Hiyas everyone. I'm a lurker of sorts here, and while I don't post much, it has always astounded me at how much detail you guys have in your ear canals.

So, looking at so many well-crafted occipital lobes in this forum, I wanted to ask if anyone could describe how noisy a Geforce 8800 GTS is? With the Geforce 7600 and 7800, I noticed how the video card fan will spin up to clearly audible levels when a game is playing; even if the video card's fan was on "low", it was still audible, though more tolerable. How does the Geforce 8800 GTS compare with the 7600 and 7800?

Also, I'm thinking of using a Zalman CNPS-9700 as my CPU HSF. I've heard that this model really isn't Zalman's finest piece of work. However, does the CNPS-9700 make more or less noise than an 8800 GTS? I've been thinking that the 8800 GTS would probably be the loudest sound coming out of a new computer.

Thanks for any information that you guys can impart.

--Garfield

I just bought an evga 8600gts superclock and the fan is loud and buzzy! Very audible noise! Yet not as noisy as my old 7600gt

I have heard the 8800 is quiet, but I would think that if you get it, you should throw a thermalright hr 03 plus and your 8800 will be silent

Derek

Thanks for the response.

Does anyone know if there's a discernable sound difference between manufacturers? Like... whether BFG is louder than eVGA?

I probably won't be wanting to get a silent heatpipe or an aftermarket cooler for the card. The addition of the CNPS-9700 is probably as far out as I want to go in terms of extra cooling (maybe an extra case fan, if it's cheap).

--Garfield

The 8800GTS stock cooler is actually quite quiet.

It's a lot quieter than the stock cooler of a Geforce 7600 or 7800 card. It also seems quieter than the stock cooler of a Geforce 7900GTX.

There's a little bit of a whooshing noise but not too bad.

It stays at fairly low RPM all the time including when you're playing games.

The downside is that the card gets quite hot. My 8800GTS 640mb card idles at 52c approx but goes quickly to 75c-80c as soon as you start running a game.

It used to idle at 59c before I flashed the BIOS with lower 2D clocks, reseated the cooler using Arctic Silver 5 and built a cardboard duct for the rear vents.

Flashing the BIOS is well worth doing but will void your warranty.

http://www.mvktech.net/

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 633&page=3


Nvidia GF8800GTS 640mb 2D/ 3D Clockspeeds

The Lost Planet demo benchmark seems to be one of the most intensive applications for heating up a graphics card.


Nvidia GF8800GTS 640mb Temperature and Fan Speeds Stock Cooler after 28min looping Lost Planet DX9 benchmark

My card (using stock cooling and duct) goes straight to a little over 80c. It seems to stay at that temperature though as it jumps between 81-82c but never went higher. That's at a room temperature of 20c approx.

The graphics card fan ramped up from the idle 1490RPM (per rivatuner) to 1700rpm approx.

At that speed the card is quite audible though.

The Thermalright HR-03 Plus could potentially be a bit better but there's no way you can use it as a passive cooler: You'd have to use a fan with it to stop overheating.

The HR-03 Plus also has the downside of not exhausting any hot air out of the case which could be a problem.

I have one of each of the 8800s and they're all less noisy than the idle noise of the (quiet) hard drives on my test bench. So very, very quiet.

You can knock off 5-10 degrees C by replacing the TIM on the heatsinks.

The 8600 cards I have are all as loud as the 7900s I used to have.

With my GF8800GTS 640mb card flashing the BIOS with 2D/3D settings dropped the idle temperature from 59c to 54c approx.

Reseating the heatsink with Arctic Silver 5 (after 1 day curing) has dropped the idle temperature from 54c down to 50c approx. (My card is actually idling at 49c but the room temperature is a bit lower than yesterday.)

Although it's quiet for a stock cooler it still has a distinctive whooshing noise from the plastic duct. I think the handmade duct for the vents has made this noise worse also.

