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Fanless (passive) video cards and HTPC

post #1 of 38
11/17/06 at 3:33pm
Thread Starter 
Can anyone tell me if fanless video cards (silent passive cooling) are a good idea in an HTPC with horizontal case? I was thinking this was the way to go as they are silent, but I received a tip on another forum that these should be avoided as they basically dump a lot of heat into the case which is bad.

Anyone currently using a silent video card with a typical HTPC setup? Can you post your setup if you do?

Thanks
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post #2 of 38
11/17/06 at 3:46pm
Unless you get video cards that exhaust the heat through an adjacent slot, they ALL will dump heat into the case, whether it's passive or with a fan.

The issue with passive cooling is that you need good airflow in your case, which may be harder for a horizontal case.

It mostly depends on which particular card you are trying to cool. NVidia cards typically use less power than ATI cards, so are easier to passively cool. I have an overclocked 7900GT that is passively cooled in a mid-tower case with pretty good airflow.

Ozy
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post #3 of 38
11/17/06 at 3:48pm
It is hard to generalize. Some passively cooled cards include simple heatsinks - requiring the fins to be vertical for convection cooling. Such cards can also be cooled via a nearby power supply or case fan, depending upon case layout. Other cards include "heat pipes" which are very efficient cooling solutions, but gravity circulates the condensed refridgerant, so you must select a card with either a vertical or horizontal heat pipe layout.

Passive cooling can be used successfully, but you should choose case, power supply, and motherboard at the same time as the video board. The better you can match these components, the greater the success you will have with your low noise HTPC.

Gary
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post #4 of 38
11/17/06 at 4:07pm
Thread Starter 
OK. Can anyone suggest a suitable combo for passive video card (nVidia), case, power supply and mobo? I'd prefer a pretty powerful one that can handle gaming.

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post #5 of 38
11/17/06 at 4:27pm
Gaming is the extreme high-end requirement for a video board, exceeded only by the ultimate configuration which is TWO video boards in an SLI configuration.

The state of the art video engines used for high end gaming are also the least suited to passive cooling, with the highest heat outputs.

Would you consider water cooling? This provides ultimate cooling performance in virtual silence, but at higher cost with the downside of invalidating the video card warranty.

Your most important specification is budget. You can get decent gaming performance from a budget conficuration costing $1000 or less, or go for the $5000 ultimate PC. You can build it or buy it and building does not necessarily save money.

Gary
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post #6 of 38
11/17/06 at 5:19pm
Thread Starter 
Remember , this is primarily to be a HTPC, but I want to be able to play games like BF2 (on the couch), etc.

This is top of my list - the XFX 7950GT passive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150188

Water is not an option as I don't want an ugly water tower in my living room. The fanless video cards are becoming quite popular so I would think they are pretty effective.
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post #7 of 38
11/17/06 at 5:45pm
Hi chappy16775,

I just updated my office PC to get ride of some noise and am very impressed with the case and fan setup. VERY quiet. Got it from ZipZoom.

The case is a bit large, but if it will fit, I can not see a more versital case out there. They offer FULLY fanless options, without water if you go to the extreme.

I think the larger case size gives the components room to breathe and I have the side panel fan running at 5v rather than 12v thru the fan controller. I can not hear it!

I will certainly use this case when I rebuild my HTPC next year when the HD-DVD drive playback issues are finalized.

1 x (371252) Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Full Tower Case w/Side Panel Window (Black) Retail

1 x (360906) Coolmax CF-480B 480W Fanless Switching Power Supply (Black) Retail

1 x (371326) Thermaltake A2400 Side Panel w/25cm Fan (Black) Retail

1 x (371024) Zalman ZM-MFC1 Multi Fan Controller Retail

Steve
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post #8 of 38
11/17/06 at 5:48pm
That card is the highest performing passive card that I know of. It requires a taller case to clear the heatpipes above the board and it is designed for horizontal layout HTPC case, all good features. If you are also using a passive CPU cooler you will need to install internal baffles in the case that allow the single power supply fan to maintain airflow across CPU, video heatpipes, and hard drives. 2.5" notebook hard drives make less heat and noise.

Your goal is a worthy one but you will not acheive your objective via a recipe consisting of a simple list of components. You start with a case and plan the airflow and fabricate custom air baffling and monitor temperatures at multiple points. It can definately be done but it is an involved process.

The only criticism I have with the XFX card is that is is DVI and not HDMI. I am aware of adaptor connectors and DVI/HDMI adaptor cables, but if you need the audio in the cable these are no help - the DVI connector does not support audio at all.

