Noise levels
Noise is of constant increasing concern, and some of these solutions were silent while others had mini-leaf blowers attached.These measurements were done on the entire system at about 1.5 feet from the back of the machine with no case on. The ambient noise of the system is 40.3dB, and anything above that level is what was added by the GPU fan(s). In our graphs, we will show the increase in system noise above our reference.
Some of the fans would automatically increase in speed when the card needed the extra cooling power, so we ran the noise test both at idle after booting into windows, and in the middle of an Unreal Tournament 2003 benchmarking session.
We can see that the LeadTek (in addition to being the highest clocked core and memory combination that we have) is the loudest card of the bunch when not at idle. It's important to point out that the sound of the fan on this card is a little lower pitched than other cards because of its unique shroud. Therefore, it isn't as intrusive as some of the other higher pitched (albeit quieter) cards. In future reviews, if possible, we will try to have recorded sound bytes of fan noise.
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Icewind - Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - link
Were are the comparison charts between the overclocked and stock speed 9800pro's? I must be blind, because I can't see them.par - Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - link
Where can I find the passively cooled 9600XT by sapphire? Newegg shows sapphires 9600xt with a fan.DerekWilson - Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - link
The Seagate HD: Barracuda 7200.7 PATA ... I'll add that to the tablemostlyprudent - Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - link
Nice article. A passively cooled 9600XT?!...I've found my next video card. There is one thing that I am unclear about - the Seagate hard drive used in the test setup - is it an SATA drive?