Passive cooling for V9520 Video Suite (FX5200 Dual DVI card)

They make noise, too.

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Pakkapakka
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Passive cooling for V9520 Video Suite (FX5200 Dual DVI card)

Post by Pakkapakka » Mon Feb 09, 2004 10:25 am

I'm looking for a VGA card with two DVI outputs. Noiseless operation/passive cooling is an absolute requirement.

My first though is using a cheap FX5200 card with one of the Zalman passive VGA sinks. While the DVI signal quality of the FX5200 is the worst of the industry, I don't expect to get into trouble running 1280x1024 with short cables.

I have no experience with the Zalman passive cooling solutions for VGA cards. Is it possible to use the zalman coolers with the
ASUS V9520 Video Suite (picture below)? Is there any compatibility list?

Image

Of course, suggestions for other dual DVI cards would be welcome. I'm aware of the "Dual DVI" thread at the anandtech forums. I'm primarily interested in passive 2xDVI cards, or 2xDVI cards that that allow easy modification for passive cooling.

AGP 2x support is a requirement though. I'd like to continue using my Abit BH6 at least until the end of the year. This rules out any ATI 9600 series cards, as these are AGP 4x/8x only.

spacey
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Post by spacey » Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:01 pm

u can use smartdoctor to turn off the video card fan, thats what i do with my v9520. when i play games i put it on low speed. from what i herd a zalman zm80c will fit as well, i ordered one but i might just wait till i get a fx 5700 ultra dual dvi before i put it on anything.

sthayashi
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Post by sthayashi » Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:52 pm

Haven't read the Anandtech forum thread, but Matrox G550 Dual DVI and the P650 are completely passive, though obviously it's 3d performance leaves much to be desired.

awinner
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Post by awinner » Tue Feb 24, 2004 6:17 pm

After about 10 years of using a matrox card Ive just bought a asus 9280vs which is the ti4200 eqivalent to the 9520vs. I installed a zalman z80c-hp on it and works like a charm. I wanted dual dvi and the asus beats the matrox's hands down of price and performance. I have other computers here and I can tell you the 2d quality on the asus is just as good as the matrox.

Mario
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Post by Mario » Wed Feb 25, 2004 4:46 am

I have that card and I substituted the whiny fan with a zalman passive north bridge cooler ZM-NB47J and it is working fine since 3 months, but no 3D games tested as I don't play games.
Temps from smartdoctor are between 40 and 46 C.
Good luck

PretzelB
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Post by PretzelB » Wed Feb 25, 2004 5:55 am

You don't mention what the card needs to do only that you need two dvi ports. Is this for gaming or for photoshop type work? The answer to the gaming question is key.

Also, why does it have to be a dual dvi? My guess is you're driving two flat panels but you can get a vga-to-dvi converter and run two flat panels can't you? I never tried this but I assume it can be done. Quality might be an issue but you said that you're willing to give up some quality by going with the 5200 so again I'm confused as to what your requirements are.

Another option is to get a separate pci card. Many lower end cards come in pci version. I would think they also come with dvi. This won't be good for games but you don't mention games.

Finally, I'm pretty sure the agp rating on your mb has nothing to do with the agp rating on your video card. The ratings are the max ratings so you can run an 8x video card on a 2x mb, it just won't run as fast as it would if it were on an 8x mb. For a while I had a 5700u (8x) on my 4x mb and had no problems.

spacey
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Post by spacey » Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:21 am

well i just put the zalman zm80c on my mine, temps are 39 deg idle. hopefully games are stable, haven't tried yet.

dual dvi is where its at if you have two lcd displays. problem is video cards that do that are scarce, anandtech's forum in the video section has a pretty good list. i'm going to setup a resource on getting multiple displays up and running.

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:56 pm

Hey, I have the same requirements as you (dual DVI), and this exact card arrived today from newegg. It is VERY hard to find dual DVI cards-- that anandtech thread you refer to is the best source in a very limited google seelction.

My plan is to install the Zalman HP80-C on this, or as an earlier poster pointed out, the fan is speed controllable through software (haven't installed mine yet, but that jibes with what I have read in reviews).

I also tried a Matrox P650 which is entirely passive, but oddly enough I could not get either the DVI or VGA converted output to work properly with my two Samsung 19" panels. The card booted into XP VGA mode with weird vertical blue stripes, then once I installed the proper driver-- no image at all after the XP loading screen. Not sure what the hell was going on there; I plan to RMA the card.

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Post by wumpus » Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:00 pm

While the DVI signal quality of the FX5200 is the worst of the industry
That is disturbing. What is your source? Extremetech did a DVI quality roundup but that was pre-FX; I assumed with the newer FX series chips the integrated on-chip DVI circuitry -- the 4 series used external chips to do the DVI output -- would do a decent job.

Per Tom's Hardware, there are NO consumer ATI cards with dual DVI of any kind, other than the ridiculously expensive ($600+) CAD oriented versions.

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:34 pm

nm I found it, and you're right:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3 ... 530,00.asp

how frustrating. The Matrox P650 I got, albeit a very clean looking refurb, was totally screwed up, so this is the SECOND card I've tried for DVI. Sigh. DVI compliance-- who knew?

At least the "crappy" Radeon 7000 I have with DVI/VGA does drive the one display properly via DVI. Which brings me to..
My guess is you're driving two flat panels but you can get a vga-to-dvi converter and run two flat panels can't you?
the problem is that the color balance is all off, because the two displays are being driven by different interfaces. One is analog (which is converted to digital by the display itself), and the other is pure digital. Too many conversions in the analog case..

