7900GTX stock cooling performance = Zalman VF700Cu

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Wed May 03, 2006 5:23 am

I finally received an EVGA 7900GTX from their stepup program yesterday, to replace the EVGA 7800GTX to which I'd added a Zalman VF700Cu FanMated to 5v not long after I got it. Anyway, I don't have any scientific results to share, but I've been very, very pleased with the card, from BOTH the perspectives of 3D performance and cooling!

My system is in a P180 and has 5v Yate-Loon D12SL-12s as rear exhaust, on my Ninja, strapped to the interior of the upper 3.5" cage to blow on the video card, and crammed in front of the lower drive cage where my HDs are. When I had the 7800GTX+Zalman and had the side case door open, all I could hear was a very low, quiet *whoosh* from the 5 fans. Certainly not silent, but with the case sealed up and no noise coming from elsewhere in my house the system was not audible, even though it sits right next to my chair.

I am VERY pleased to report that the 7900GTX stock cooling performs identically to or better than the 5v Zalman from a noise perspective. Again, no recordings, dB measurements, or anything scientific, but I simply cannot hear the thing when I have the case open, the rest of the house silent, and am listening at normal distance from the system. Temps under load appear not to go much over 62C either, although I've only been checking while playing Oblivion, not during a long RTHDRIBL burn. That's basically what my Zalman did for me. Before I got the Zalman, the stock cooler on the EVGA 7800GTX was clearly audible over my 4 quiet 120mm fans THROUGH the sealed case, at least as bad as my old nforce4 board with leaf blower chipset fan!

Needless to say, this was all a pleasant surprise. I was very worried that I'd want to change the stock cooling of the 7900GTX and still may, because some of its hot air (and those heatpipes get VERY hot) is exhausted back into the case and I haven't yet tried to compare case and CPU temps before and after the 7900GTX. Now I just wish some Nvidia partner would send Mike a sample so he can give it the full SPCR treatment and put it up for sale in the Lab Clearance Corner! =^)

NoizEnvader · Post by **NoizEnvader** » Wed May 03, 2006 8:20 am

I concur, the stock cooler is (amazingly) very quiet. The only thing that I donâ€™t like is that upon startup the fan blows at full volume for about 2-3 seconds before the software control kicks in.

Webmonkey · Post by **Webmonkey** » Fri May 19, 2006 8:19 am

NoizEnvader wrote:I concur, the stock cooler is (amazingly) very quiet. The only thing that I donâ€™t like is that upon startup the fan blows at full volume for about 2-3 seconds before the software control kicks in.

Software control is needed to slow down the fan????

I wonder how fast the fan will spin under linux........

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Fri May 19, 2006 8:27 am

It's driver controlled... I've never run Linux so I'm not sure what Nvidia's Linux driver support is like. Basically, the card fan kicks in before the driver does, and as soon as the driver is loaded the fan goes to a normal speed. I haven't plumbed too deep into the fan controls just cause I haven't needed to... even during long periods of 3D gaming, I've never heard the 7900GTX stock fan get louder. It's great so far, IMO-- only my desire to tinker keeps me thinking about Accelero X1s and other such things =^)

diver · Post by **diver** » Fri May 19, 2006 3:00 pm

Under Linux the fan would probably spin at 100% speed, unless the Nvidia drivers for Linux addressed this issue.

My 7600GT sceams like the dickens while looking over the bios screens.

First we had winmodems, now we have Winvga.

Webmonkey · Post by **Webmonkey** » Sat May 20, 2006 5:28 am

Ryan Norton wrote:It's driver controlled... I've never run Linux so I'm not sure what Nvidia's Linux driver support is like. Basically, the card fan kicks in before the driver does, and as soon as the driver is loaded the fan goes to a normal speed. I haven't plumbed too deep into the fan controls just cause I haven't needed to... even during long periods of 3D gaming, I've never heard the 7900GTX stock fan get louder. It's great so far, IMO-- only my desire to tinker keeps me thinking about Accelero X1s and other such things =^)

BTW - anyone know of any 7900 cards that come premodded with the X1 cooler????

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:04 am

Correct me if i'm wrong, but the fan is _not_ driver (OS) controlled but vga bios controlled...

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:06 am

I defer

I actually haven't been PC gaming much for the past couple weeks, so I haven't heard the stock cooler at all, since it so rarely revs up even in 3D. I'm still 100% happy with it, I'd say, only my natural desire to tinker leads me to consider a 3rd party cooler.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:31 am

Glad it's working so well for you. Wish I could say the same about my MSI 7600GT VIVO lol.

Wanted to point out the vga bios is the controller, not an OS driver, just so those using alternative OSes don't have anything to worry about (myself included).

Best regards

DrCR

_________
VectorLinux 5.1.1 SOHO, Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake

Webmonkey · Post by **Webmonkey** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:05 am

DrCR wrote:Correct me if i'm wrong, but the fan is _not_ driver (OS) controlled but vga bios controlled...

I hope you are correct, this would be the most logical design, so that cooler performance is depending on a driver.....

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 7:31 am

Well, it turns out I was only sort-of correct.

I'm in the process of setting up a new machine. The vga bios slows the 7600GT's fan down somewhat a few seconds after the inital full-tilt rpm at boot-up, but it didn't slow down to its quietest level (which isn't very quiet really*) until I installed the nvidia driver for Win2000/XP.

So full-tilt, then not quite full tilt, then (upon the loading of WinOS and nvidia driver) the slowest rpm.