Compared to a Scythe S-Flex SFF21D 800rpm exhaust case fan the graphics card cooler is noisier.

I have the EVGA 8800GTS 320MB and I was surprised at how quiet it is, but it is definitely a room heater. On the plus side, it exhausts the heat out of the system. For reference, I believe it's as quiet as or quieter than the card it replaced, the X1900XTX with a Zalman VF-900Cu at 5v.

Those are some impressive temps. I have a small AC unit in another room, and it's not quite warm enough in Denver to even turn it on yet, so I think my 8800GTS idles around 65--but that's a drop from 70+.

The GTX, on the other hand, dropped an even ten degrees from 78 to 68, idle.

But the HD 2900 XTs. . .there's nothing that can be done. They raise the room temperature noticeably. I re-TIMed them but got almost no drop; the heatsink bases need lapping badly. There are even spots on them that milling process didn't cut down far enough to even out--there are pits.

One of the other major problems with the heatsink is that is is set too high on the card; I don't know if it's got good contact with the silicon, and it certainly has little or no contact with the RAM. Some chips are cooled, some aren't. I'm a little wary of filing it down, though, because there's no heatspreader on the GPU, and I sure as Hell don't want to chip it.

Thats a good comparison rm19.

Is that the standard EVGA or the ACS3 variant ?

Everything I've read suggests that the ACS3 GTS is a stock heatsink with a different shroud, just like Leadtek's (which is far sexier) but with a heat-spreading backplate. I wouldn't really expect a difference in performance resulting from just the heatsink, although EVGA does manage to get a hold of some particularly-high binned silicon.

acs3 is super DOI-oi-OI-OING!!!

yeah, thats where it is at


I whole heartedly agree with re-doing the TIM on your cards and attempting to adjust fan voltage/speed. 2 cards my friend bought for pny last year fried because of incorrect fan placement and sloppy tim gooping from the factory.

Looks like a few malaysian slaves have to work even harder. sux.

Well, all my mobo's, whenver I put on some Artic silver 5 on the chipsets and coolers, they temps drop sometimes 5 degrees celsius.

freaky eh?

The copper base on my GF8800GTS 640mb cooler was really difficult to get a clean finish. It had a few scratches and marks on it also.

I didn't lap it but should have done really.

After removing the stock TIM it took a good 5 cleans with Arctic Silver Arcti-clean to get even a vague shine to the copper base. It seemed to be very soft copper as it was oxidising almost straight away.

The copper base of a well finished cooler (such as a Scythe Ninja) usually cleans up well after a single clean with Arcti-clean.

Something interesting that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is what happens to the graphics card temperatures when watching a film.

At idle in 2D mode the GF8800GTS 640mb GPU is clocked at 200mhz Core/Shader 625mhz/Memory 500mhz

The GPU core idles at 48c approx. (It's colder again today with a room temperature of 18.5c)

When you start watching a DVD movie in Windows Media Player or PowerDVD 6 the card instantly jumps up to the 3D clock speeds of 570mhz Core/Shader 1188mhz/memory 900mhz.

The GPU core also increases in temperature to 54c approx. After a few hours of DVD playback the GPU core was up to 58c approx.

It's not a huge temperature increase but is something to be aware of.

The Intel E6700 CPU doesn't even come out of powersaving mode (Intel Speedstep) and remains at the idle temperature of 35c throughout DVD playback.

Has anybody used SPARKLE CALIBRE 880 (GTS or GTX)? Is it noisier than reference cards?

There's an Anandtech review of the card here:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2945&p=13

It's difficult to really know how quiet it is from that review but with the peltier cooler it draws a lot more power than the stock card.

According to the Anandtech chart it's louder than a stock card at idle speeds but when all the fans are running 100% it's quieter.

The fans will never run 100% I think. It is interesting to know how quiet is it in usual conditions...

You can actually run the 8800GTS card at a lower clock speed than 200mhz (Bootup setting).

