Silent 7600GT comparison

IrishEmperor

Im considering getting a passively cooled 7600gt.
The two that caught my eye are from Asus & from Gigabyte.

The benchmark results seem to be similar to each other.
The Asus costs more, but has a bigger (but perhaps more cumbersome?) cooler, and is better at cooling the memory on the card.
The Gigabyte is less expensive, uses some copper (better) instead of all aluminium (like asus), has a heatsink that vents directly out of the case (better?). However, the memory appears to reach temps of 90c!

The Asus costs €40 more than the gigabyte.
Anyone think the price diff is justified?

I havent found it from any Irl/UK/Eur vendors - just US.
If I do have it shipped, what are the odds itll get flagged by customs and taxed? (how do they calc the tax owed? is it 21% of what you paid? or do they have some mad list with absurd prices?)

Thanks for any and all input ^_^

8T8

Memory temps aren't anything to be overly concerned about the stock active cooler on the 7600GT doesn't even cool them only the GPU. Plus the fact they wouldn't be selling it if weren't in the tolerances of the chips.

As for sourcing the card couldn't say on the US taxes though this German shop sells them called JES Computer. I recall some time back someone telling me they ship to Ireland don't know if that is still the case but they have the Gigabyte and a MSI passive 7600GT (but not in stock).

IrishEmperor

8T8 wrote:

Memory temps aren't anything to be overly concerned about the stock active cooler on the 7600GT doesn't even cool them only the GPU. Plus the fact they wouldn't be selling it if weren't in the tolerances of the chips.

but theres quite a difference in between cards, esp silent vs fan-cooled, but also silent vs silent: so there must be something going on there...

8T8 wrote:

As for sourcing the card ..this German shop sells them called JES Computer...Gigabyte and a MSI passive 7600GT

Cheers, will check that out

Kintarō Hattori

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?view=1&id=9295&type=6&sid=1395261x0

Peat's sell the passive Gigabyte model, despite the picture.

IrishEmperor

eo980 wrote:

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?view=1&id=9295&type=6&sid=1395261x0

Peat's sell the passive Gigabyte model, despite the picture.

cool, do you know if its the same price?

8T8

If you mean as to why the forward RAM chips on the Gigabyte have a higher temp well looking at the two cards I can see the Asus units heat sink seems to traverse over the forward RAM chips whereas the Gigabyte does not maybe some of heat from the chips is absorbed by the Asus unit.

Or the location of the heat pipes over the forward RAM chips on the Gigabyte unit raise the temp of the chip due to the heat pipes transferring heat away from the GPU, the pipes themselves probably get fairly hot.

If the Gigabyte is the only option & you are really concerned about it you could always get some big but slow moving fan that is barely audible to give it some extra cooling space permitting of course.

Kintarō Hattori

IrishEmperor wrote:

cool, do you know if its the same price?

Well it's €229, I think it's pretty similar to the Jes price when you factor in shipping.

IrishEmperor

I just won an ebay auction for an Asus one last night.
Its coming from the US, so when it gets here -i'll post as to how it works out