Cards Summary and Prices
In total, we have 20 silent GPUs for this review, and this is a large number of cards to keep track of. With that in mind, we have a breakdown of the cards and their prices in this section. Some of the cards are older generation and we don't have prices for them at this time; specifically, the ASUS EN6600 GT Silencer and the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent. These two cards have been around for a while and while rare, it is still possible to find them floating around on the market if you know where to look.
Here are the cards and prices:
As sometimes happens, some of these cards couldn't be found for sale at the time of this writing (marked with a *), but we still listed a rough idea of what kind of prices we expect them to carry. Keep in mind that these are all silent cards, so prices for a non-silent version of the same card may be very different. This is because it may be more efficient and therefore less costly to design and manufacture a card without any moving parts. On the other hand, with a card like the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent, the silent version is likely to be more expensive than its standard competitors, given the radical heat sink design required to keep the card running cool.
While we couldn't find any Gigabyte 7300 GTs available for purchase at the time of this writing, you should expect to pay around $140 or more for this part, depending on the vendor, availability, etc. This is a bit more than a standard clocked 7300 GT like MSI's, but the performance increase we will see from Gigabyte's factory overclock on this card puts it more in competition with the 7600 GS than the 7300 GT.
The Albatron 7300 GT also appears to be unavailable for purchase at this time, but we speculate that it should cost about the same or slightly less than the Gigabyte 7300 GT, given that their factory overclocks are similar. While there is a 50MHz difference in core clock speeds between these two cards, the difference in performance between them will be fairly close (depending on the game and settings) as we will see in the performance section.
We aren't sure about cards like the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2, HIS X1600 Pro and Gigabyte X1600 XT, so we listed a price range that reflects a number of cards of the same type that are available by other manufacturers. There is a lot of overlap here of course, and we can't know for sure what these cards will sell for (or even when/if they will be available for purchase), but we can make some price suggestions for these cards based on their performance and the prices that we have for our other silent cards in this review. The Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 for instance would be a good value closer to the same price as the Gigabyte 7300 GS, given the similarity in performance: probably about $45-$50. The HIS X1600 Pro would be a decent buy at around $95-$100, and the Gigabyte X1600 XT should probably list for around $140-$150, given current prices for this ATI part.
In general, the prices for all of these cards -- with the exception of the older ASUS 7800 GT and 6600 GT -- will range from about $50 to $170 which puts them in the mid-range and budget categories. Higher performance cards generate more heat, and as we mentioned, slower cards are better suited for silent operation. That is why we don't see many fast cards like the 7800 GT and above that are completely silent. As technology improves and cards become more efficient, we will surely see silent cards with much higher performance capabilities, particularly if there continues to be demand for silent solutions.
In total, we have 20 silent GPUs for this review, and this is a large number of cards to keep track of. With that in mind, we have a breakdown of the cards and their prices in this section. Some of the cards are older generation and we don't have prices for them at this time; specifically, the ASUS EN6600 GT Silencer and the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent. These two cards have been around for a while and while rare, it is still possible to find them floating around on the market if you know where to look.
Here are the cards and prices:
| Graphics Card Prices | |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN7800 GT Top Silent | $399* |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN7600 GS Silent 512 | $138 |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN7600 GS Silent | $129 |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN6600 GT Silencer | $178* |
| ASUS ATI Radeon EAX1600 XT Silent | $156 |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT | $167 |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS | $110 |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT | $100-$140* |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS | $55 |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1600 PRO | $95 |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1600 XT | $110-$170* |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1300 PRO | $73 |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1300 | $52 |
| EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 7600 GS | $117 |
| SPARKLE NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS Ultra 2 | $40-$115* |
| ALBATRON NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT | $90-$140* |
| HIS ATI Radeon X1600 PRO | $95-$110* |
| HIS ATI Radeon X1300 PRO | $98 |
| MSI NVIDIA GeForce NX7600 GS | $115 |
| MSI NVIDIA GeForce NX7300 GT | $77 |
As sometimes happens, some of these cards couldn't be found for sale at the time of this writing (marked with a *), but we still listed a rough idea of what kind of prices we expect them to carry. Keep in mind that these are all silent cards, so prices for a non-silent version of the same card may be very different. This is because it may be more efficient and therefore less costly to design and manufacture a card without any moving parts. On the other hand, with a card like the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent, the silent version is likely to be more expensive than its standard competitors, given the radical heat sink design required to keep the card running cool.