I reflashed the BIOS with new 2D settings of Core 100mhz/Shader 400mhz/Memory 400mhz

The 3D settings are now Core 570mhz/Shader 1300mhz/Memory 900mhz.

I suspect that it would run ok at 50mhz for 2D also.

There's no noticeable decrease in performance when surfing the internet etc.


Nvidia GF8800GTS 640mb Revised BIOS 2D/3D Clock Speeds

The result has been to drop the idle temperature by another couple of degrees to 46c.


Nvidia GF8800GTS 640mb idle temperatures with core set to 100mhz 2D mode

It's important to note that temperature is at the default fan setting of 60% 1500rpm approx.

I've only had the card 5 days but at that speed the graphics card fan is getting quite annoying: It has a high pitch to it which is increasingly standing out.

I'm going to be replacing the stock cooler with something quieter fairly soon.

Whilst I had the case apart I took a better picture of the GF8800GTS fan duct.

It's the "classic" GF8800 duct carefully made from cardboard and electrical tape.

I think it's the standard EVGA one (it has the stock looking cooler) but it says "Superclocked". After re-listening to both, I'd say it's definitely quieter and smoother sounding than my old video card w/VF900 @ 5v. It's so quiet, I think I could get two to do SLI easily and still satisfy my quiet PC'ing were it not for double the heat output. I used to have zero faith in stock cooling, but nVidia's done well here.

I'm amazed at how quiet my Asus 8000GTS is. I installed it today and I don't think I can hear it over my 2 120mm Antec fans set to low and 1 Scythe 120mm fan in my P182.

[quote="WR304"]Whilst I had the case apart I took a better picture of the GF8800GTS fan duct.

It's the "classic" GF8800 duct carefully made from cardboard and electrical tape.
quote]

I've noticed that the hottest thing in my case is the 4 slits in the plastic on my 8800GTS so I'm guessing that making a duct WOULD be helpful.
I don't have any PCI cards installed so there's lots of room.

The homemade solution look interesting. Do you have any temperature data as to how much difference it made?

My evga 8800gts 320mb is tolerable quiet at 60% fan speed. But anything higher is getting loud for me, especially at 100%.

I'm not completely sure how much difference the duct makes by itself to graphics card temperatures.

The big improvement was in general system temperatures. I'd say it dropped CPU and hard drive temperatures significantly compared to not having it fitted. I'd guess it was a good 2-3c drop

The air flowing out of the duct was very hot and would normally have remained trapped inside the case.

I can't go back and compare as my replacement graphics card cooler is finally up and working.

It's been sitting around whilst I attempted to convince everyone it wasn't going to leak.

It's a Zalman Reserator 2 connected up to a ZM-GWB8800 GTS waterblock. It's using distilled water mixed with Zalman anti-corrosion coolant (apparently non conductive coolant is thicker and you need a stronger pump.)

The only departure from the kit is that I used proper hose clips (size 000 9.5mm to 12mm). These are a lot more secure than the metal clips supplied by Zalman.

It sits on a plastic grow-bag tray in case of leaks.

The Zalman water block is a solid piece of aluminium that weighs 420g! The Reserator 2 is quite solid as well. Most of it is a large aluminium heatsink apart from the rear of the unit which is a reservoir.

Installation
Installation is quite straightforward: Just assemble the tubes, tighten the hose clips and then part fill the reservoir.

After that you start and re-start the pump until all the air has come out of the system. Gently rocking the part filled reserator from side to side encourages the air bubbles to come out.

Installing the waterblock is hassle free. The main downside is that you have to use thermal pads for all components apart from the GPU core where I used Arctic Silver 5. The thermal pads are necessary because there is quite a large gap between the card components and the waterblock.


ZM-GWB8800 GTS Waterblock Base

When installed the waterblock looks like this:


ZM-GWB8800 GTS waterblock installed on Nvidia GF8800GTS 640mb card

The tubing is deliberately cut fairly long. It means that the case can be moved around without affecting the waterblock.


