GeForce 7950 GT Launches With Passive Cooling 168
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.'"
Oh good! (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can fry eggs on the heatsink without the fan splattering yolk everywhere! : )
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Re:Oh good! (Score:5, Informative)
You got modded funny, but the thing is really hot: without an extra fan in the case, the article mentions "temperatures approaching 110 degrees Celcius (sic)" (for people not familiar with degrees Celsius, 100 degrees is the boiling point of water at normal atmospheric pressure).
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Or in more practical (and painful) terms, roughly the same temperature as the coffee spills that burn you in the crotchal area when you hit a bump in the road whilst drinking coffee during your morning commute.
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Impurities (coffee, milk, sugar) raise water's boiling point.
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USA USA USA (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Yes I am. I thought the etl.cs.luc.edu (*.luc.edu = Loyola University Chicago) link in my URL field was a clear give away.
And just as an FYI, The optimum coffee brewing temerature is between 194 to 204 degrees Fahrenheit (90 - 95.55-ish degrees Celsius. (at least according to http://metropoliscoffee.com/university/brewing/per fectcoffee.php [metropoliscoffee.com] )
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Its rather simple... Use the following equasions to figure out what altitude and pressure are required:
(equasions from: http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Calib-boil.html [hi-tm.com])
Pressure (in. Hg) = 29.921* (1-6.8753*0.000001 * altitude, ft.)^5.2559
Boiling point (in F) = 49.161 * Ln (in. Hg) + 44.932
So, for our coffee (ok, water for this example) to boil at 230F, the equasion looks like:
230 = 49.161 * Ln (x) + 44.932
Solve for x and you would get something like 43.14337161
Re:Oh good! (Score:4, Funny)
The word you're searching for is "Americans"...
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Re:Oh good! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I live in the US and I didn't know that... or rather, I'd forgotten. Of course, the part I forgot was the Fahrenheit side (stupid not-round numbers)!
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3.14159265...
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Embarassing as that is, I think it proves my point. I haven't used c in over ten years, and pi in some months. Despite coming from a background of scientific reasoning I am already losing these basic constants! In a few decades, what's the odds that I'll still remember 100 212? 0.8? At 80% would still give millions of people who won't remember. And what about those who were goofing off in science class instea
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"Drink the water with jagged glass
Eat the cactus with bleeding mouth
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees"
-chris
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or even more usefull, convince everyone around you to use C. Yeah that'll work. Except Celcius isn't particularly good, let's all convert to kelvin.
Well now we don't have round numbers anymore, screw it.
I have to say. (Score:3, Informative)
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 h
Well "dangerous" is relative. (Score:2)
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About those CPU fans, the heatsinks bundled with retail CPUs tend to me skimpy, but they do have decent q
Cooling can always be made active these days. (Score:3, Informative)
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I'm not entirely sure why you posted that. I think everyone here is aware that you can stick a fan on something to cool it. The point is that most people want passive cooling because it cuts down on the noise.
Just need to add this: (Score:2)
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 overcl
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My HTPC is by no means quiet, but my split-unit AC makes more noise by far.
At any rate, a good surround sound setup > all.
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And, in my experience, any video card that uses active cooling becomes a "passive cooling" system in a year or two of use, anyway. Fan bearings go bad, the fan quits, and I don't even notice until I'm doing something unrelated. To keep things cooler, I usually remove the fan and use the card with just the heatsink.
It's happened a number of times over the years, in
Fans -- Important (Score:2)
Good for HTPC type setups (Score:2, Interesting)
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So perhaps it not being on the supported list is an oversight.
I was coincidentally researching prices/performance last week to upgrade my aging ti4200 and had decided on the
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This is certainly not the case. 3D performance is not better in linux than in Windows. It's actually quite a bit worse. Granted, it's probably not because of the OS itself but because nvidia spends more res
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Out of stock... (Score:2)
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?
That's not the model (Score:2)
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 th
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Video card related question (Score:3, Insightful)
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Worst case scenario: a brainfuck VHDL/verilog/whatever interpreter that simulates an entire modern CPU + memory.
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Basically shaders are not able to do procedural stuff like:
if (A)
then X
else
then Y
You can get around it somewhat with texture lookups (instead of doing compares) but the branching part isn't really there.
Re:Video card related question (Score:5, Funny)
Derrr, to free up the CPU for software rendering?
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I have no idea how PCI-X changes this.
Pre-Overclocked? (Score:1, Funny)
cheaper at the same price point? (Score:5, Insightful)
say what now?
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(it's the best answer I got)
I like the two DVI ports... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
_________
http://hatchedeggs.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
Re:I like the two DVI ports... (Score:4, Informative)
Taken from Newegg:
Package Contents: 2 x DVI to VGA Adapter
I think they thought of you when they put teh card in teh boxxorz!
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Both came with 2 DVI->VGA adaptors. Despite the "digital out" leanings of the cards, both had excellent 2D quality reminiscent of my old G400 MAX.
Gl & HF (Score:2, Informative)
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
Large fans versus small fans (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gl & HF (Score:2)
You're right about the airflow - you need at least some if a passive solution is going keep your GPU alive - but that's true no matter what your setup. The GPU will keep kicking out the same heat whether actively or passively cooled. If you had a box that had little in/out airflow then the heat build-up in the case would make any cooling solution ineffective, so
Water cooling (Score:2)
A fanless system will remind you how much noise those hard drive make though.
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The point of this passive cooling is to replace two loud fans with one loud fan.
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maybe I missed something (Score:3, Funny)
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Performance Wise (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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No, even back in the "goold old days" that you are obviously not remembering correctly, ATI and Nvidia were guilty of confusing tactics and far too many "models". Let's take your two examples:
The NV25-based GeForce 4 series of cards were most known for the confusing release of the GeForce 4 MX, which was really a GeForce 2 renamed. Without the DirectX 8 features of the true Geforce 4, the GeForce 4 MX had no business carrying that name. The cards
gpu throttling (Score:2)
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Unfortunately, thanks to technologies like Aero Glass, Quartz Extreme, and XGL, it looks like graphics cards are going to be stuck in 3D mode from now on.
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price (Score:5, Insightful)
Wern't we just complaining about the $250 Wii console this morning. And now applauding a $299 graphic card as affordable.
Re:price (Score:5, Funny)
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I guess gaming cards are like women: affordable != attractive.
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With a console, you'll actually be paying MSRP for it.
With computer components, it'll take a few weeks before it's selling for half-price, and less.
It's all relitive (Score:2)
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.
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Again it's different things (Score:2)
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 wh
Obligatory (Score:2)
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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Likewise, if in 2006 you still think that everyone must be running Wintel.
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Which is fine unless you want to do kernel development, or follow kernel development, or follow X development, or work on alternative operating systems, or use alternative processor architectures.
Proprietary drivers are great when they do exactly what they want, and then they sharply drop to borderline-useless as soon as any of the assumptions the vendor made turn out to be wrong.
I just got an older Radeon board to work in my computer, after commenting-out one line of code in the free radeon drivers (X
Hooray! Cheaper at the same price point! (Score:2)
Cheers to you Slashdot, Ed Palma [edified.org]
Passive cooling, but not water cooling. (Score:2)
...and for water cooled systems do they provide a version with no cooling at all? Still no? [slashdot.org]
Given the size of the water cooling market, there must be a large enough niche here that it can be commercially exploited.
Rip-off Britain (Score:2)
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.
Rip-off Britain strikes again (Score:2)
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.
Impressive (Score:2)
A couple last gasps from nVidia? (Score:2)
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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Rip-Off Britain [wikipedia.org]
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