8600 cards that have fan throttling?

[Mancora]

I put together two systems recently, both with an emphasis on being quiet (using the P180 case). One of the systems has a BFG 8600 GTS, the other with a MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC. I purchased the MSI card without reading up on it because I was in a hurry to get my systems up and running. The MSI card does not appear to have fan throttling, or maybe its just noisy, either way its too noisy for me.


I did some quick searching on the web and forums there doesn’t appear to be much concern for video cards that are quiet under light use (which is most of the time for me).


Any suggestions for a HDCP 8600 card that is quiet?


Edit: I'd go with the BFG card I already have for my main system, but its $100 more than most other cards.

[Squirrel Meat]

go to www.guru3d.com and get rivatuner 2.0, that will allow you to change your fan settings. just make sure you are running the latest forceware drivers which you can get at that site as well

[blitzekriec]

These two are good choices, though I'm not the biggest ASUS fan in the world.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121077

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125063

[Mancora]

I'd rather stay away from software solutions because I expect to be putting non windows OSes on this machine.



Any thoughts on this silent 8600 GTS by MSI? I haven't been able to find much about this card at all.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127287

[pwalker1]

I just ordered the BFG 8600GTS OC it's supposed to have the new thermoIntelligence system on it. It's supposed to be a huge improvement over the reference design. I'm not sure if it's any quieter then the other cards. I'll let you know when I get mine on friday. Anyone have a clue as to what kinds of perfromance upgrade this is going to be going from a 6800? I'm hoping its worth the 200 I spent on it.

[Transfurzz]

I just ordered the BFG 8600GTS OC it's supposed to have the new thermoIntelligence system on it. It's supposed to be a huge improvement over the reference design. I'm not sure if it's any quieter then the other cards. I'll let you know when I get mine on friday. Anyone have a clue as to what kinds of perfromance upgrade this is going to be going from a 6800? I'm hoping its worth the 200 I spent on it.

A 8600GT is roughly equal to a 7800GT, give or take, it also has a more efficient architechture to boot. It's definitely worth it.

It however can't be compared to the 8800 series, even on paper it's obvious that the gap between the midrange and highend this time round is incredible.

[pwalker1]

I'm wondering if I shouldn't just sell the 8600gts and my 6800 and maybe scrape enough together for an 8800gts. I was planning on keeping the 6800 for a future build though. Very tempting. I'm just wondering I can get around $100 for my old asus 6800?

[Mancora]

I just ordered the BFG 8600GTS OC it's supposed to have the new thermoIntelligence system on it. It's supposed to be a huge improvement over the reference design. I'm not sure if it's any quieter then the other cards. I'll let you know when I get mine on friday. Anyone have a clue as to what kinds of perfromance upgrade this is going to be going from a 6800? I'm hoping its worth the 200 I spent on it.

It might not be, there are three of the BFG 8600 GTS versions floating around.

From BFG site:
8600 GTS OC2 256MB PCIe with ThermoIntelligence
8600 GTS OC 256MB PCIe with ThermoIntelligence
8600 GTS OC 256MB PCIe

The card without the ThermoIntelligence setup has the fan in a different location.

I picked up the non-ThermoIntelligence GTS from bestbuy today for $200 and am still testing its noise output (its normally quiet in my room).

[pwalker1]

I ordered mine from zipzoomfly so I guess it will be luck of the draw on the TI. I'm hoping I get the TI card though they claim it runs on average 11c cooler then the reference design. Mine will be here monday so I'll find out then. How is the noise output on the non TI one? Anything will be quiter then my 6800 though the fan is on its last leg.

[Mancora]

So far fan throttling kicks in once the OS starts loading, after which I can't hear it over the other case fans, which seems to be different from the OC2 TI version I have in the other rig.

I'm a bit worried that it might not throttle under other OSes, and that will be one of my main uses for the second rig.

[Mancora]

Aaand, no it didn't throttle the fan under linux.


I was hesitant about going for the passive cooling due to the setup of my case so in the end, rather than trying out other cards around the $160 range and waisting time and money by screwing with them and having to return them I decided to just put down the extra $100 and go for the tried and true BFG 8600 GTS OC2.