I'm starting to think this is kinda ridiculous.

[CougTek]

New cooling solution for the latest RAdeon 9800XT card from Sapphire :

Absolutely ridiculous IMO.

 

[blakerwry]

With a heatsink so large I dont see why that couldnt be run passively in a case with decent airflow.

I sure wouldn't buy that monster.. I think I'll wait a few generations (till Doom III and HL2 is released) and get a faster, quieter card that only occupies a single expansion slot.

 

[jtr1962]

I thought the huge heat sinks needed on processors were bad enough. Now we're starting with graphics cards as well.

Seriously, who in their right mind would buy that thing? The extra noise alone would be annoying, and I don't see why passive cooling wouldn't work either. We have lazy engineers nowadays who don't try to eliminate heat in the design stage, and then just slap a fan on everything. Very poorly thought out in my opinion.

 

[Mercutio]

That's a Zalman cooler. I don't think it will be loud.

I have a 9800 Pro. It's not particularly loud. I don't notice it with the case on.

 

[sechs]

I'm sure that this is some overclocking foo. I don't think that this is necessary to run the card regularly....

 

[zx]

I thought the huge heat sinks needed on processors were bad enough. Now we're starting with graphics cards as well.

Seriously, who in their right mind would buy that thing? The extra noise alone would be annoying, and I don't see why passive cooling wouldn't work either. We have lazy engineers nowadays who don't try to eliminate heat in the design stage, and then just slap a fan on everything. Very poorly thought out in my opinion.

I think it's the marketing department who put that huge heat-sink there. It makes the card look more powerful. Plus, overclockers are going to like it I suppose.

 

[CityK]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20031121191248.html

Sapphire Technology demonstrated probably the world’s quietest graphics card built upon the most powerful graphics processor up to date....Sapphire Technology is the only graphics cards manufacturer who offers even the fastest graphics cards with quiet passive coolers – they call such products ULTIMATE Edition....the new card is expected to be considerably quieter compared to the ordinary RADEON 9800 XT products because of a unique heat-pipe-based cooler from Zalman installed on it.....Even though now the cooler from Sapphire and Zalman is equipped with a 1500rpm fan, the company told at Comdex X-bit labs' Editor in Chief Anna Filatova that the graphics card is fully capable of working just fine even without the fan. It worth to note that fan may become an interesting option for overclockers, who want quiet operation when working in 2D mode and ultimate performance when playing demanding 3D games.

 

[jtr1962]

Well it's good to know it'll work without that huge fan. That thing will make the adjoining slots useless if the cards are a bit too tall. The huge heat sink is good provided it doesn't interfere with anything nearby. You should be able to cool a video card(and also M/B chipset) passively. In fact, you should be able to cool the whole system passively but that's another story. I guess I'm just tired of fans sucking dust into my systems.

 

[timwhit]

I'm more tired of the noise that fans make, plus the noise that my four hard drives make.

I don't care how quiet a hard disk is, if you multiply it by 4 it becomes much more noticeable.

 

[NRG = mc²]

I don't see anything wrong with that except the price. Either you have those silly small heatsinks and tiny, whiney fans that last 6 months and drive you mad, or you have a quality, near silent (20dB) solution that offers excellent cooling and hardly any noise.

I've been selling these for months and they sell like hotcakes - everyone is annoyed at the noise of those small fans that come on graphics cards, first thing I did when I got my GF4 Ti4200 was to rip the fan off and fit the ZM80 passive heatsink on. Worth every penny.

 

[timwhit]

I've decided that from now on I will only buy graphic cards that have passive cooling. No more fans. Plus, I don't really play any games so I don't need to fastest GPU around.

 

[Handruin]

You want to talk about noisy small fans...buy a dell poweredge 1750 and let me know what you think. :bstd: We just got a bunch of them as replacements at work for our lab machines and they are the noisiest machines I've heard to date. (they are 1U so they need the tiny fans)

 

[blakerwry]

yup, 1U is a bad format if you're looking for quiet... those mini heatsinks just cant disapate heat without having a 7000rpm fan spinning for its life attached to it.

 

[Howell]

I don't see anything wrong with that except the price. Either you have those silly small heatsinks and tiny, whiney fans that last 6 months and drive you mad, or you have a quality, near silent (20dB) solution that offers excellent cooling and hardly any noise.

The fins are exactly 90 degrees the wrong direction. Why? Less efficient cooling and more turbulence. I can appreciate the idea but I don't understand why they did this.

 

[Mercutio]

More surface area exposed to cooling.

 

[P5-133XL]

Look carefully at the photo's. Those fins are more like pins with both vertical and horizontal air-flow.

 

[NRG = mc²]

Heh.... who cares about the fins when the whole fan is in the wrong direction

It should ideally be at the edge of the card, blowing across the heatsink and towards the PCI slot openings in the case, but not feasible since the heatpipe takes up that side.

 

[Howell]

Look carefully at the photo's. Those fins are more like pins with both vertical and horizontal air-flow.

Only about half the side has pins.