Any passively cooled DX9 cards?

[Alistair]

I'm confused at the plethora of recent card announcements. Has there been a decent fanless dx9 card at all? I'm trying to keep my SFF system quiet, and don't need cutting edge performance... (the GF2 is only just starting to show its age as far as I'm concerned...)

A.

[Tahir2]

Not yet, but soon (TM).

[demalion]

Well, there is the Saphire Atllantis Ultimate Edition 9700 Pro that uses a Zalman cooler for passive cooling.

If you can't afford that, I think there will be a passive 9600 (maybe 9600 Pro too), as I think I remember seeing pictures with passively cooled cards.

There may be a Zalman cooled 9800 Pro, GF FX 5800 non ultra, or 5600 based card, but I don't recall announcements or pictures.

The 9700 Pro above is the only DX 9 card available now with passive cooling, AFAIK. If you don't have a case fan at all, I'm not sure how the heat situation will work out.

[Alistair]

I looked at that passive Sapphire card, but it won't fit in my (Shuttle SN41G2) case - the heat sink is too bulky :(

[Ante P]

Sapphire 9700 Pro Ultimate Edition
9600-variants
5200-variants

9600 sure looks like the nicest one if you can't make room for a 9700

[AunixM3]

You can get the 5200 @ newegg here (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?catalog=48&DEPA=1&submit=property&mfrcode=0&propertycodevalue=4635)

Has DX9 support and is only $88.

[Dave Baumann]

I can say that its worth hanging on a while to look at 9600's.

[martrox]

You can get 5200's that are passive.... but WHY would you want to?

[Evildeus]

You can get 5200's that are passive.... but WHY would you want to?
Because he doesn't have much money? :roll:

[Pete]

I don't think a 5200 will compare well to a $100 9600, though only reviews and NewEgg will prove me right. Either that, or Wavey breaking his NDA. ;)

ATi is still slightly better than nVidia with TV-out and DVD playback, right? Or has nVidia caught up there?

I'd wait a week for reviews, then tough it out a few more for actual cards.

[nelg]

You can get the 5200 @ newegg here (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?catalog=48&DEPA=1&submit=property&mfrcode=0&propertycodevalue=4635)

Has DX9 support and is only $88.

I think he wanted passive cooling not passive performance :wink:

[martrox]

You can get 5200's that are passive.... but WHY would you want to?
Because he doesn't have much money? :roll:

And not much intellegence IF he bought one of those!!!! :shock: :lol: :wink:

[Alistair]

Intelligence is quite a good word to be able to spell.

I want a card which is silent, like my fanless GF2, with a wodge more power. However, as I've recently gone back to clear my backlog of old games the power isn't actually all that crucial right now, so I can certainly wait... System Shock 2 and Thief both top out at 1024 x 768 :)

I'll see what comes along around the 9600 level - thanks.

A.

[Evildeus]

You can get 5200's that are passive.... but WHY would you want to?
Because he doesn't have much money? :roll:

And not much intellegence IF he bought one of those!!!! :shock: :lol: :wink:
And what would he buy? :roll:

[martrox]

You can get 5200's that are passive.... but WHY would you want to?
Because he doesn't have much money? :roll:

And not much intellegence IF he bought one of those!!!! :shock: :lol: :wink:
And what would he buy? :roll:

He would be smart to wait for the passively cooled Radeon 9600, or look for a passive 9000 series(they are faster, and cheaper!) - here's a mailorder link for no less than 7 models:

.http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

Face it, Evildeus, the 5200 just sucks, period. While being DX9, it hasn't the power to drive any of those features. As bad as the NV30 is in its price/performance class, the 5200 is even worse in its price/performance class. :roll: :roll: :roll: :wink:

[Evildeus]

Well:
- I don't see any 9600 and don't know about their prices
- Yes the 9000 has better performance in raw, but far less in AA+AF so depends on his preferences ;)

[RussSchultz]

Martrox: commenting on your sig. I believe the claim was 1.5 million GF-FX's shipped though march. I don't think there's anything to believe that that was not true.

