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GeForce 7950 GT Launches With Passive Cooling
An anonymous reader writes "NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GT comes with great performance at an attractive $299/£225 launch price. Incredibly, XFX's pre-overclocked card comes with a passive cooling solution. From the article: 'There is no doubting that NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GT is faster and cheaper than the GeForce 7900 GT that launched at the same price point earlier in the year. There is a lot to like about the product, and there is even more to like about XFX's implementation. It's generally a match for ATI's Radeon X1900XT 512MB in popular games.'"
Now I can fry eggs on the heatsink without the fan splattering yolk everywhere! : )
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Cooling can always be made active these days. Just buy something like Zallman Cooler (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N8 2E16835118117). Installation (which replaces the original cooling) is 10 minutes, and the cards these days are made with standard mounting, and it's usually gets your card down 10-15 degrees. The only drawback is that it makes 1-slot card to be 2-slot wide.
Cheers,
Great way to replace an XBox360 or PS3, put a computer with one of these in your living room and use it as a console/htpc type thing. But, does it run linux*? *have good drivers?
All your base are belong to Wii.
:(
2 E16814150189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
I'll definately be putting this in my next computer I'm building. The AGP card I have now has a tiny fan that's noisier than anything even with it on the desktop. When are the 65nm based cards coming out?
With the advent of video cards that are Turing complete in recent years and sites such as this, how feasible is it to run an actual operating system on the video card itself? It seems like it would be possible to write a kernel as a shader program, upload it, and just have it run.
That pre-overclocked card will go great with my pre-opened mayonnaise and acid washed jeans! and my OOPS! ALL BERRIES! Cap'n Crunch.
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There is no doubting that NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GT is faster and cheaper than the GeForce 7900 GT that launched at the same price point earlier in the year.
say what now?
Sounds good to me... I'm pretty impressed by its performance and features overall.
It has a heck of a heat sink on it, and no whirring fans to add to the rest of the noise from your case. Which is just fine by me.
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From TFA: "While we're on the subject of the card being fanless, you're going to need to have good airflow inside your system to keep this card adequately cool."
I've used a few passive cards before, and they've all crashed my games when they haven't had airflow over them. I thought elimination of airflow (i.e. noise) was the purpose of passive coolers?
The best compromise between noise and performance is, imo, to buy an active Zalman cooler like the VF700 on my X800. It has a 5V "quiet" setting that keeps the card cool and very quiet as well as a 12V setting that's great for overclocking. Their design is pretty different from any stock cooler, and once you see the difference in performance, you'll understand why.
Last week, NVIDIA launched the affordably priced, sub-$200 GeForce 7900 GS and announced the higher-end, $299 GeForce 7950 GT with just a preview. It seems NVIDIA and their partners only needed a week to get the 7950 GT ready. This article at HotHardware.Com details the specifications and performance of the new GeForce 7950 GT as it relates to NVIDIA's and ATI's current products. Another interesting facet to this article is that the card tested, was HDCP ready, factory-overclocked and passively cooled.
The thing that I like about passively cooled system components is that cooling duties can be taken care of by larger fans than could ever be put onto a component (in this case, a video card). Those larger fans can move more air per minute at a lower RPM and therefore at a lower noise level. Even when the noise level isn't that much lower, it's also at a lower frequency due to the RPM difference, and those lower frequencies are often more easily ignored.
Those heatsinks can get hot. I recently build two fanless systems using Zalman Reserator 1's. The CPU is really cool because of Zalman's water cooling. But the thermal take fanless power supply and geforce 7600 video card are real hot. They are well within parameters, but you don't want to hold your hand on it. I wish I'd had the water cooler pick up the heat from those too.
A fanless system will remind you how much noise those hard drive make though.
I am curious as to what conversion rate they are using between the USD and the GBP. According to the XE UCC, 299 USD is equivalent to 158.548 GBP.
In that case it would probably be cheaper to buy the thing from a US website and have it shipped over to the UK.
or maybe I don't know what 'passive' means but I see a fan on the card.
There used to be the high end the mid range and the low end, (Radeon 9000pro, 9500pro and 9700pro Geforce 4Ti, 4600 and 4200) this was good the next generation of cards would have the performance of the old top card in it's mid level card and mid would be a bit above the new low end.