There is one passive card that does have an HDMI output, it is the Gigabyte 7600GS HDMI board:

http://insanetek.com/content/view/259/2/

This board has HDMI along with a cable that would attach to your sound card and pass digital sound over the HDMI cable. There are two downsides compared to the XFX board which are the lower performance 7600GS video engine and the smaller 256MB of onboard memory. On the plus side, it is cheaper than the XFX.

Gary
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post #9 of 38
11/17/06 at 11:19pm
This Gigabyte 7600GT has one end of the heat sink exposed to the outside air, by making use of the adjacent slot:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125025

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post #10 of 38
11/18/06 at 9:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary McCoy View Post

That card is the highest performing passive card that I know of. It requires a taller case to clear the heatpipes above the board and it is designed for horizontal layout HTPC case, all good features. If you are also using a passive CPU cooler you will need to install internal baffles in the case that allow the single power supply fan to maintain airflow across CPU, video heatpipes, and hard drives. 2.5" notebook hard drives make less heat and noise.

Your goal is a worthy one but you will not acheive your objective via a recipe consisting of a simple list of components. You start with a case and plan the airflow and fabricate custom air baffling and monitor temperatures at multiple points. It can definately be done but it is an involved process.

The only criticism I have with the XFX card is that is is DVI and not HDMI. I am aware of adaptor connectors and DVI/HDMI adaptor cables, but if you need the audio in the cable these are no help - the DVI connector does not support audio at all.

There is one passive card that does have an HDMI output, it is the Gigabyte 7600GS HDMI board:

http://insanetek.com/content/view/259/2/

This board has HDMI along with a cable that would attach to your sound card and pass digital sound over the HDMI cable. There are two downsides compared to the XFX board which are the lower performance 7600GS video engine and the smaller 256MB of onboard memory. On the plus side, it is cheaper than the XFX.

Gary

Sorry for my ignorance but what are "internal baffles"?

Also, I presume the HDMI vs DVI is pretty trivial. It just means you have one cable for vid+sound instead of one cable for vid and separate ones for sound....ie. no difference in performance, etc. ?

Thanks
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post #11 of 38
11/18/06 at 10:47am
I decided to go with the ASUS EN7600GT/HTDI/256M for now. It's a 7600GT (not GS, so it has IVTC for HD MPEG-2), and is HDCP-compliant and even has an HDMI port and a TOSLINK for audio passthrough. The stock heatsink/fan is apparently pretty noisy, but I'm using a Zalman VF900 on my current video card so I can just transplant that over. With a fanmate, the VF900 is pretty much silent and I also don't have to worry about whether the airflow in my case is adequate for a fanless card.
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post #12 of 38
11/18/06 at 4:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary McCoy View Post

That card is the highest performing passive card that I know of. It requires a taller case to clear the heatpipes above the board and it is designed for horizontal layout HTPC case, all good features.

I use the passive 7950 too (works great)

The water cooled BFG GeForce 8800GTX is the highest performing passive (EDIT, not passive, but near 0db) card available. It's CRAZY expensive though.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...t=8800+fanless
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post #13 of 38
11/18/06 at 5:13pm
That doesn't fit the formal definition of passive. Passive means no energy is being used to cool it, and you need electricity for pumps to move the water. These pumps can create noise.
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post #14 of 38
11/18/06 at 5:18pm
ok, I'll edit the post
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post #15 of 38
11/18/06 at 6:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdmi4ever View Post

This Gigabyte 7600GT has one end of the heat sink exposed to the outside air, by making use of the adjacent slot:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125025


...that is indeed a passively cooled card, but one that does not support HDCP.

Gary
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post #16 of 38
11/19/06 at 2:08am
I just finished building my new HTPC within the last hour. I bought a 7950GT (with/fan) and it's going back to the store. LOUD! I bought it at a store with a nice return policy. I'll either get the passive 7950GT or wait until there is a 7600GT pasive with HDCP on the market.
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post #17 of 38
11/19/06 at 3:02am
I've run a 100% fanless passively cooled HTPC-chassi 24/7 since last summer.

It contains:

- Overclocked 7800GTX (remember it's a 1,5 year old pc :-)
- Dual core AMD 3800+ overclocked to 4600+

and of course harddisk, tv-tuners and all the other bits n pieces...


For 100% passively cooled high performance pcs you normally go down the heatpipe route, this means Zalman TN500/300, Hush, mCubed HFX or similar.


