Sparkle 8800 GT Passive: The Fastest Silent GPU in the World
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 29, 2007 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Getting it Going
Remember my skepticism from earlier? I was so eager to find out if this thing worked that I threw it into our Core 2 Extreme QX9770 testbed which was already setup and ready to accept such a thermally defiant graphics card.
Surprisingly enough, it worked. In working on the 8800 GT roundup I quickly discovered that Crysis was an excellent overclocking/thermal test. It turns out that a number of early overclocked 8800 GT boards were either overclocked too far or didn't have their fans set to come on early enough, resulting in a lot of crashing and general unpleasantness. What's most interesting is that these cards would complete our Oblivion and Bioshock tests without a problem, but just firing up Crysis and trying to change resolutions was enough to lock up the entire system. Thus Crysis would be the perfect game to stress test the passively cooled Sparkle.
The G92 GPU temperature maxed out at around 102C (215.6F), which is amazingly hot. The heatsink itself grew hotter than anything we remember ever touching outside of a kitchen. We had to do a sanity check and look up the burning point of paper just to make sure we weren't creating a fire hazard by running this thing.
This temp comes from our next test...
Surprisingly enough, the system remained stable and we continued to play Crysis and run through our normal gaming benchmarks without a hitch. However, we had no idea if the 8800 GT Passive would hold up under a more real-world scenario: inside a case.
Making it Hot
We did have an ulterior motive for pairing the Sparkle 8800 GT Passive with our QX9770 test bed, we wanted to toss it in a case with the hottest, fastest Intel processor we had.
We gutted a nearby Velocity Micro HTPC and swapped in our ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (X38) motherboard and QX9770. If you're not familiar with the QX9770, it's a quad-core 3.2GHz Penryn/Yorkfield based processor that won't be out until early 2008. It's got a TDP of 135W and manages to get quite warm, so putting it three inches away from the Sparkle's fanless heatsink just seemed like a great idea.
We also threw in a 150GB Western Digital Raptor hard drive, we could've gone with something cooler but where's the fun in that?
The chassis has two 80mm case fans in the back above the CPU and we tested with them both on and off. The Seasonic SS-700HM PSU has two fans of its own, so running the system without any extra case fans wouldn't be a huge deal.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
55 Comments
View All Comments
xsilver - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
totally agree.Also the design of the sparkle doesn't look all that genius anyways.
eg. what about if you mount a zalman VF1000 or thermalright HR03 and simply pull out/not mount a fan??
how does it compare?
the sparkle model here could have easily made mounts for a fan which would entice many more buyers like me. (fan attached to fan controller, run fan only when necessary)
Kaleid - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
With zip ties and a bit of imagination fans can be attacted onto almost anything.As for the card, I suppose a non-passive plus Thermalright HR03GT and a low RPM fan would be the best solution for quiet but not entirely silent cooling.
111 degrees is not ok IMO, heck not even 94 degrees.
cw42 - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
I don't post here often, but that Mr Sparkle pic gets my two thumbs up for this review!The Boston Dangler - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
I'm sure you would have seen much lower temps with a different case. A perfect solution would be a box with positive pressure and vent(s) on the back, along the PCI slots. Some Antec and Silverstone towers, or most boxes with big fans on the front, would fit the bill nicely. Not many HTPC boxes are capable of positive pressure, but the way-too-pricey Silverstone CW02 has 2 90mm intakes and the PS draws from out side the box, allowing for positive pressure.The Velocity Micro case used in the review is actually the OriginAE X11. I don't think this box has the airflow desirable for a powerful passive vid card. I've had excellent results with using a Silverstone LC-20M and an XFX 7950GT HE9 (570 MHz). While positive pressure isn't possible with this box, I still get quite satifactory temps with a factory OC card. The PCI vent becomes an intake due to the draw of the 2 80mm rear fans and lousy intake from the front of the box. This results in a 10C drop, as compared to open case/no case running.
One similarity between the OriginAE and Silverstone cases is the PS mounted on it's side, with the lid mounting directly on top of it. Was there much (any) clearance between the card and the lid? In my box, there isn't even 1 CH of space left.
If possible, I ask you to put the card in a more suitable box and post the results. A P180 variant should be able to bring out the best in this card. With some tweaking, a very quiet SLI system should be possible.
Thanks,
Bill
The Boston Dangler - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
btw, i love the mr. sparkle picture. he is disrespectful to dirt!KeithTalent - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
Totally agree; so awesome. I would not even have bothered to read the article, but that picture drew me in.KT
SonicIce - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
=DAbRASiON - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
Believe it or not, the 512mb 8800GT was meant to be 199->249$This is why Dell can do them for 208$.
This is why Fry's / Outpost did them initially for 229$
It's certainly not meant to have started at 249$.
You'll find early Jan when the sales taper out, it'll be as low as 199$ US (best case, perhaps with rebates) and 229$ average.
Damn good, especially considering the poor prices of the new GTS and how it performs :(
shabby - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
No its not incorrect, the 199 pricetag was for the 256meg gt, 249 was for the 512. If you believe the 512meg gt was supposed to sell at $199 then why did ati price the slower 3870 at $230?AbRASiON - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
I believe that, because that's what every damned review said 6 weeks ago.The 256 pricing was unknown at the time.