Gigabyte announces 2nd generation Silent-Pipe technology

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:35 pm

This comes from Gigabyte:

GIGABYTE Announces Second Generation Silent-Pipe Technology
-- Silent-Pipe II raises the bar for quiet operation from VGA card coolers -- - (2005/10/13)

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leader in quiet graphics card cooling solutions, today announced Silent-Pipe II technology that generates natural airflow to provide more efficient cooling without the use of a heat sink or fan. This is achieved through a unique design that draws cool air in through a new proprietary front-flow thermal module to remove heat from the heat sink on the VGA card. With the improved natural airflow generated by GIGABYTE Silent-Pipe II technology, even hardcore 3D processing applications can run smoothly and reliably with minimal noise from high-speed VGA card cooling fans. With its extremely quiet operation, GIGABYTE Silent-Pipe II technology is ideal for home theatre and media center enthusiasts who require impeccable performance from high-end graphics cards without the intolerable whir of cooling fans.

[...]

GIGABYTE Silent-Pipe II technology will be available on a range of GIGABYTE VGA cards that include the GV-NX66T128D-SP with GDDR3 memory and the GV-NX66T256DE with DDR2 memory.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:55 pm

Very interesting, although their claim that a heatsink is not implemented seems a stretch. It looks to me from the pictures that this involves heatsinks, heatpipes, and natural convection. Whether this is enough remains to be seen, but if it is, it should be the best thing out there for low noise. There might be a need for a filter though, since it will be an intake, and probably a hot one too.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 12:14 am

Looks pretty good. Opening up a PCI slot is a very effective way to direct airflow over the card. I have a passive heatsink on my 9600, and just opening up the PCI slot so my case exhaust could pull air over the heatsink must've lowered temps 25*C+ (card doesn't have a GPU temp sensor, but finger test showed a huge difference in temps of the heatsink).

It's also pretty cool that Gigabyte is so dedicated to silent cooling as to come out with a second revision of SilentPipe. Can't wait to see how version 3 improves on 2.

sipitai · Post by **sipitai** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 8:18 pm

The new Silent-Pipe II cards mentioned in the press release are now listed on the Gigabyte website:

GV-NX66T128D-SP (Nvidia GeForce 6600GT with 128MB GDDR3 memory)
GV-NX66T256DE (Nvidia GeForce 6600GT with 256MB DDR2 memory)

Shouldn't be too long now before they are available to buy.

ChiBOY83 · Post by **ChiBOY83** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:31 pm

This looks very promising... i have their old passive card on the 6600GT, i hope this is successful and is eventually implemented on the 7x series..

sipitai · Post by **sipitai** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 2:20 am

A few reviews are starting to surface.

GV-NX66T128D-SP:

Hardwarezoom.com
Hkepc.com (translated from Japanese)

GV-NX66T256DE:

GamePyre.com

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 5:32 am

Would that imply a requirement of negative pressure so that cool air be pulled in through that slot and not pushed out.

wainwra · Post by **wainwra** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 7:13 am

Thanks for the links - I read the GamePyre review with particular enjoyment. It closes:

Positives of the card include silent operation, a decent overclock and efficient heat dispersal with the heat pipes. Unfortunately, the cost of the silent operation and the heat pipes is a 2-slot card. Generally when I recommend a 2-slot cooling solution for a video card, I would expect higher performance than other cards in the same chip class and price point. GIGABYTE strangely decided to use the mid-end 6600GT to have the exotic cooling solution with default core clock speeds and lowered memory clock speeds compared to NVIDIA's reference design. For these reasons, I have a hard time recommending this card for anyone not looking for a silent PC.

Uriox · Post by **Uriox** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 7:51 am

No comparison with older models from Gigabyte, though.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:14 am

gigabyte is so retarted. this cooler is a BIG dissapointment. nvidia already proved with their previous generation of video cards that people are not willing to dedicate 2 expansion slots to a single video card.

at least Asus looks as if their taking steps in the right direction, and comming out with some good silent products. their "reversecool technology" was brilliant, i really wish they would impliment this on more cards. having the gpu and memory on the top of the video card just makes sense, idunno why no one ever thought of it previously.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 12:34 am

Aris wrote:gigabyte is so retarted. this cooler is a BIG dissapointment. nvidia already proved with their previous generation of video cards that people are not willing to dedicate 2 expansion slots to a single video card.

Hmmm. In a SFF case it might be an issue. But "people" is a wide term... How many people actually uses these PCI slots anyway? How many people have used all 5 in a midi tower? At my opinion, sacrificing one of 5 PCI slot for silence, is a very good deal

TomSecret · Post by **TomSecret** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:43 am

This looks like a good alternative to me. Here's another (short) review:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/09/ ... age12.html

Will the heatpipe-solution work in a horizontal case like htpc-cases? Or will the card only work in towers?

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:02 am

This actually looks very good. I wish this cooler was available separately, or at least other manufacturers were as ingeniuous as Gigabyte.

Aris
You defined people too broadly. It depends on who you are and what config you have. I have 5 PCI slots, so I can live if one of them is taken. If you have one of the newer PCI-E motherboards with limited number of PCI slots then it's a different story. But even then, the level of integration has definitely went up from 5 years ago. In the past, I had all of my PCI slots taken by expansion cards, a video card, a sound card, a modem, a nic card, separate ide controller... I actually had to swap modem card if I wanted to scan something because my scanner then came with a separate PCI controller card and I didn't have another PCI slot available. Now I see a lot of people running on integrated everything, just a bare motherboard with a CPU. I only have three cards in my PC right now. A video card, well because integrated solutions just aren't good enough for my purposes, a sound card because once again integrated sound just isn't good enough and an additional hard drive controller, that's because my motherboard doesn't have enough conenctors for my current HDD/OD configuration. Three slots filled out of 6, like I said, I can sacrifice one. Even people with PCI-E motherboards can sacrifice one.

And don't forget that no stock one slot solution can compete with aftermarket solution in terms of quietness and temperatures.