Waterblock installed in Antec Solo case

The tubing layout is a little different to what you see in many setups. I cut a hole in the side of the case so that the card can be removed without needing to disassemble the entire PC. The hole is filled with foam from some old hard drive packaging.

This pic shows the cooler in action.


Reserator 2 Installed And In Use

Noise
The PC now has only a single running fan (Scythe S-Flex SFF21D 800rpm), it also has a single hard drive (Samsung Spinpoint T 400gb in Growup Japan 2002c enclosure) plus the 5w pump in the reserator.

The Nesteq PSU is semi-fanless in ASM mode.

Overall it's a lot quieter than with the 8800GTS stock cooler installed (it had quite a high pitched tone).

The big improvement is when wearing headhones. With semi-open headphones like my Grado SR125's the 8800GTS fan was really annoying for some reason.

What's quite interesting is that noise from the PC is still quite noticeable.

The Scythe S-Flex fan is loudest followed by hard drive seeks and then a mixture of electrical noise from inside the PC and a faint gurgling noise (like a radiator!) coming from the reserator 2.

Performance
Room temperature is 21c approx.

After running for two hours at idle the graphics card core is at 37c.

For comparison the stock cooler at the same room temperatures idled between 49-50c.

The other case and system temperatures are noticeably lower than with the air cooled card also. The idle CPU temperature is 36c currently.

When comparing those temperatures please remember that this is with a custom BIOS so the card is idling at 100mhz rather than full 3D speeds.


8800GTS Idle Water Temperatures

I apologize if this is slightly off-topic, but I didn't think it's worth its own thread.

For those who did choose to replace the stock cooler with an HR-03 plus, how much space does the entire construction take (card + heatsink + fan)? And more specifically, does it block a PCI slot?

More on topic - is there any noticeable drop in noise if you replace the stock cooler with an HR-03? I was really surprised to read that the 8800 GTS stock cooler is quiet - my current Asus 6600 GT card's fan is probably the most piercing source of noise I have in the computer (and it doesn't cool it very much either - under full load it gets up to mid 90s . On the other hand, the card is over two years old and still kicking, so I guess high temperatures are not detrimental over such a period).

The HR-03 Plus with a fan mounted takes up at least 3 PCI slots.

Have a look at mattyc's thread about it.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=39393

I don't have a HR-03 plus but did have the previous Thermalright HR-03 cooler on a GF7900GTX card. I'd imagine that the Plus is similar.The key point with the HR-03 is to not have the fan physically attached to the cooler. If you do that the entire card will vibrate.

Apart from that you can just use a quiet fan (preferably 120mm) blowing onto the cooler.

The big downside of the Thermalright HR-03 design is that it doesn't get heat out of the case. Expect increased case temperatures when using it.


mattyc's PC using Thermalright HR-03 Plus

I left the watercooled 8800GTS looping the Lost Planet DX9 benchmark for half an hour to see what load temperatures are like.

Using the stock Nvidia aircooling and this benchmark the card would immediately go to 81-82c (the minimum temperature where the fan ramps up). It would then stay at that level controlled by the fan spinning faster.

With the water cooling the GPU temperature had only reached 50c after half an hour. Looking at the graph I suspect that the temperatures would probably have kept rising if I hadn't stopped the benchmark though.

The reserator was slightly warm to the touch: The metal heatsink vanes were quite cool but the silver reservoir was warmer than the vanes.

After stopping the benchmark the GPU temperature fell to 43c. After 10 minutes it's only dropped another 2c to 41c.

EDIT: After 1hr 30min the GPU temperature has returned to 37c.

The CPU temperatures went back to previous idle levels quite quickly.

That's the downside of the passive radiator of course. It looks like it should be ok with one 8800GTS graphics card (output somewhere between 105 and 120watts). I'd have thought a single 8800GTX (130watts approx) would be ok too.