[martrox]

Well:
- I don't see any 9600 and don't know about their prices
- Yes the 9000 has better performance in raw, but far less in AA+AF so depends on his preferences ;)

Um.... the standard 5200 with AA & AF is totally unusable! :wink:
And so is the 9000 series - well at least with AA

[Evildeus]

Martrox: commenting on your sig. I believe the claim was 1.5 million GF-FX's shipped though march. I don't think there's anything to believe that that was not true.
I would say more, something wrong in your sig ;)

The GFFX will available for Christmas

[martrox]

Martrox: commenting on your sig. I believe the claim was 1.5 million GF-FX's shipped though march. I don't think there's anything to believe that that was not true.

I don't see any way it can be proven..... it's all PR BS....... Maybe THAT'S what they are smoking! :wink:

[RussSchultz]

Martrox wears womens underwear.

Since you can't prove it either way, I'll just keep repeating it if you don't mind. ;)

[Evildeus]

Um.... the standard 5200 with AA & AF is totally unusable! :wink:
And so is the 9000 series - well at least with AA
Well i don't see that sorry. And since it's more realistic to say that these kind of cards are used in law resolution, it's better to have AF+AA with good FPS. 800*600 AF+AA is better than 1024*768 without ;)

http://www.hardware.fr/medias/photos_news/00/06/IMG0006015.gif

[Dave Baumann]

What settings were using in that review?

[martrox]

Martrox wears womens underwear.

Since you can't prove it either way, I'll just keep repeating it if you don't mind. ;)

You guys just take this crap too personally..... Russ, I never said anything personal towards you. However, I do have a problem with the way nVidia PR deals with the truth, period. They don't. Many here have gone over this before. The whole NV30 debacle only proves this.

Russ, IF you want to get personal, please email me direct, ok. If you want to really get personal, I'll email you my phone number and you can call me and get as personal as you want. However, to do it here only demeans both you and this fine site.

[RussSchultz]

Hey, I never said there was anything wrong with wearing women's underwear. :)

I do have a problem with the way nVidia PR deals with the truth, period.
If you're so against BS PR and for the truth, why don't you look what you're saying? NVIDIA did not say what your sig says. Beyond that, simply because YOU cannot prove whether they shipped that quantity of chips in that time doesn't mean they did or didn't. So why spout such BS PR and make up your own truths?

By the way, I didn't take anything personally, and neither should you.

[martrox]

Hey, I never said there was anything wrong with wearing women's underwear. :)

I do have a problem with the way nVidia PR deals with the truth, period.
If you're so against BS PR and for the truth, why don't you look what you're saying? NVIDIA did not say what your sig says. Beyond that, simply because YOU cannot prove whether they shipped that quantity of chips in that time doesn't mean they did or didn't. So why spout such BS PR and make up your own truths?

By the way, I didn't take anything personally, and neither should you.

Actually, I like women's underware...... and lets not get into it :wink: (many puns intended!)
Now, take a close look at my Sig.... where does it say that nVida says those things? However, both were widely pronounced or implied by many people"in the know", including Nvidia's PR people, along with such great oldies like "it's twice as fast as the 9700Pro; or, It gets 20,000 in 3DMark01.. And while we can debate the 1.5 million GFFX's all day long, here it's April 11th, and theres not a single GFFX of any kind at any BestBuys, Compusa for Circuit City in my area. (while not the largest place in the world, we do have a NFL team..... as poor as it is! Well, at least they are better than the Bengals! :roll: ) Bottom line here is that you cannot, in the vast majority of places, walk into a computer store & buy a GFFX of any kind. But..... My local BestBuy has 9700Pro's & 9500Pros(!!!) in stock. CompUSA has 9700 Pros and Circuit City has..... well, not much of anything :wink:

Now, to answer you complaint about using FX when meaning GFFX, well, I ran out of space..... Not my fault. Same is true using GFFX when meaning GF-FX5800 Ultra......

[RussSchultz]

Sorry to continue derailing the conversation, but:

Nobody that represents NVIDIA said there would be 1.5 million GFFX cards for sale at the end of March. Nobody.