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:12 am

Well, I installed the v9520 dual DVI card today and it drives my two Samsung 191 panels (1280x1024) just fine via DVI.. the card is not too noisy, at least, subjectively..

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Post by wumpus » Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:45 pm

Installed the Zalman zm80c-hp on my ASUS v9520 tonight-- a very easy install and it fits fine. As long as your video card has the two mounting holes around the GPU, I'd be surprised if the ZM80 did NOT fit, because its mounting hardware is so flexible.

I can verify that the v9520 fan does support software speed monitoring and speed control via the ASUS utility. Kind of a pain to use, but it really works-- turn the fan to "low" and you'll see the RPM drop, turn it to "off" and it goes to zero. Kind of cool.

Still, I prefer a completely passive solution, particularly on a low-end card like this which isn't generating that much heat to begin with. For what it's worth, the existing heatsink was installed via two plastic pins and a bit of real thermal paste; just push the pins through and it pops right off.

I had prevously used the older revision of the zalman zm80, this one is definitely superior-- mostly tweaks, but nice ones (clips on the top, more symmetric and lighter, etc). I have yet to meet a Zalman product I didn't like, in fact.. good stuff.*

* ooh, forgot about the Zalman 92mm fan, which comes default in their fan bracket kits-- it is HORRIBLE. One of the noisiest fans per CFM I've used.

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Post by wumpus » Fri Feb 27, 2004 10:54 pm

Umm, I think I can safely say that the zm80c-hp is massive overkill for a 5200 FX card. I have it in my test rig looping 3dmark2001 and it's barely even getting warm.

Compare to the zm80a-hp I have on a GeForce Ti 4200, which gets pretty toasty even at idle in windows!

Zalman does make some smaller models (zm-50-hp) that might be more appropriate for this low 5200 FX level of heat generation.. and only 10 bucks:

http://www.colorcase.com/22575.html

Pakkapakka
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Post by Pakkapakka » Fri Mar 19, 2004 2:36 pm

sthayashi wrote:Haven't read the Anandtech forum thread, but Matrox G550 Dual DVI and the P650 are completely passive, though obviously it's 3d performance leaves much to be desired.
At the end of the 1990s, I waited 2 years for Matrox to write decent drivers for NT 4.0.

After recently hearing rumors of Matrox laying off most of it's software development staff, I don't think I'll take the gamble again. (Especially since there are already big changes coming for the Windows graphics driver model)

Pakkapakka
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Post by Pakkapakka » Fri Mar 19, 2004 3:02 pm

PretzelB wrote:You don't mention what the card needs to do only that you need two dvi ports. Is this for gaming or for photoshop type work? The answer to the gaming question is key.
Good question.

Most of the time is spent programming, usually with code on one screen, and design diagrams/sample code/documentation on the other. Although I'd like to run some games once I a while.
PretzelB wrote: Also, why does it have to be a dual dvi? My guess is you're driving two flat panels but you can get a vga-to-dvi converter and run two flat panels can't you? I never tried this but I assume it can be done. Quality might be an issue but you said that you're willing to give up some quality by going with the 5200 so again I'm confused as to what your requirements are.
If I can choose (and I can, since this is my own development machine at home), I won't accept anything other than dual TFT. For me, the difference between working with a CRT and a TFT is enormous. My eyes feel much better after working on the 172Ts a day than they are after using the various 20" CRTs at the office.

The reason for dual DVI is to be more future-proof. I can see Dsub disappearing in a few years. Not on all models, but perhaps on the models I'd like to have. DVI is the future for mainstream displays, just as TFT is. I don't like to waste money on hardware only to throw it away a few years later - my main system is 5 years old now, and still working great.

Quality is also a thought, although I work on a pair of Samsung 172Ts in analog mode with great (subjective) quality.

Your question why going for the 5200 is right on target. As much as I value a display that lets my eyes rest, I value a system that is silent, and it seems getting the FX5200 passively cooled is possible. I stated the reason for not going with Matrox above. ATI doesn't have dual DVI as far as I know. The pro NVidia cards get quite hot in my experience.

Apart from all that, I'm not in the market for a real professional card. I believe the DVI signal quality issues mostly come into play when running 1600x1200, or using long cables. (I do neither)
PretzelB wrote: Finally, I'm pretty sure the agp rating on your mb has nothing to do with the agp rating on your video card. The ratings are the max ratings so you can run an 8x video card on a 2x mb, it just won't run as fast as it would if it were on an 8x mb. For a while I had a 5700u (8x) on my 4x mb and had no problems.
4x and 8x have different voltage requirements than 2x. It is possible to make a "universal" AGP card that will run on different voltages. The NVidia GeForce 4 and FX series are an example of this. (these cards have a 3-component AGP connector).

On the other hand, some cards like the ATI 9600 series can only be run in AGP 4x or 8x ports only - and with reason, as these cards are not compatible with AGP 2x voltages. (these cards have a 2-component AGP connector). I guess this saves a few cents for the OEMs.

Just compare some pictures of a ATI 9600 series card with a NVidia FX series card. Pay attention to the shape of the AGP connector.

Pakkapakka
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Post by Pakkapakka » Fri Mar 19, 2004 3:09 pm

This looks nice:

Gainward SilentFX PowerPack! Ultra/980 XP “Professional”:
Image

-GeForce FX 5700
-Dual DVI
-video-in/video-out
-€199

Image from the following article (a.k.a. glorified Gainward press release) at XBitLabs:
XBitLabs - Gainward Creates Noiseless Graphics Cards

halcyon
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Post by halcyon » Sat Mar 20, 2004 9:31 am

Hmmm.. that has dual heatpipes. I wonder if it's the new ZM80D-HP installed on that one?

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