Whether you could safely use it with the load of a 8 series card plus the additional 65w+ of watercooling a Core 2 Duo CPU, Northbridge water cooler etc is an interesting one. On a hot day I suspect it might not handle it.


8800GTS Water Cooled Load Temperatures Looping Lost Planet DX9 Benchmark 30 Minutes

That is some very valuable information.
I've been thinking about upgrading, read some reviews on the HR-03 Plus and a lot of forums about watercooling an 8800 GTX.

If the stock cooler will be too noisy (...) I was thinking about a small pump (Danger Den DDC-12V) and a cooler block attached to a PA120.2 but it sounds like a Reserator would do the job as well.

It would be a hybrid: I was thinking, air cooling will be sufficient for cooling the CPU and you do need a case fan anyway for the rest.
Cooling the video card could be done by a very quiet watercooling setup, because the temperatures don't have to be as cool as with cooling a CPU in the same loop.


Off topic:
Ever since I started looking at these forums, my PC has made more noise then it "should" even though I can hear my clock ticking 2 meters away...

Thanks for the info - I didn't realize how huge those things are. I guess it's absolutely out of question for me then - I need all three PCI slots (2 sound cards, one of them needs two slots). But if as you say the stock cooler is not too noisy, I hope it won't be a big deal.

Those figures are based on this Xbitlabs review:

Running a 8800GTS card at higher than stock clock speeds makes it almost as hot as the 8800GTX!

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/disp ... dup_8.html


(Chart taken from Xbitlabs.com graphics card review)

If you're interested in water cooling an 8800GTS card there are some worthwhile reviews of different waterblocks here:

EK Waterblock review:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php? ... terblock/1

Danger Den and Swiftech waterblocks review:

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=554

They are copper waterblocks though so you wouldn't want to use them with the aluminium reserator 2 due to corrosion problems.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=145863

A matched aluminium Zalman waterblock, aluminium reserator and anti-corrosion additive should work ok though.

The overclock3d.net review in particular is very well written. I wish I'd realised you should flush all the components before assembling.

Using a waterblock such as the Danger Den and EK ones leaves all the PCI expansion slots available for use which could be useful.

When compared to the passive reserator 2 they show that you'll get significantly lower temperatures using a more powerful pump, large reservoir and several fans on the radiator.

The downside being that the powerful watercooling setup will be noiser than just using the stock 8800GTS aircooler.

The temperature differences aren't actually as much as I was expecting though.

The room temperature today is 24c approx.

With nothing else in the loop my custom clocked 8800 GTS 640mb card (2D settings of Core 100mhz/Shader 400mhz/Memory 400mhz) idles at 40c approx.

The PC has been running for 10 hours (including several hours of gaming use raising temperatures) so that's probably a fair idea of what the idle temperature will be.

Under load (3D settings Core 570mhz/Shader 1300mhz/Memory 900mhz.) the card goes to 50c approx (after 3 hours of Test Drive Unlimited).

In an older less stressful game such as Swat 4 the load temperatures stay lower at 47c approx.

There haven't been any leaks yet either.

Thanks for the additional info and the links.

I read the DangerDen/Swiftech at Madshrimps before, I also read mixing metals in a loop sometimes is not a good idea (there seem to be awkward solutions with including "offering lambs" in the loop).

I guess the line "don't buy aluminium waterblocks" (xtremesystems link) only goes for those who use copper radiators and copper waterblocks elsewhere in the loop. From what I read, he didn't use any additives, just water.

EK waterblocks are highly recommended on most forums I checked.


Seeing Zalman offering an aluminium waterblock for the 8800 GTX is nice. From your results, I guess using this setup will get very good results. Even a few degrees below stock if it's almost (or completely?) inaudible would be good, but it will probably be a lot cooler then stock (80 °C I believe).

I don't know how stressful Test Drive Unlimited is... Is there a possibility you could do a few runs of 3DMark2006 or similar benchmarks?
(current games I play are old, with low resolution and low detail settings, my card runs as hot when playing these games as when idling)