They stated they would SHIP 1.5 million GFFXs. Shipping chips to AIB in March means boards available about a month or so later. We're starting to see boards available online now.

So please, don't go lambasting a company because you've misunderstood what they said.

[martrox]

Sorry to continue derailing the conversation, but:

Nobody that represents NVIDIA said there would be 1.5 million GFFX cards for sale at the end of March. Nobody.

They stated they would SHIP 1.5 million GFFXs. Shipping chips to AIB in March means boards available about a month or so later. We're starting to see boards available online now.

So please, don't go lambasting a company because you've misunderstood what they said.

I don't believe it was a misunderstanding.......... Lets just leave this where it's at, and agree to disagree, ok?

[RussSchultz]

Sure.

[martrox]

Sure.

Works for me :D

Lets get this thread back on track...... :wink:

[Evildeus]

What settings were using in that review?
Drivers 42.72
AF application for Nvidia, quality for Ati.

Plus, HFR is saying that the quality of AF is far less on a 9000.

- GeForce FX : Mode équilibré pour l´anisotropic en 1024*768 32 bits. Ce mode est comparable au mode qualité de ATI, mais est un peu en dessous de l´aniso des GeForce4, qu´il faut comparer au mode application. Toutefois, comme il s´agit plus d´un comparatif ATI vs NVIDIA qu´un NVIDIA vs NVIDIA, nous avons choisi le mode équilibré.
- GeForce 4 : Mode applicatif pour le 1024*768 32 bits, car en équilibré le niveau de détail des textures lointaines est inférieur aux autres cartes.
- ATI Radeon 9000 : Mode qualité pour le FSAA 4x pour avoir un vrai FSAA 4x. L´anisotropic reste en bilinéaire, la carte ne pouvant pas forcer le trilinéaire, et est donc de moindre qualité comparé aux autres cartes.- ATI Radeon 9500 : Mode qualité pour l´anisotropic, car en mode performance seul le bilinear est utilisé

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/457/page2.html

[Dave Baumann]

AF on 9000 is always Bilinear, so the quality is going to be less for it. However, its not with AF I was talking about - without it, the 9000 will be doing Trilinear, whereas the 5200 won't in application mode.

[Evildeus]

That's my understanding also...
Sorry to continue derailing the conversation, but:

Nobody that represents NVIDIA said there would be 1.5 million GFFX cards for sale at the end of March. Nobody.

They stated they would SHIP 1.5 million GFFXs. Shipping chips to AIB in March means boards available about a month or so later. We're starting to see boards available online now.

So please, don't go lambasting a company because you've misunderstood what they said.

[Evildeus]

AF on 9000 is always Bilinear, so the quality is going to be less for it. However, its not with AF I was talking about - without it, the 9000 will be doing Trilinear, whereas the 5200 won't in application mode.Sorry but i don't quite get what you are saying? :?

*edit* in 1600*1200 default on Ati's cards and application on Nvidia's

[whql]

You can get the 5200 @ newegg here (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?catalog=48&DEPA=1&submit=property&mfrcode=0&propertycodevalue=4635)

Has DX9 support and is only $88.

Gotta love those $88 $79 dollar boards....

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20030412194528.html

Summing everything up and keeping in mind that now any GeForce FX graphics card costs above $100, we would not recommend you to get a GeForce FX 5200 graphics card with 64MB of DDR SDRAM memory since it may utilise 64-bit memory bus and thus be too slow in 3D applications and not suitable for comfortable gaming. Furthermore, it is doubtful that these cards will be a good buy even for $79...

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?catalog=48&DEPA=1&submit=property&mfrcode=0&propertycodevalue=4635

Chipset: 256-bit GeForce FX 5200 (250MHz clock)
Memory: 64MB 64-bit 5ns (8x16) DDR (200MHz-400MHz effective)

(And this is the 256-bit GeForce FX 5200? :roll: )

[RussSchultz]

Don't buy one then?

[martrox]

Don't buy one then?

