Gigabyte GV-N96TSL-1GI Geforce 9600GT Rev.B Videocard

InfyMcGirk · Post by **InfyMcGirk** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:32 am

PCstats posted a review of Gigabyte's latest passive-cooled Nvidia powered offering, using the new 'silent cell' heatsink design which looks more efficient to me that the rather odd split/perpendicular designs of its 'multicore' heatsinks (as used on their passive cooled 4850).

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2384

The energy consumption figures at idle and load look especially interesting to me... it looks from those figures like this card would be perfect for those who have little (although some!) case airflow but still would like to use a passive card without a fire hazard.

I wonder if they'll release a 'silent cell' version of their passive 4850?

Blue_Sky · Post by **Blue_Sky** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 7:54 am

Sweet stuff. Still though, for a slight performance drop, a 4670 will draw a lot less power. Its idle draw seems to be more in line with the ATI card though. When you look at the graph, it shows that the previous 9600GTs are drawing 20 W more at load and 30 W more at idle than a 4850. Something doesn't seem quite right about their numbers to me. While the FX-62 is more power hungry than the E8400 used, it was tested at GPU load. Hopefully Anandtech or Xbit will review one so I can have a better comparison.

Modo · Post by **Modo** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:55 am

@InfyMcGirk
I have the Gigabyte Multi Core HD 4850, and it runs pretty cool in my case (see sig). I believe it should work almost as well in a standard case with a dedicated exhaust fan. If they use this new heatsink in a future model, even better. It looks suited for standard cases, while the Multi Core shines in a HTPC enclosure.

As to the card, I call review bias. They didn't show two important competing products from AMD: HD 4850 with 1GB of RAM, and HD 4870 x1. My guess is, 1GB of onboard RAM makes those way faster than the 9600GT, so they were removed. Yes, it is a cheaper card, but not enough even for games from a year ago, unless you kept that 19 inch monitor...

Edit: Removed a typo.

InfyMcGirk · Post by **InfyMcGirk** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:40 pm

Well that's the kind of advice I'm looking for. I'm not a huge gamer but there's a part of me thinking I only build a PC every few years, so I want to get pretty much the fastest passive-cooled card I can find.
I'm sure I want to go 'passive' for my graphics card. I use the single quotes because I wouldn't mind giving any passive heatsink a helping hand with a low-rpm quiet fan somewhere nearby (like on the upper HDD cage if I get a P182 as planned, or even attached directly to the card).

jmke · Post by **jmke** » Thu May 07, 2009 10:33 am

got a chance to test the 9600 GT silent cell, runs at 105Â°C under full load (room 22Â°C) inside a case which has 2x120mm exhaust and 1x120mm in-take.

performance is slightly better than a stock clocked 9600 GT seeing as this unit is rated at 700/1800/900 (GPU/SHADER/MEM).

105Â°C is what 9600 GT is rated at according to NVIDIA. Don't know if it's very comfortable knowing this card hits that mark under load...

@Modo: 1gb on 9600 GT is pure marking... no performance increase: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=875

jmke · Post by **jmke** » Thu May 07, 2009 1:14 pm

With Accelero S1 on the 9600 GT Gigabyte I'm hitting 65Â°C.