FYI: I'm locally affileated here in Sweden with one of the makes in the list I mention above.... So you know.
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post #18 of 38
11/19/06 at 8:40am
If you're having a hard time finding a card you want that's also quiet, just get the card you want and put one of these on it. Using the included fanmate to throttle the fan, you'll have a very very quiet card, that also probably disappates heat better than the XFX 7950GT (which according to the recent Anandtech Blu-Ray review runs very hot).
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post #19 of 38
11/19/06 at 9:39am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKohn View Post

If you're having a hard time finding a card you want that's also quiet, just get the card you want and put one of these on it. Using the included fanmate to throttle the fan, you'll have a very very quiet card, that also probably disappates heat better than the XFX 7950GT (which according to the recent Anandtech Blu-Ray review runs very hot).

I hear the Arctic NV Silencer5 Rev 3 is pretty good (if better) also. anyone use this?
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post #20 of 38
11/19/06 at 9:41am
I second the Zalman recommendation. I replaced the stock fan on my ATI x700 a year ago and I'm very impressed with how quiet the fan is. Highly recommended.
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post #21 of 38
1/30/07 at 7:22am
What is a good fanless AGP card that works well with HD?
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post #22 of 38
1/30/07 at 8:19am
Ballan: I agree on the 7950GT--my EVGA was horribly loud, with the fan spinning up to 100% whenever you started ANY application. I put the Thermalright HR-03 on it, and it's perfect. I added a very low speed 100mm fan that is silent and it cools perfectly.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835109134
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post #23 of 38
1/30/07 at 8:49am
If you don't mind doing a little work (about 90 minutes) you can put a passive card into any case.

XFX7950GT and -->*Zalman HD135*<---


P
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post #24 of 38
1/30/07 at 9:14am
Which case is that?
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post #25 of 38
1/30/07 at 9:36am
For the cheap(er) way, RivaTuner can control most NVidea card's fans. Even those with no RPM counter.
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post #26 of 38
1/30/07 at 10:23am
locomo--no luck with Rivatuner. The BIOS on the evga 7950GT's does not allow control of fan speed. Evga will not provide a new BIOS either. It's either 20% fan speed(rarely) or 100%(almost always).
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post #27 of 38
1/30/07 at 11:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polypro View Post

If you don't mind doing a little work (about 90 minutes) you can put a passive card into any case.

XFX7950GT and -->*Zalman HD135*<---


P

"sigh"

(shakes head)

BT
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post #28 of 38
1/30/07 at 12:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus Thome View Post

I've run a 100% fanless passively cooled HTPC-chassi 24/7 since last summer.

It contains:

- Overclocked 7800GTX (remember it's a 1,5 year old pc :-)
- Dual core AMD 3800+ overclocked to 4600+

and of course harddisk, tv-tuners and all the other bits n pieces...


For 100% passively cooled high performance pcs you normally go down the heatpipe route, this means Zalman TN500/300, Hush, mCubed HFX or similar.


FYI: I'm locally affileated here in Sweden with one of the makes in the list I mention above.... So you know.

What case are you using? mCubed? Do you use passive PSU?

Check out my diy passive heatpipe case (Not finished yet).
The link is in my signature below.
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post #29 of 38
1/30/07 at 2:11pm
Thuppu

Holy sh___ that's a lot of custom aluminum work. Wish I could read some of your pages.

Is it really 100% fanless because there are a lot of parts on the motherboard that are supposed to have air blowing on them for cooling other than just main things like proc and north/southbridge.

Troy
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post #30 of 38
1/30/07 at 9:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pcCinema View Post

Thuppu

Holy sh___ that's a lot of custom aluminum work. Wish I could read some of your pages.

Sorry, I'm a bad english writer. Hope the pictures tells some..?

Quote:
Originally Posted by pcCinema View Post

Is it really 100% fanless because there are a lot of parts on the motherboard that are supposed to have air blowing on them for cooling other than just main things like proc and north/southbridge.

Troy

Yes, it is 100% passive. The only fan in the system is the semipassive ElanVital PSU's 120mm fan, and it runs only in over 250W load. It should sit still in any case with this assembly (E6600, 2 HDD, and integrated videocard).

I have run the PC a few hours and under heavy (100%) load for some time, and it seems to work well. The northbridge seem to be really hot(burn my finger on the heatsink), so I did heatpipe cooling for it too. The prosessor current components (around the socket) seems to bee quite hot too(70-90 °C under heavy load), but I dont think it gone be a problem.

Next step in this project is the frontpanel design...
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