A wise choice, grasshopper. :wink:

[RussSchultz]

http://www.superpcparts.com/item.jsp?itemID=7787

This one has a 128 bit memory interface. (and priced at $89)

Wow, looking at all the different providers, its going to be hard to tell which ones have 64 bit interface and which ones have 128 bit.

eVGA, for example, has:
64 meg card (064-A8-N302-T)with 64 bit interface.
128 meg card(128-A8-N304-T) with 64 bit interface.
128 meg card(128-A8-N306-T) with 128 bit interface.

How unfortunate for the end buyer.

[Mariner]

How unfortunate for the end buyer.

That's the worst part of all, as far as I'm concerned.

We know that umpteen PCs are going to be sold by various companies who base a large part of their advertising on the fact that the machine has "GeforceFX" graphics. Ultimately, though, if they are selling the 64-bit version they are doing their customers a disservice and all for the sake of a few measly bucks.

The 5200 with the 128 bit interface isn't too bad a card by any stretch of the imagination, but the penny-pinching 64-bit version is just pathetic, really.

For those in the know, what is the difference in cost of production likely to be between cards with 64-bit and 128-bit interfaces?

[Mintmaster]

As for the passively cooled 9600 Pro, I just noticed Dave's update to the 9600 review:

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/rv350/index.php?p=23

The heatsink isn't as bulky as the one on the Zalman cooled 9700 PRO. Dunno if it would fit the Shuttle case though.

[Crusher]

AF on 9000 is always Bilinear, so the quality is going to be less for it.

Erm... I don't understand this. Is this condition strictly limited to the forced Anisotropic filtering in the driver control panel? Or is it always this way?

1st situation:

If I specify anisotropic filtering for the minification and magnification filters, and linear filtering for the mipmaps, and I do not have anisotropic filering enabled in the driver control panel, will the drivers force it to use nearest-point filtering on the mipmaps, or will it give me what I ask for?

2nd situation:

If I specify linear filtering for the minification filter, magnification filter, and mipmap filter, and force anisotropic filtering in the driver control panel, it will override the magnification and minification filter settings and use anisotropic instead of linear, and it will also override the mipmap filter and change it to nearest-point filtering? Or does it leave that as linear since that's what I requested?

However, its not with AF I was talking about - without it, the 9000 will be doing Trilinear, whereas the 5200 won't in application mode.

Once again... if I ask for linear mipmap filtering in my application, you're saying the 5200 will use nearest-point, if the control panel setting is set to "Application"? That doesn't make sense.

[Dave Baumann]

Its a hardware limitation Crusher, so regardless of what is selected, if anisotropic filtering is selected at all then it will resort to Bilinear.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/radeon8500/index9.php

The same situation occurs if 'Performance' is selected in the driver panel for R(V)3x0 boards, however if AF is application controlled then Trilinear or Bilinear can be selected.

Once again... if I ask for linear mipmap filtering in my application, you're saying the 5200 will use nearest-point, if the control panel setting is set to "Application"? That doesn't make sense.

In this instance it takes the approximation of of Trilinear that this setting forces the hardware to do.

http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/gffxu/index.php?p=20

All the shots there are application controlled, other than the main setting in the driver for 'Application', 'Balanced' ('Quality' now) and 'Aggressive' ('Performance' now).

[Dave Baumann]

Oh, and for the topic at hand our ATI Radeon 9600 PRO 128MB Review (http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/rv350/) also had benchmarks from an early version of the passively cooled Sapphire 9600 (non-PRO).

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/rv350/index.php?p=2

Also, Sapphire are doing a Zalman version of their 9600 PRO, which looks like it may be a single slot solution:

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/rv350/index.php?p=23

[Crusher]

Crazy... I don't suppose there's anyway to test for that in the device caps or anything either, eh?

So what about the second part? 5200's Application forces bilinear at all times even if the application requests trilinear?

[Dave Baumann]

Sorry, just updated. FYI its not Bilinear, its just that its not truely Trilinear since with the Balanced and Agressive modes there are ereas that only use one mip level, but they are blended in other areas. The amount of blending that occurs depends on the setting, with Balanced doing less than Application and Agressive less than Balanced.