Then they moved to 4 levels 6000, 6600GT, 6800GT, 6800 ULTRA (The lineup was more full but these seemed to be the peaks in this particular generation, and the performance of subsequent generations would move one level up 1 became 2 and 2 became 3 etc losing about $50 - 100 a generation.
This addition provided something between high and middle when consumers really wanted something between mid and low.
As a result the high end got split while more and more people clung to the middle which was why the 9500 and 6600GT were so hugely popular as mid range cards.
High end buyers are starting to buy the mid range simply because game designers are realizing that the number of people buying $600 cards is going down and prices are going up as those consumers flee.
Hopefully they will return to the 3 price point system as that seems to be the best for consumers.
To card manufacturers, we're sorry about the press leaks but you better match last generations top model with a mid price card or you're going to get destroyed eventually.
Do video cards like this perform any kind of 'gpu throttling' to keep power/heat at a minimum when they're not being taxed? How minimum? What does one look for to investigate this?
$300 för a frickin' 3D card is attractive?! You ride segways to the garage and all have Porsche's, Ferari's, Lamborghini's or even Koenigsegg's just to drive to the store too?
great performance at an attractive $299/£225 launch price
Wern't we just complaining about the $250 Wii console this morning. And now applauding a $299 graphic card as affordable.
Cheaper at the same price point.
Cheaper at the same price point.
Cheaper at the same price point.
And if you act now, you can have two for the price of two!!!
That's all I got.
Tom's Hardware just had a similar review based on the above card. http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/14/the_geforce _7900gs_is_nvidias_new_mid-range/ Also, this one is a tab cheaper at around $220.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
Maybe not with a kernel made for generic cpus, but I'm sure there are plenty of processing tasks which would benefit from a GPU: raytracing, fractals, various AI applications, image processing. Those are probably the more obvious ones. Once common usage was underway, I'm sure developers would find other uses too... It is essentially a co-processor (tied to the graphics system), so why not use it as one?
We blast super heated coffee right down our throats, it's a real waker-upper in the morning, while driving giant SUV's down the highway and yaking on our cell phones!. Doesn't everyone like it HOT?
Foreign whimps.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I still don't care, because they still won't give me the information I need in order to use the card.
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But I've ran many a card with only a heatsink and i've never had one yet that didn't cause artifacting etc. The problem with a stock card with no fan is if you take heatsink off it and replace with fan, you've generally voided warranty. Now we all know over the last few years MFG's have lightened up on refusing a warranty because we overclocked/cooked their card. Even going so far as to provide us the tools to do so. However changing the hardware of a card is generally going to void the warranty. Not that it's ever stopped us geeks from doing it.. but I typically cool a card very well externally while overclocking until I decide if putting a after market fan will be effective and reward me with a nice OC.
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The fan noise isn't a problem, I can't hear anything over the teenage dick next door with his new drum set anyway.
...and for water cooled systems do they provide a version with no cooling at all? Still no?
Given the size of the water cooling market, there must be a large enough niche here that it can be commercially exploited.
boakes.org
$299/£225
Even allowing for VAT:
(299/1.8) * 1.175 = £195
So, once again, we Brits get to pay the random 15% "stiff upper lip" tax.
XFX's pre-overclocked card comes with a passive cooling solution
Expect to see NVidea-fanbois' penises collectively shrink a few inches.
$299 is currently worth only £209, not £225. As usual, the UK is more expensive...
The UK is a joke for technology. A few months ago we just started to get iMode phones. iMode launch in Japan in January 1999, so we were only seven years behind there.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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"at an attractive $299/£225 launch price"
How is that "attractive"? According to xe.com, at today's exchange rate, $299 is worth £159. How do they justify the £66 ($124) price difference?
Stuii!
This makes my 7900gtx superclock obsolete! Jerks.
Though 110C temperatures sound high, I have a NVidia 6800GT Massively Overclocked and it used to run about 80C at full load with the stock cooling. On a hot day outside, it got up to 100C quite often. Those temperatures are not horrible for video cards. They are designed to experience that kind of temerature. When I put watercooling on my videocard, the temperatures dropped to a max of 50C at load, no matter what the ambient temperature of my office was. There was no gain in performance and the overclock stayed where it was. The only issue I would have with 110C is that it would heat up the rest of my system, most importantly my CPU which is right above my video card and since heat rises, it wouldn't make me happy. My advice would to be buy an aftermarket fan/heatsink for this card and you will be pleasantly surprised.
