Asus EN9600GT Silent Edition Graphics Card

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:09 am

psyopper · Post by **psyopper** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:51 am

Good review, thanks!

I think it would be interesting to compare the cooler with a known passive benchmark like an Accelero. Also interesting would be testing with a low speed fan mounted directly to the HS as done in the Accelero review.

Thanks for keeping the articles coming!!

samdrong · Post by **samdrong** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 1:06 pm

When is Asus releasing the card? I didn't see a release date in the review and Asus's website has no mention of it on the products page. I found the press release here: http://www.asus.com.tw/news_show.aspx?id=10645 ... but when can I buy it?

Am I missing something?

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:20 pm

Those heat pipes don't look like aluminum to me. Perhaps they're nickel-plated copper.

Mikey · Post by **Mikey** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:02 pm

Good review!

I'd be curious to know what temperatures could be achieved using the Antec Fusion, as it has an airflow pattern which doesn't usually perform well with this type of arrangement.

Any chance of a quick test?

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:18 pm

I would stick to my S1 any day of the week, its cooling is rather poor by comparison. My X1950 Pro is also a ~65W card and it hits 60-65C at the most, with a single Nexus 120mm removing air from the case that doesnt spin faster than 850rpm.

For non-modders with reasonable airflow this would be a decent buy.

I do have a question about the testing. Were any of the blanking plates (AKA spines) removed from the back of the case during testing.???

Andy

PS: I ususally find screwing in double height cards is easiest using the middle screw hole as it will stop it drooping under the weight of the cooler.

wim · Post by **wim** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:01 pm

that bit of marketese in the press release was pretty funny ..

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:40 pm

Mikey wrote:Good review!

I'd be curious to know what temperatures could be achieved using the Antec Fusion, as it has an airflow pattern which doesn't usually perform well with this type of arrangement.

Any chance of a quick test?

Before that, does it even fit in a NSK2400/Fusion?

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:31 pm

nice review and very timely. Just a shame I can't buy one here in Australia

One thing to bear in mind though - Techreport tested both a 256Mb and 512mb version of the 3850 and the 512mb version had very similar power draw at idle and load as the 3870. The two models are after all pretty much the same card just with different clocks and, for the 3850-256mb, memory amount. So, considering the 9600GT is a 512mb card I don't think it does too badly, especially considering its performance.

In fact, if you consider price as well as power and performance it's a pretty obvious choice for a gaming system. If you're after movie playback then none of these cards are ideal - a 3650 or 8500GT would do perfectly fine.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:05 am

Spare Tire wrote:Before that, does it even fit in a NSK2400/Fusion?

I wouldn't think so, the heatpipe would probably hit the top panel when trying to close it.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:38 am

A number of us are running 9600GTs with Acceleros. See this thread for more info.

The Asus looks okay, but I'm glad I bought the ECS S2 card instead.

walle · Post by **walle** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:18 am

Great review Mike,

Nice to see a stock passive cooling solution doing a decent job, something which weâ€™re not all that used too. Now all thatâ€™s missing is for the manufactures to stop christening their solutions (and at times products) with such juvenile names, hmm; I must be getting old and grumpy...

colm · Post by **colm** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:50 pm

It is nice to see these cards oem with passive coolers...

But once again, I immediately spotted errors (from my years as a crazy pc builder)

1. The heatsink has no sealer around gpu edge.. (as far as I could tell by photo)with the mention of four metal spring loaded springs...not good. Once that 650 gets going, I guarantee a mystery blipper with fans nearby
2. For some folks, exiting out the back like its a free worls inside your standing atx case is always bad news. There is an exhaust fan for...exhausting. why take the crap physics back in?
3. My third observation: I really like the thicker fin part in conjunction with the real reactive cooler, the card will take a case fan close by (typically the bios zapping front one), that is all good except if you refer to number one and think of a fan with just a whisper going by the hot GPU space between the heatsink.

If you could add some foam type stuff that alot of gpu heatsinkers use around the edge to the heatsink, I would call it good, except for the exit out the back, it is an exit in...
Have they ever got coolers correct?

alphabetbackward · Post by **alphabetbackward** » Mon May 05, 2008 4:05 pm

mattthemuppet wrote:nice review and very timely. Just a shame I can't buy one here in Australia

One thing to bear in mind though - Techreport tested both a 256Mb and 512mb version of the 3850 and the 512mb version had very similar power draw at idle and load as the 3870. The two models are after all pretty much the same card just with different clocks and, for the 3850-256mb, memory amount. So, considering the 9600GT is a 512mb card I don't think it does too badly, especially considering its performance.

Can I get a link to that article? I can't seem to find the one where they compare the two.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Mon May 05, 2008 11:19 pm

let me see - here is where they compared the standard 3850-256mb and 3870-512mb cards, then here they tested a bunch of 3850/70-512mb cards and here is the clearest demonstration of similar idle power draw between the 3850 and 3870 512mb cards. Load draw is consistantly higher in the 3870 cards, but the difference doesn't seem to be more than ~15W (give or take) compared with the 3850-512mb cards.

Certainly not as clear a difference with the original 3850-256mb cards. For me, if I'm going to stick with my 19in monitor for the near future a 3850-256mb card is the best bet (low power, slightly cheaper) otherwise a 9600GT is a better bet.

Modo · Post by **Modo** » Tue May 06, 2008 12:06 am

walle wrote: Nice to see a stock passive cooling solution doing a decent job, something which weâ€™re not all that used too.

Not used to? I beg to differ. Gigabyte's latest passive 9600GT also does well. Their previous passive cooling solutions have been alright, too. (I have a passive GeForce 6600, and a passive GeForce 8600GTS from them, and both work fine.)

Somehow, graphics cards with passive cooling only get bad reviews from people who don't know that no heatsink, no matter how big, will be any good without airflow. Go figure.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Tue May 06, 2008 12:46 am

here's another TR article showing similar idle power draws for 3870/70-512mb cards. Incredibly the 9600GT undercuts the 3850-512mb at load, hmm.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:20 pm

Price is steadily dropping on this card - now only $110 (with $20 MIR) at Newegg and Zipzoomfly.

rei · Post by **rei** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:58 pm

http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?mo ... &id=353353

$120 in Canada.

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:16 pm

technic3d (German) has a review of a 9400GT , and it looks much better Wattage-wise

Can we have a review of one of these cards? I'm looking to replace my 8500GT, and possibly want to stay with nvidia, also because of the new cool hardware decoding of h264 for the purpose of encoding (don grabst dgavcindex using nvidia chips)

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 12:48 am

The MSI silent cards are much easier to find here in the UK, and their 9400gt/9500gt models have an HDMI port which is a bonus.

For some user comment see
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... 0gt-md512h

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 5:34 pm

As long as my 28" WS CRT still works, I'm stuck on svideo.

so would like to see some testing done if that works at all with the new cards tested

Asus EN9600GT Silent Edition Graphics Card

Asus EN9600GT Silent Edition Graphics Card

Release Date?