So it is at least to some extent dependent on the OS driver. Not sure if the Linux propriety nvidia driver will ramp it down as well. I'll be installing my primary OS in a moment (VectorLinux), so we'll see. For the record, WinXP installation is such a pain compared to Linux lol.

DrCR

__________
* During inital setup, I'm running two D12SL-12 @ 12, Scythe Mine @ 12v and two WesterDigital JBs as loud as they will ever sound since the case-cover is off. The 7600GT in WinOS + nvidia 84.21 is easily the loudest component.

Edit: The card is a MSI NX7600GT VT2D256E (like this).

Webmonkey · Post by **Webmonkey** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 8:11 am

DrCR wrote:Well, it turns out I was only sort-of correct.

I'm in the process of setting up a new machine. The vga bios slows the 7600GT's fan down somewhat a few seconds after the inital full-tilt rpm at boot-up, but it didn't slow down to its quietest level (which isn't very quiet really*) until I installed the nvidia driver for Win2000/XP.

So full-tilt, then not quite full tilt, then (upon the loading of WinOS and nvidia driver) the slowest rpm.

So it is at least to some extent dependent on the OS driver. Not sure if the Linux propriety nvidia driver will ramp it down as well. I'll be installing my primary OS in a moment (VectorLinux), so we'll see. For the record, WinXP installation is such a pain compared to Linux lol.

DrCR

__________
* During inital setup, I'm running two D12SL-12 @ 12, Scythe Mine @ 12v and two WesterDigital JBs as loud as they will ever sound since the case-cover is off. The 7600GT in WinOS + nvidia 84.21 is easily the loudest component.

Edit: The card is a MSI NX7600GT VT2D256E (like this).

I look forward to hearing your report!

I think myself, I will settle for a 7600GT - from Asus with passive cooling..

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 8:36 am

DrCR wrote:For the record, WinXP installation is such a pain compared to Linux lol.

Vista is much nicer to install than XP, create/choose partition, choose your region and language, click install

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:00 pm

Well, last night I installed a copy of Ubuntu 6.06 and the latest nvidia driver via Synaptic...the vga's fan didn't ramp down like it did in WinOS.

It certainly could be me though. I'm still trying to figure out the ins-and-outs of nvidia driver installation, how to setup FSAA, AA, etc. and how to setup known compatible games in Linux.

--

I hate WinXP installs not because of noob friendliness, but becase I have so little control compared to a unix/linux install (which MS seemly equates to noob friendliness).

As for Vista, have you tried installing it on a non-primary partition or with other, unix/linux partitions on the hard drive?

Haven't played with Vista since Beta1, for which I just used another harddrive I had laying around. I seriously don't think I'll be going for Vista at home (at IT is another matter). I need to play with a copy of Build5456 though.

I really hope Jobs opens up OSX86 to non-Mac PCs, even if only unoffically. I could have OSX on my rig right now, only I'm not willing to go the cracked copy route...

DrCR

___________
Windows98SE is to WindowsME as Windows XP is to...

nici · Post by **nici** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:09 pm

As for Vista, have you tried installing it on a non-primary partition or with other, unix/linux partitions on the hard drive?

No, im too scared it will mess up the XP install in some way..

My only experience with linux is Fedora Core 4 on the server at school.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:25 pm

I have *never* heard the fan on my 7900GTX ramp up. However it is in my P180 which is tucked away under my very big oak table. And my P180 has all the Tricools on 'low', with 2 x Nexus 120mms (one on the upper HDD cage, another on the XP 120). To me, it's pretty quiet, but I'm sure all that plus my four internal hard drives (2 x 150 GB Raptors RAID 0, 200 + 250 IDE HDDs) definately drown it out.

nina · Post by **nina** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:03 pm

If you live in Germany or Europe and don't bother to order
via internet.
This site/shop sells videocards with silent zalman fans on it (preinstalled),
with guarantee.

http://www.grafikkartenpower.de/shop/ca ... p?cPath=59

silon · Post by **silon** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:08 am

for all of you using stock nvidia coolers out there, check out nTune.

im using a 7600GT and i still think its noisy after the 2nd speed reduction [when the driver loads] so i use nTune to lower the 2D fan speed to 25%.

[edit]
i almost forgot, im not sure wheter its my DFI mobo, but everytime i restart, the settings go back to default. right now im thinking there is an issue with ntune not being able to work 100% because of slight incompatibilities with the lanparty but i could be wrong.
[/edit]

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 2:17 pm

Hey, thanks for mentioning nTune and the issues you've had with it. Thought about hunting down this app before, but never bothered since I have a VF-900 enroute.
----

Well, I'm happy to report I am once again wrong lol. The fan will ramp down upon nvidia proprietary linux driver installation!

Just installed Nvidia-Linux-x86-1.0-8762 on my primary distro of choice, VectorLinux 5.1.1 SOHO following this HowTo guide, and upon restarting xserver I was pleasantly suprised by the fan ramping down. Now how's that for a happy ending.

Not sure what was up with Ubuntu's synaptic nvidia driver install that didn't work in more ways than one. Though experienced to some degree, I still consider myself very much a Linux newbie. Without the above VL link, I still wouldn't be quite sure exactly what I would have to do kernal source wise, etc. So the Ubuntu issue was probably just user error, I'm sure.

Just wanted to share. Now off to figure out how to setup FSAA, AA, etc....

DrCR

____________
Edit: Sorry for the continued thread hijack Ryan. Maybe the use a more politically correct term like "thread evolution" would help disuade your wrath...

chdude3 · Post by **chdude3** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:19 pm

I can't even get nTune to run. Both the monitoring program and the actual nTune software completely freeze my system when I try to run them.