Anyone have any experience with the 8500 and know if it's ok to run with the fan off (assuming circulation in the case)?

my 8500 le gets very hot and i have decent airflow. the heatsink IMO is too small to run fanless. but a zalman nb heatsink or a 1u heatsink should do the job.

I agree with DryFire, the 8500 does run too hot to run with the standard heatsink and no fan. Some of us have pulled the stock fan off and just use a quiet (5V or 7V L1A for instance) fan mounted on a Zalman bracket over the card to cool it. Others have replaced the stock ATI HSF with the Zalman 17xx heatsink + a quiet fan on a bracket. Other than using the big Zalman heatpipe cooler I don't think you can get away with totally passive cooling on these cards. They do run pretty hot.

Was trying to get out of paying the $30 for the Zalman heatsink--doesn't look like I'm going to be able to with this card. We'll save that for last though and make sure the fan on the video card is the loudest thing left. Thanks for the info.

you might be able to sell your card and just get a 9600. might be cheaper.

I've had success lately with an 8500 128mb retail card using just a Zalman ZM-17 cooler and a 5V front intake 80mm fan (which is generally pointed at the AGP slot). The system has two 5V 80mm exhaust fans as well.

The sink gets hot to the touch, but never artifacts or exhibits any problems during gaming - and has been perfectly stable for some time now. I wonder if anybody else has also tried this cooling solution for the 8500?

Which models fo the 9600 are passive? I'm not sure I could make the swap for under $30.

the ati 9600 is passive (as most should be). the 9600 pro is not passive in most cases.

I have unplugged the fan on my 8500 and didn't change the heatsink. I have a fan blowing in the general direction, but not on it. I'm not playing games though.

I suspect it would be better to put a larger heatsink on it.

BUMP

Anybody else want to share their experience with passive cooling on 8500 and 8500LE GPUs? How about some pics? I have a Sapphire 8500LE 64mb and I'd like to get a better idea of just what I should realistically be shooting for..

..lord spare me from those massive heatpipe sinks

I put a K type thermocouple on my Radeon 8500 heatsink, and ran it Fanless at stock voltages in counterstrike for an hour, and then rendered 30 minutes with 3Dsmax, and the temp never went above 55c

I have now run it like this since I bought my Sonata.

See my specs below in my sig

EDIT: I will get some more recent photos for you soon...