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I have to believe the acquisition of ATI by AMD essentially writes an epitath for nVidia. They have lagged behind ATI for image quality for about 2 years now, and performance for a year.
I have nothing against them, but they are fighting an uphill battle. I don't think releasing products like this are really going to help them. If nVidia pulls a rabbit out of their hat, maybe it'll make sense on the high-end to buy nVidia again. For now, they are a "me, too" producer.
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If I sold you a banana for $250 you'd call it expensive. If I sold you a new car (that worked properly) for $250 you'd call it cheap. It's all a matter of what you are comparing it against.
Thus if you were expecting a Wii of $200 or less, $250 seem expensive. Also, if the leaked specs that have been floating around are correct, it's not much faster than an original Xbox. Nothing wrong with that, but it does change what people would say it's worth.
But will it run Linux? Oh, wait, this is a video card...
But will it run Folding@Home? (Since it's NVidia, the answer is no, so I probably won't buy one.)
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
As Sadko posted, the fan mounts are standardized, so it is easy these days to purchase a "one size fits all" fan upgrade.
Furthermore, by upgrading to a better heatsink with a larger fan, one can run the fan at extremely low RPMs, making it virtually silent.
For example, I replaced the fan on my 7900 GT (REALLY loud) with a Zalman vf900. The heatpipe design makes this cooler incredibly efficient, and it also comes with a Fanmate to allow you to tune the speed to your tastes. I was able to run my card overclocked on the LOWEST Fanmate setting (inaudible), and still see a 10C reduction over the stock cooler.
Note that I have a fairly quiet PC case, based on a Sonata II with Scythe 120mm S-FLEX FDB fans, so you can rest assured that when I say "inaudible" over the rest of the case, this actually means something.
So, you get better cooling than any "passive" solution, and no noticeable increase in noise. That's why it may be a better idea to go with Zalman. I've heard of low-airflow, "quiet" or "silent" cases having issues with "passive" heatsink performance video cards (which REALLY require medium airflow to be cooled well), so I stick with low-noise active coolers. With the excessive premium you pay for passively-cooled video cards, the extra cash for a Zalman cooler isn't that much.
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If you actually look at the link, you'll notice that the model there has a reference fan and heatsink. Both the listed specs and the picture mention this.
The passive model you are looking for is not sold on Newegg...in fact, I can't find it for sale anywhere. Tiger Direct no longer carries the item, and it's out-of-stock at Mwave. At $330, it has a sizeable price premium over other 7950 GTs.
See, that's the problem when buying from XFX - they have TOO MANY models, so you can easily get confused and buy the wrong one.
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And occasionally whores for Karma.
It seems more natural to talk of outdoor air temperature in Fahrenheit.
In a temperate region (like the United States), the range of 0-100 degrees enumerates the temperatures most people will experience through the course of a year.
0 = dangerously cold
25 = freezing
50 = cool
75 = warm
100 = dangerously hot
OTH I find it much simpler to speak of temperatures when concerning computers in degrees Celcius because, again, the range is more intuitive.
0 = your condensor is broken
25 = room temperature
50 = okay
75 = too hot
100 = meltdown
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Just last week, I had my computer suddenly start hard-crashing whenever I'd run a 3-D intensive app (read newer game). I thought I might have a corrupt driver, or perhaps the hardware was failing. After way too much effort to eliminate any possible software problems, I opened the case up to take the card out in preparation for attempted warranty service. The heatsink had just enough dust bunnies on it to block airflow from the HSFan. Everything else in the case was fine (and not even very dusty) but without the airflow over the GPU, it would reliably crash when pushed. Blew out the dust-bunnies and card worked 100% instantly.
PC gaming is something that costs more money, at least if you want to stay on the cutting edge. Now there are compensations, one being that the computer will be quite powerful and able to be used for other tasks, another being that you get to stay on top of technology (a console is only on top when it comes out, if ever), and still another being the modability.
I'm just saying you can't compare one market to another. $300 is pretty cheap for a near top of the line graphics card. However $250 for a console who's performance will allegedly be on par with one currently going for less seems expensive.
Children and the elderly could be at risk if outdoors when the temperature is 0F or below (or 100F or above). That being said, I would be just fine with it. I do prefer weather between 50 and 75F, however.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON