Passive GPU: Geforce GTS 450 or ATI Radeon HD5770?

If you playing games then never pick passive cooler, always get an active cooler with fan, graphic card can get hot pretty fast when you're playing games...
And forget about OC capabilities, your card can't stand with the heat.
For HTPC? why don't you pick HD5670? It's a good gaming card and great for HTPC.  

wa1 is right, for gaming there is no passive option. The card will overheat.

Depending on how big your case is i would buy a 5770 witch is more powerful then the gtx450. get a vapor-x from sapphire if you want low noise and low heat, get the hawk from msi if you want to overclock it better, or get a normal one if you do not have any fans or bad case airflow.

What case do you want to use for your HTPC?

Msi hawk http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Sapphire http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Thanks for both, I'm still choosing between these two passive cards mentioned. My gaming will be light and case will be cooled nice and quietly (P183). In tests I've found these cards have reached 88C (HD5770 passive) and 71C (GTS 450 active) after 30 mins of furmark. Not seen GTS 450 passive tested yet, but I suppose it'll run cooler. Keep on with your advices  

If you are using the P183, and are willing to mount a fan directly in front of the video card (as that case allows, with the included accessories), then you should be fine with a passive video card - even for gaming. Where I work we've done tons of GeForce GT 240 and Radeon 5750 passive setups, even in SLI / Crossfire, and they are very quiet and don't overheat (assuming good airflow elsewhere too). We haven't tested the new 5770 or GTS 450 passively yet, but I'm sure a single one of those would be fine... probably not two, though, as they will be putting off a fair amount of heat. I would also not think about overclocking - that is just asking too much from a passive cooler.

As a person who has a passively cooled 9600GT in a HTPC case. I will say that a passively cooled card can be used to play games. The 9600GT has higher power requirements and higher heat dissipation than the HD 5770.

I have played some games with it like Fallout 3, Far Cry, Galactic Civilization and Crysis. I had no issue with heat whatsoever.

However, I must point out that airflow is important when passively cooling a GPU. Therefore, you need to look for a case with good airflow. Personally, I use the SilverStone Crown CW02 case with a nice large 120mm fan and two 92mm fans to cool the hard drive cages.

Inside the case I have an E6600 @ stock speed and passively cooled by a Tuniq Tower, a Soundblaster Audigy 2, DVD burner drive, and 6 hard drives. Oh yeah, a MSI 975x Plantinum Power-up mobo and 4GB of Corsair RAM too. All that powered by a Seasonic S12 500w PSU.

My HTPC has basically been running smoothly for the last 2.5 - 3 years.

i dont quite get this passive cooling thing. when you have an htpc, presumably you're a couple of feet away from your chassis when you're viewing your movie, and you do have a home theater sound system. and if you're actually gaming, i believe the bgm/sound effects would overlap any fan noise your system creates, unless you play on mute.

and if you're using an ati card, the fan slows down relative to the gpu's work load (doesnt happen on any of my nvidia cards (8600gt,9500gt,8400gs,9600gt,gts250,gtx260-216)).

The whole purpose of passive cooling is to eliminate as much ambient noise as possible.

Some people don't mind the whirling of fans while watching a movie or listening to music.

Other people do not want to be annoyed by hearing noise while trying to enjoy listening to music or watching a movie.

nope, they don't need a passively cooled gpu if they still hear ambient noises coming from their system @ that scenario. they need a better sound system that's all.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gts-450-review-roundup/16p

Overall sound quality takes into consideration noise level, ideally I would like to keep overall ambient sound to much less than 30 dBa. The point is not to drown out ambient noise, but to eliminate it as much as possible.

We are looking at things from two different perspectives. I'm viewing it from an audiophile point of view, while you are looking at it from a more general everyday person who is doesn't mind listening to music in significantly less than optimal conditions.

Agreed, but i do not think a fanless video card is absolutely necessary. I have the 5770 vapor-x version, arctic freezer pro 7 as a CPU cooler and 2 noctua fans(front and back of the case). The loudest fans are the noctua ones and they are very low noise. I will ad that the CPU cooler make's a little noise but only when the side window is opened and i stuck my ear next to it.

With out going into 3D mode there are lots of video cards that can not be heard.
Plus, my system is 2.5 years old, the electronic/electric sound comes into consideration, every computer has that.

And as you said, if you do not have good airflow inside the case with passive cooling that might be a little problematic.

Well, getting back to the main point of this thread...

It is possible to use a relatively powerful video card that is passively cooled for gaming? Yes, as long as there is sufficient airflow and the ambient temperature is not too warm. There won't be much cooling if the ambient temp is say... 90°F (32°C) compared to 70°F (21°C).

Is a passively cooled video card absolutely necessary for a low noise HTPC? No. However, it is based on preference and how high a person's tolerance is to noise for the particular application or purpose of the computer.


My particular preferences are:

HTPC - As quiet as possible, hence I use passively cooled E6600 CPU and a passively cooled 9600GT. Additionally spending extra $$$ on quiet 120mm exhaust fan and two 92mm intake fans to cool my hard drives.

Primary Rig - Noise is less of a concern. I still look for quiet components, but not to the extent of my HTPC.

If you have not heard of www.silentpcreview.com, then I recommend you go to that site get more info about building a silent / quiet PC.

Thanks, I have visited spcr as a quest for over a year, it's a great forum like this. It's just that they are more into sound levels there than into power consumption/performance. I'm an audiophile and I live in a very quiet place, so i'm into very quiet system builds. Now I'm trying to update to HDMI 1.4a support without getting more noise. As I said my gaming is light, so heat shouldn't be a problem. My current passive GPU runs around 47C in my normal use.