A Fanless Graphics Card from ASUS

mikemuch writes "ASUS has come out with the Extreme N6600GT Silencer/HTD, a GeForce 6600GT without any cooling fan. It's sort of odd looking, with heat sinks that fold on a hinge. Great for home theater since it's silent. Loyd Case of ExtremeTech has put it through a rigorous bunch of benchmarks."

Comments

8 out of 10

[geomon]

I guess the utility of this card is based on how demanding your game is. Looks like it gets "hammered" quite a bit by the GeForce card.

Silence can be expensive.

Re:8 out of 10

[Stuart Gibson]

I run a fanless Gigabyte X800XL that has no issue with the current games. Sure it isn't 1600x1200 with maximum AA and AF, but an easy 1280x1024 with sensible AA and AF (and eye candy on full) with the current benchmark games (HL2, Far Cry etc).

Doesn't seem like this is something that new, I've had my card for a few months now.

Stuart

Re:8 out of 10

[Total_Wimp]

The article actually mentions other fanless solutions. It point out that the thing making this card unique is the swiveling heat sink/pipe that takes advantage of the airflow from your CPU cooler.

I think the twisting alone buys it a mention, but I think it could be made better. What we really want is for the thing to twist automatically with a loud WHIRRRR and then click into place with a satisfying Ker-Chunck. And it should do this only when it starts to heat up, like right after you start your game. Then a sexy voice should say, "cooling system operating at maximum capacity captain."

That's what we all want, right? You with me? Guys? (grumble. head down) "ok, back to the basement."

TW

Um... but

[Allen Zadr]

It seems to depend on a CPU fan. Hardly "silent". Your just eliminating one fan from a multi-fan system. How would it work on a fanless CPU setup?

Somehow I'm thinking fried silica.

Overkill

[Radres]

Great for home theater since it's silent.

Or you can just buy a cheap old 2D card with no 3D acceleration since all you are doing is rendering video!

Re:Overkill

[Jeffrey Baker]

I do think the HTPC community is generally ignorant and ill-informed, yes. But the graphics manufacturers are not retarded, they are exploitative: they see this mass of ignorant, ill-informed people as an opportunity to sell some $400 parts. And here you are, claiming that video scaling is anything other than a simple filtering operation.

Unless of course you would like to share the magical secret of video scaling which you seem to think was not implemented in hardware until after 2002.

I won't hold my breath.

6600GT is overkill for home theater

[Junior J. Junior III]

All you need for home theater is good 2-D rendering, 16MB of memory, and a decent TV-out. Seriously. Why do you need 3D accelleration for TV? Does this card even have a TV-tuner?

fanless is overrated

[Lumpy]

in a HTPC setup fanless = not a big of a deal. hell the projector over my head makes more noise with it's fan that the 6 in the HTPC up by the screen. Oh let's forget the 2 fans in the AMP/THX decoder the 1 fan on the DVD burner/player and the fan in the replayTV.

if someone is freaked about the tiny bit of noise their fans make so they can watch TV with the volume almost at 0 then they really need to figure things out differently. Every highend home theatre does not waste time with fanlesds and low noise, they simply put the gear outside the room or in a closet with a door.

Going overboard to buy a high power video card (for an HTPC? Why? a $19.00 64 meg cheapie that has good accelerated video works best) and going nuts to make your PC silent may be your hobby, but it has no real value, espically in a Home theatre where you are supposed to be cranking the volume up past a faint whisper.

Since when did they need fans?

[doublem]

When did Graphics cards start needing fans to the point where one WIHTOUT a fan is news?

The graphics card in my PC, Linux Laptop and Work Laptop are all devoid of fans. There's the case fans, the CPU fans but that's it.

Has it really been that long since I upgraded my PC? Funny how not buying new games all the time reduces my desire to upgrade my computer.

I remember attaching the CPU fan from an old Pentium to my ATI card a while back just for the fun of it, but I didn't leave it there.

What gives? What am I missing?

What in the heck are you DOING with those graphics cards that you need a fan????

Wrong.

[imsabbel]

It doesnt eleminate _a_ fan in a multifan enviroment, it eleminates the smallerst, highest RPM, loudest and easieast to clog up with dirt and fail fan in a multifan enviroment.

10 12cm case fans running at 7V dont come close to some of those 8000rpm 40mm fuckers