Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT
560/700 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT, 256 MB GDDR3Core Clock : 558 MHz
Memory Clock : 702 MHz (1404 MHz GDDR3)
Overall Score: 75 points
The Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT Silent Pipe is one of two dual slot cards in this round up. True to its name, this card relies only on passive cooling to cool the GeForce 76000GT core. Though you can't see it in the picture, there's actually two radiators on this card - one in the front and one in the back. Both radiators are connected to the all copper main heatsink via two heatpipes. No doubt the design was tweaked from the original to make the card more friendly and easier to install / remove in SLI setups. However, the placement of heatpipes also introduce another problem - you can't use passive cooling on the memory chips (at least those above the core).
The card comes in a typical Gigabyte packaging, though thankfully a little bit smaller than Gigabyte's high end cards. Inside the box, Styrofoam padding and cutaways help keep the contents safe and unmoving. Definitely better than the EN7600GT. Since this is a mainstream card, you can't really expect much in the bundle department. Gigabyte was nice enough to include a HDTV dongle, two DVI to analog dongle and two CDs - one with the drivers and utilities and a full game - Serious Sam II.
We admit, we are generally skeptical of passively cooled cards. Mainly because these cards are often tested by manufacturers under very 'ideal' settings - like with a 20° Celsius room temperature. No doubt not all of us will use our PC in such a room. So, during testing, we've decided to actively cool the card with an off the shelf, low RPM 8 cm case fan. We'll take a look at how the card perform without fan later. Below is RivaTuner's hardware monitoring graph of the Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT after several minutes of Quake 4.
Not bad at all - 52° Celsius at full load and around 40° Celsius at idle. That's lower than the EN7600GT, which is expected since the cooling solution is larger - more heat dissipation area. Looking back to our Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT Silent Pipe review, things have really cool down a lot. Even with a fan, that card can reach 62° Celsius at idle and 86° Celsius at full load. No doubt the core's direct contact with the heatsink helps the GeForce 7600GT achieve better heat transfer. OK, let's see how this card perform without a fan.
This is why we are skeptical of passive cooling solutions - 67° Celsius at full load. From the looks of it, we haven't reach the peak yet. While it is much better than their first try, we still think Gigabyte should've at least provide an optional fan, since obviously in most cases you still need it. Silent Pipe II is getting better, but it's not quite there yet.
Obviously, those who are very picky about noise will love this card - no fan, no noise. We agree that it's Silent and it is better than its predecessor. However, there's also a price to pay - a card that's hotter than GeForce 7600 from other manufacturers. Of course the choice is yours, but we feel a cooling solution should be cool first and silent second.
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