ASUS: The EN7600 GS Silent, and EN7800 GT TOP Silent
by Josh Venning on May 12, 2006 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
While it might be nearly impossible to make a PC run completely silent, there are lots of ways for those concerned about noise to deal with the problem. And for those who want a quiet system for recording or whatever else, but also to play games every once in a while, a silent graphics card will help keep the noise down while still allowing you to game. Still, silent graphics solutions are specialized, so the average gamer won't mind that their card adds a few db to their computer noise. These cards are made to fit a specific need, and both the EN7600 GS Silent and the EN7800 GT TOP Silent meet this need very well.Both of these cards are identical when it comes to noise level, but obviously there's a large difference in terms of gaming performance. It's difficult making fast cards run quiet because higher power requires more cooling and eventually you will need fans or other moving parts to cool down the processor, which in turn will generate noise. The 7800 GT is fairly high on the performance ladder, and the fact that ASUS managed to make a silent version of this card is nice. What is even nicer is the fact that the EN7800 GT TOP Silent was able to achieve a fairly high user-overclock over the already decent factory overclock. (Note that overclocking ability varies between cards of the same type.) It's fairly safe to say that those looking for both the most powerful and quiet graphics card available need look no further than the ASUS EN7800 GT TOP Silent. However, the price for this card is a bit higher than a normal 7800 GT, so the silent operation will cost you extra.
As far as pricing goes, it makes sense that a slower card like the 7600 GS would likely be easier for a manufacturer to modify to silent operation over a fast card like the 7800 GT, thus saving on costs. Currently, the ASUS EN7600 GS Silent can be bought for about $147 on Newegg, which is relatively inexpensive for what you get. It is still a budget/midrange card though, so it won't be able to give you the kind of performance you would need to run the latest games at high settings. The ASUS EN7800 GT TOP Silent lists for a much higher price of $399, and at the time of this writing we weren't able to find any of these cards for sale. Normal 7800 GTs can be found now for as low as $280, so having one of these cards that runs noiseless will be more of a luxury item for most gamers.
Overall these cards adequately fulfill their job of providing a level of graphics acceleration while making no sound at all, so for those interested in this aspect of the cards, you won't be disappointed. Which one is better for you depends mostly on your budget, and most likely the ASUS EN7600 GS Silent will be a more reasonable purchase for the consumer in the market for a card of this type. There are other low-noise solutions available, but none quite as fast as the EN7800 GT TOP Silent which makes it unique, and the likely choice for those interested in maximum performance with lowest noise levels. With NVIDIA's "slimming-down" of their most recent line of cards, we can imagine more powerful silent-operation will be easier and cheaper to achieve in the future, and we'll be interested to see what advancements are in store for us in this area.
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Seer - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
This review is so messed up that it's not even funny. Okay, maybe it is funny to laugh at how pathetic it is. Let me start:1) The 7800GT Top Silent isn't available anymore. It was a limited edition run. GJ guys, there goes half of your article. (You even state this at the end that its not available. WTF dudes, what are you smoking?)
2) Extremely inaccurate test results. The O/Ced version of the 7600 GS is repeatedly listed as performing WORSE than the non O/Ced version. Niiiice. Also, performance for the 7600 GS INCREASES when going from a lower resolution to a higher one. Rofl.
3) Averaging core and memory % o/c's in a 50/50 weighted ratio gives the 7600GS an o/c os 9.9% avg, and the 7800GT TS a 9.25% avg. Yet you claim it overclocks better. Oh, right, you must have said that because the O/C version was performing worse. (I realize that the 7800GT TS is already factory o/c'ed. However, this means that you are guaranteed that stock clock. A real, consumer overclock is raising the clock to a speed that the chip [I}is not rated at. )
4) Hardly any mention of the EXTREME heat these cards put out. Into the air that should be going into your CPU, nonetheless. (Pointed out in an earlier comment). In fact, "the heatsink appears to be very affective at keeping the GPU cool" 95 C. Right, cool. In fact, if you understand the relationship between Heat and Temperature (two different things, people), you would understand that the 7800GT TS is in fact much worse for your case's ambient temps than the 7600GS, despite this articles claims to the contrary.
GJ guys, pat yourself on the back and go buy a few beers! You really deserve it! *rolls eyes*
Guuts - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
Also, on page 5, the author writes: "What is even more nice..." More nice?! I hate to be the grammar police here, but I think what he's looking for here is "nicer".JarredWalton - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
Fixed, thanks.Seer - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
I forgot to mention why I think this shitty article came out: Asus paid them to do it. It's just like those shitty articles on Daily Tech about seemingly random product releases that are nothing other than shameless plugs.poohbear - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
please tell your mom to stuff feeding u cocoa puffs for breakfast. they have TOO MUCH sugar for u.JarredWalton - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
Actually, the 7600 GS Silent was released and they sent it to us for review (the same way we get nearly all products). Since it was a silent card and we hadn't looked at the 7800 GT yet, it was included as well as something of a reference point. Some people are interested in silence and don't care all that much about performance past a certain point, and that's where the 7600 GS fits in nicely.As for the other comments above, the results in the 1600x1200 graphs look like they were reversed, and in fact all of the results look odd. I'm checking with Josh to verify, but it could be the OC'ed 7600 is throttling down due to heat. I'm not sure about the stability of the 7600 OC'ed either - Josh mentions artifacts, so I'm not sure if the final results he posted are "clean" or not. A 9% OC shouldn't give you 35=65% more performance, or cut performance a lot.
Other than that anamoly, the 7800 GT overclocks "more" because averaging RAM and GPU OCs is not normally an accurate way of quantifying performance. Most modern games are hitting the GPU harder than the RAM bandwidth (unless you have really slow RAM), so 15% is more than 11%. Honestly, I wouldn't even think about OC'ing a silent card, though. Maybe if you want to add a low RPM fan to it?
Temperatures are GPU core AFAIK, so 95C is not the surface HSF temperature. Remember that these cards aren't actually generating more heat than any other card based off of the same graphics chips; the only difference is that they're not dissipating heat as quickly because they don't have fans. Unless you are using a graphics card that expels heat outside of the case, these cards aren't actually increasing the ambient case temperature.
Seer - Saturday, May 13, 2006 - link
Thanks for the response. I admit it was a bit of a troll. I was just disappointed with this article because I know AT can do so much better (IMO). Hopefully I elicited some motivation for improvement.LoneWolf15 - Monday, May 15, 2006 - link
Troll? More like a tool.If you're disappointed, there are professional ways to respond that don't make you look like a pathetic whiny git.
Seer - Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - link
Sorry for not blindly supporting any article put out by your favorite site D:LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - link
I've disagreed many times here; if you read regularly, you'd have seen them, and you'll see them again. I just choose to do so in a manner that doesn't make me look like a 15-year old who's flunking 8th grade for the second time. Constructive criticism is one thing you apparently don't know how to do.