Gigabyte GV-N98TSL reviewed
HIGH END graphics cards are the noisiest parts of some fast PCs these days, but now that doesn't necessarily have to be the case, it seems.
The high heat output of high end GPUs is usually countered with huge heat sinks cooled by one or more high-rpm fans that sometimes can even drown out your external speakers. The fanless silent graphics cards - something very beneficial for good sound experience in home theater or gaming use - were, up to now, just the lowest end stuff hardly able to play a decent 3D game.
However, finally one seemingly fast enough fanless 3D card is out there. Gigabyte equipped its GV-N98TSL GeForce 9800GT 1 GB card with a "Silent Cell" heat pipe system seemingly strong enough for the card to handle a 50C hot case for 100 hours running intensive 3D, according to Gigabyte.
The simple looking card stands out from the reference design right at the first sight - it has no fans at all! Three heat pipes lead from a large 47 square centimetre copper base to a dense array of precisely laid out thin aluminum fins. Of course, if your case has good internal airflow, that will help, but seemingly the card does fine without it.
We ran the card on a Core i7 975 system using a Gigabyte EX58 Extreme mainboard and 6GB of GEIL high speed DDR3-2133 memory, running Windows Vista 64-bit with 3Dmark Vantage. The environs were hot and humid as is typical here in Singapore, with room temperature at 32C and no airconditioning, yet the card still didn't exceed 62C while running 3Dmark. Here's what we got:
And what about the extreme?
In summary, with the GV-N98TSL you get about half the speed of Gigabyte's top-of-the-line GTX285 2GB card, but at less than half the price and zero noise. While this is not Gigabyte's top performer, the card gives satisfactory speed at absolute silence, and yes it's good enough for watching a Blu-ray movie with your home theatre linked to a 1080p HDTV LCD via built-in HDMI. Now, how about a silent GTX260, Gigabyte?
Good: Absolute silence, decent perfornance.
Bad: We want more performance with absolute silence.
Beers: 8
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I was expecting
Cons: Not Fast enough, Bad Silicon design, epic fail
or something like that. So is this not the case anymore or was that story a load of BS?
Nice find! I have a question regarding the test though.
Did you run it with the case open as the picture shows? I find the results to be excellent, but I'm asking because if it was enclosed in the case and the room temperature was so high, well in that case it is simply amazing.
Yup - thanx for comment! As the photo shows, it did run on open air, hot one at that this being Singapore
Gigabyte also have what I believe is a comparable solution for ATi lovers, the 4850-based GV-R485MC-1GI.
I mean, I stopped memorizing benchmarks a while ago, but a 4850 is a bit faster than a 4770 which is about the same as a 9800GT, right?
Not to mention ATi chips are less likely to melt, if you believe all that...
My brother bought a fanless Gigabyte 9600 GT last year and the thing overheated like crazy. Gigabyte make you pay to send it in to be checked to see if it has a defect.
He ended up buying an aftar market cooler.
Gigabyte = Useless
Most noise is power supply fan, with HDD adding constant thunder. For GOOD, Yet Low Scores, Wonder if its worth it.
Like integrated that needs small fan add on, probably 60C is going to be too much, with wear. In Fact TOP End Integrated Get Better Vantage Scores, Today.
Inside Small Box, Maybe WINNER...yet In General, Price/Peformance,GPU FAN Isn't That Big of Noise Source to Lose 2x-3x performance over.
Hope to Inspire with Pic of Mummified Slyvia When Move about partitions, So Watch for IT.
Hahaha. Great Western HOT Desert....
vondrashek
I ran an XFX 7950GT for several years. As a fanless design I thought it was great. And at the time it was considered highish-end.
Incredibly, it never overheated (Australian summers!) when gaming, indeed it was never warmer than 65-70oC or so in a well-ventilated case. A friend's Leadtek 7950GT with reference cooling got quite hot.
Now moved over to the red team for this generation, a great card, far better than the 7950GT in the subjective price/gaming experiences ratio, but I miss the silence!