Gigabyte
Gigabyte has a lot of experience in the silent graphics market, and we have several ATI and NVIDIA cards from them for this review. An interesting statistic is that 90% of Gigabyte's shipped graphics solutions are silent, which makes a statement about the desirability of silent cards. Gigabyte is well represented in this review, having provided us with the highest number of solutions for testing. While their cards may not win any awards for good looks (the gold and turquoise coloring and unique heat sink designs aren't very easy on the eyes), they apparently handle silent operation very well, even at higher-than-stock clock speeds.
On the NVIDIA side, we have the Gigabyte 7600 GT, 7600 GS, 7300 GT, and 7300 GS. The Gigabyte 7600 GS comes shipped with its core overclocked to 450MHz, slightly higher (by 50MHz) than the stock version of this card. The Gigabyte 7300 GT also has a factory overclock of 450MHz core clock as opposed to the standard 350MHz core clock and an 800MHz memory clock verses the standard 667MHz memory clock on the 7300 GT. On the ATI side, we have the Gigabyte X1600 XT, X1600 Pro, X1300 Pro and X1300. All other Gigabyte cards aside from the 7600 GS and 7300 GT are clocked at reference speeds.
As we can see, the Gigabyte NVIDIA 7600 GT, ATI X1600 XT, and ATI X1600 Pro all have almost identical heat sink designs. The heat sinks are unique, with a bulky sink up front towards the DVI connections and heatpipes connecting to other heat sinks on the front and back of the card. The Gigabyte cards with this style heat sink are much more bulky than the other ones, and it's important to note that the silver heat sink uses up a second slot making these dual-slot solutions.
The Gigabyte X1300 Pro looks almost the same as the previous three Gigabyte cards; however, it is missing the extra heat sink on the back and the second metal pipe that would extend to it. The silver heat sink on the front still takes up an extra slot however, which is a point against this and the other three cards.
The Gigabyte 7600 GS and 7300 GT are very similar in appearance. The heat sinks on these cards are much more compact than those on the first four cards we mentioned. These cards don't take up an extra slot and only have a gold heat sink on the front, with a strange looking heatpipe running out and back in a "U" shape from the main heat sink. The heatpipe is attached to thin metal sheets, all in the name of increasing surface area and removing heat from the hotter portions of the card. These thin metal sheets seem a little delicate and might bend if the card is mishandled, though a slightly bent heat sink fin isn't really a major problem.
The Gigabyte 7300 GS and X1300 have heat sinks with a unique type of gold cover or hood running along the top part of the cards, over a silver heat sink on the cards' processor. The Gigabyte 7300 GS doesn't have a bridge connector on the top of the card for SLI operation, but it will still run in SLI (with a second card) without the bridge connection.
Gigabyte seems to have a definite plan about their custom heat sink designs, and after testing and overclocking these cards, there isn't much doubt that they perform well. They did, however, tend to get very hot to the touch after repeated testing, to the point where they became difficult to hold. We'll talk more about how well these cards overclocked in the "Overclocking" section.
Gigabyte has a lot of experience in the silent graphics market, and we have several ATI and NVIDIA cards from them for this review. An interesting statistic is that 90% of Gigabyte's shipped graphics solutions are silent, which makes a statement about the desirability of silent cards. Gigabyte is well represented in this review, having provided us with the highest number of solutions for testing. While their cards may not win any awards for good looks (the gold and turquoise coloring and unique heat sink designs aren't very easy on the eyes), they apparently handle silent operation very well, even at higher-than-stock clock speeds.
On the NVIDIA side, we have the Gigabyte 7600 GT, 7600 GS, 7300 GT, and 7300 GS. The Gigabyte 7600 GS comes shipped with its core overclocked to 450MHz, slightly higher (by 50MHz) than the stock version of this card. The Gigabyte 7300 GT also has a factory overclock of 450MHz core clock as opposed to the standard 350MHz core clock and an 800MHz memory clock verses the standard 667MHz memory clock on the 7300 GT. On the ATI side, we have the Gigabyte X1600 XT, X1600 Pro, X1300 Pro and X1300. All other Gigabyte cards aside from the 7600 GS and 7300 GT are clocked at reference speeds.
As we can see, the Gigabyte NVIDIA 7600 GT, ATI X1600 XT, and ATI X1600 Pro all have almost identical heat sink designs. The heat sinks are unique, with a bulky sink up front towards the DVI connections and heatpipes connecting to other heat sinks on the front and back of the card. The Gigabyte cards with this style heat sink are much more bulky than the other ones, and it's important to note that the silver heat sink uses up a second slot making these dual-slot solutions.
The Gigabyte X1300 Pro looks almost the same as the previous three Gigabyte cards; however, it is missing the extra heat sink on the back and the second metal pipe that would extend to it. The silver heat sink on the front still takes up an extra slot however, which is a point against this and the other three cards.
The Gigabyte 7600 GS and 7300 GT are very similar in appearance. The heat sinks on these cards are much more compact than those on the first four cards we mentioned. These cards don't take up an extra slot and only have a gold heat sink on the front, with a strange looking heatpipe running out and back in a "U" shape from the main heat sink. The heatpipe is attached to thin metal sheets, all in the name of increasing surface area and removing heat from the hotter portions of the card. These thin metal sheets seem a little delicate and might bend if the card is mishandled, though a slightly bent heat sink fin isn't really a major problem.
The Gigabyte 7300 GS and X1300 have heat sinks with a unique type of gold cover or hood running along the top part of the cards, over a silver heat sink on the cards' processor. The Gigabyte 7300 GS doesn't have a bridge connector on the top of the card for SLI operation, but it will still run in SLI (with a second card) without the bridge connection.
Gigabyte seems to have a definite plan about their custom heat sink designs, and after testing and overclocking these cards, there isn't much doubt that they perform well. They did, however, tend to get very hot to the touch after repeated testing, to the point where they became difficult to hold. We'll talk more about how well these cards overclocked in the "Overclocking" section.
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Leo V - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
...I can buy a high-end 7800GT substantially cheaper, buy a quiet Zalman 80mm low-rpm GPU cooler and run it undervolted at 7V. (In fact, I have done exactly that.) It will be cheaper, run WAY cooler, and be quieter, because I can get rid of a case fan that I would need with a "silent" card anyway.The idea of running a 50-100watt GPU with a silent cooler is dubious -- you still need a fan somewhere in your system, and the best place is closest to the hottest parts. Those parts are naturally the CPU and GPU.
Instead of "silent" (but not really) high-end cards, give us cards with heatpipes + large, slow quiet fans that can be undervolted.
Most importantly, ATI and NVIDIA please stop making 100watt monsters and follow Intel's and AMD's lead in improving power efficiency.
yyrkoon - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Sorry, I cant say I would agree that a fan would be quieter than a passive solution, I dont care if you could run it at 1V, and did :)Leo V - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
e.g. substantially cheaper than the holy grail "silent" version of the 7800GT.
And Kudos to the companies for the inventive products and to Anandtech for covering them.
hkBst - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
I've been waiting for a review of the passively cooled 7900GT from MSI for a while and I was expecting it to be in here. How can it not be?Look here: http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/vga/vga/pro...">http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/vga/vga/pro...
DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
We sent multiple requests for cards out to 16 different graphics card manufacturers. I'd say we did pretty well with more than half of those responding.We also requested that each manufacturer send us all their passively cooled cards. If something was left out it was either because the manufacturer decided not to send it, or we weren't able to get ahold of it before our submission deadline. We tested a lot of cards and have been working on this for quite some time, so silent cards that have come out recently or were not widely available until recently will not have been included.
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Also, the MSI 7900GT Silent card is only available in Europe, and we did mention this in the review.haris - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Any chance you could retest the cards using a mid range system. It seems kind of silly to test an FX-55 with a $50-100 video card.nullpointerus - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Yet Another Silly Performance Retest Request (YAMPRR)Testing an FX-55 with a $50-100 video card is not silly; testing graphics cards' performance relative to each other requires removing all other factors including the CPU and RAM. Not everyone has a "mid-range" system, and those who do not have a "mid-range" system do not want the results skewed just to make your life easier. If you want specific performance advice for your particular system and games, why do you not join and post in the forums?
ss284 - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Well considering the majority of people who are looking for midrange graphics cards have a midrange system, his request is a perfectly good one. Unless Anandtech enjoys targeting the minority of its readers it should be doing more applicable performance testing. Then again, the FX-55 isnt exactly a cutting edge processor anymore. Just scale everything back 10% and you will have a rough estimate of what performance would be like on a mid range system.nullpointerus - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Yet Another Defense of a YAMPRR (YADY). *yawn*Well considering the majority of people who are looking for midrange graphics cards have a midrange system, his request is a perfectly good one.
No, it's a silly one. The point of the article is to compare graphics cards, not to make life easier for a certain group of people. People who follow this esoteric stuff religiously tend to distill the information into a more practical form. And as I said, the information he wanted is readily available in the forums. A couple of mouse clicks and a bit of typing is better than ignorantly saying the video card article is silly for not providing framerates similar to some mythical ideal of a mid-range system.
Unless Anandtech enjoys targeting the minority of its readers it should be doing more applicable performance testing.
How about you go where the information is normally provided instead of trying to turn all the front page articles into your personal system upgrade newsfeeds?
Could we just skip ahead to where everyone chimes in with their own ideas of what a mid-range system is. Does it use AMD or Intel? Single or multi-core? How much RAM? Which timings? Which system boards? Which components are overclocked?
I'll make a deal with you: get together a mid-range system that everyone will agree on, and then I will agree with you that we should conflate graphics cards testing with mid-range system testing. You see, ridding the comments section of silly YAMPRR and YADY posts will not benefit anyone if we still have to deal with all the senseless bickering about little details such as chipset revisions, features, and all the other inane griping I have seen posted when Anandtech picks out a CPU, overclocking, or RAM configuration as representative of X-range systems.