Help me select a passive cooled nvidia 8500/600 card.

coopers · Post by **coopers** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:33 pm

Hi Folks,

I am building a HTPC, (with the occasional bit of gaming) and I am interested in getting either a nvidia 8500/8600... passively cooled, because I want it quiet.

Now, I can't seem to find any good comparisons/discussions about these cards, (stickies seem a bit out of date, and google is not being helpful) so I'm finding it a little hard to make a decision on what to aim for - so I can come to some kind of price/performance agreement with myself.

The amount of heat given off is important (so I don't have heaps of heat to exhaust, even if it is quiet) but I'm interested in finding out about various manufacturers, user experiences, maybe a comparison table, etc.

Anyone able to help?

Sizzle · Post by **Sizzle** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:35 am

I like my XFX Force Fatality 8600GT.

coopers · Post by **coopers** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:43 pm

xfx force fatality huh?

Nice.

I also saw that sparkle make some as well.

Does anyone know of a site that does comparisons? Or information about the heat given out?

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:42 pm

MSI do a 8600GT passive, which would be the one I'd buy if I were to upgrade now.

I really don't think there's going to be much in it performance and consumption wise between cards with the same GPU and memory - faster clocked cards will consume more, lower spec (8500) will consume less. I think the Gigabyte passive cards consume more power than they should, but that's about it.

crabnebula · Post by **crabnebula** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:20 pm

A few points that might be useful to you:

If you're in the US the MSI cards appear to be cheaper than others and would probably be good choices (can't find them in Canada).

Among the 8600GT models, the Asus has HDCP, to my knowledge others do not (if that is important to you). Note that all 8600GTS models do have HDCP, but the price/performance difference isn't worth it compared to the GT IMHO.

Personally, I've been through two Gigabyte 8600GT cards and both make buzzing/screeching noises. There are other reports of this on the web as well, so if silence is important they might not be the best choice. Otherwise they are great though.