

You can cool a case with big 120mm fans that hardly make any noise, but graphics card fans, especialy low end ones tend to be small ones that make a nasty winey noise.

Also, some silent GFX cards have more energy efficent GPUs that produce less heat in the first place.

[nvening]

Well the p180 has good air flow, mabe you should use the GPU cooling duct if it came with one if not mabe you will have to increase the speed of one of the exit fans.

However either of these options is probably faster than most GPU HSFs

[jonn220]

so would it be better to go with normal gfx card and get a zalman extra cooler ?

[alexkoon]

depends on the level of performance you require - I hear the Zalman gpu coolers are pretty decent. You will need good airflow though, the heat has to go somewhere.

[EtheAv8r]

No I don't think they are a waste of time & effort, I think there are some good silent GPU coolers available now, but as with everything there needs to be ballance, the heatpipes will chuck the GPU heast into the case, so you need good case airflow, and probably a fan in or directed at the GPU heatpipe fins, but this can be 120 and slow so very quiet and still efficient.

You beed a good case... Antec P180 or Ahasa Eclipse / Mirage the P180 will be the quitetist, but the Akasa probably the coolest.

I favour the P180

[Fabula]

Whatever graphics solution you get, it will need cooling.

Conventionally this is done by a fan on the graphics card. This is simple, and works.

Passive cards are available which "move" the heat into the case, so case fans are needed to remove it from there.

So both solutions require a fan to cool.

But graphics card fans are limited to maybe 60mm diameter, while case fans can go to 120mm or more. Bigger fans can turn slower while maintaining the same airflow as smaller fans. So big fans are quieter. Which is why passive cooling has a point.

[prehensile]

depends how powerful the graphics card is, if you're using AGP or what, old cards like a radeon 7000 put out about as much heat as a Northbridge chipset that needs a heatsink, in fact my one that I have as a reserve originally came with a little tiny fan but it goes great without one with a bit of copper-wire wrapped on the Fins to make for extra conduction-and the Finns are only 3 mm high so really it is not a hot card. But it has top-quality 2D stuff

And the amount of heat that is in the case is regardless of the processor unless the processor fan sends the heat straight out of one of the PCI slots