While we couldn't find any Gigabyte 7300 GTs available for purchase at the time of this writing, you should expect to pay around $140 or more for this part, depending on the vendor, availability, etc. This is a bit more than a standard clocked 7300 GT like MSI's, but the performance increase we will see from Gigabyte's factory overclock on this card puts it more in competition with the 7600 GS than the 7300 GT.
The Albatron 7300 GT also appears to be unavailable for purchase at this time, but we speculate that it should cost about the same or slightly less than the Gigabyte 7300 GT, given that their factory overclocks are similar. While there is a 50MHz difference in core clock speeds between these two cards, the difference in performance between them will be fairly close (depending on the game and settings) as we will see in the performance section.
We aren't sure about cards like the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2, HIS X1600 Pro and Gigabyte X1600 XT, so we listed a price range that reflects a number of cards of the same type that are available by other manufacturers. There is a lot of overlap here of course, and we can't know for sure what these cards will sell for (or even when/if they will be available for purchase), but we can make some price suggestions for these cards based on their performance and the prices that we have for our other silent cards in this review. The Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 for instance would be a good value closer to the same price as the Gigabyte 7300 GS, given the similarity in performance: probably about $45-$50. The HIS X1600 Pro would be a decent buy at around $95-$100, and the Gigabyte X1600 XT should probably list for around $140-$150, given current prices for this ATI part.
In general, the prices for all of these cards -- with the exception of the older ASUS 7800 GT and 6600 GT -- will range from about $50 to $170 which puts them in the mid-range and budget categories. Higher performance cards generate more heat, and as we mentioned, slower cards are better suited for silent operation. That is why we don't see many fast cards like the 7800 GT and above that are completely silent. As technology improves and cards become more efficient, we will surely see silent cards with much higher performance capabilities, particularly if there continues to be demand for silent solutions.
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imaheadcase - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
I guess to each his own, i play bf2 on a 19inch CRT monitor at 1024x768. But even if i had a better card i would still prefer lower rez.DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
it's an issue of how games work on the inside ...all the objects, shapes, characters, and landscapes are there no matter how you see them. everything is mathematically represented in the software. rendered onto your display is a viewport into the world. this viewport only allows you to see a fixed grid of colors. the color of each pixel is determined by a bunch of factors, but the largest contribution is made by the object that projects onto a particular pixel.
... on second thought, this is too hard for me to explain with out a lot of math. lets look at it another way.
when there's a naked person on tv, they decrease the resolution of the area over the persons naughty bits. this makes it harder to see what's really there because there is a smaller number of large pixels that can only represent one color each. it follows, then, that it would also be harder to shoot the person acurately in said bits.
I think your preference may be based on your experience with performance at higher resolutions. Responsiveness is necessary for a quality experience in games like bf2. If you get a faster card, I would encourage you to at least try a higher resolution.
blckgrffn - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
When it is in stock at newegg, its ~$90, not nearly $140.Nat
mostlyprudent - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
I would be interested to know how much noise (quantitatively) an actively cooled 7600GS or 7600GT contributes to a system built in a relatively quiet case like an Antec P150. I am familiar with some of the leaf blowers attached to the higher end cards, but wonder how much overall system noise savings you'ld get in the mid-range cards.wilburpan - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
One obvious use for silent video cards would be in an HTPC system, where quiet performance would be a priority. Can't have those noisy computer fans intrude on watching Snakes on a Plane, you know. :@) Anyway, it would have been nice to include some video playback benchmarks to see how these cards can handle playing back a 1080p HDTV signal, or similiar tests.ViRGE - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Since HDTV is MPEG2, any modern video card should be able to handle a 1080P signal(since this is an either/or case, it either can or can't). The limitations come in to H.264, where the video decode engine may not be clocked high enough to do higher resolution decoding. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's any 1080 commerical/usable content that would work with Cyberlink/Intervideo's H.264 decoders(the only ones with GPU acceleration), since Quicktime content doesn't work in those.DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
with nvidia, the video decode engine is clocked off the core -- it actually will run better on a card with fewer pipelines and a higher core speed ... iow, the 7600gt is a better video decode graphics card than a 7900gt at default clock speeds.a little counter intuitive, but there it is.
nvidia 7 series parts with a core clock of >450 MHz should have no problem accelerating 1080p decode on players that support purevideo.
MontagGG - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Which of these have HDCP?DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
to my knowledge, none of the cards tested here support hdcp. but I will certainly try to confirm this ...