Gigabyte's new GV-R577SL-1GD features an impressive, passive cooling system.
Monday GIGABYTE announced the GV-R577SL-1GD, a new AMD Radeon HD 5770 graphics card featuring an internally-developed Ultra Durable VGA technology and Silent-cell cooling design. The latter technology provides a passive approach to cooling using four high-performance heat pipes and two additional fins. Encompassing the entire surface of the PCB, the cooling system resembles a car's radiator grille and looks quite impressive.
"GV-R577SL-1GD is comprised of 4 high-performance heat pipes which are connected to the ultra-huge copper base plate," the company said. "By adopting ultra-huge pure copper base with 4 heat pipes, heat can spreads effectively from hot areas. In addition, GV-R577SL-1GD enhances the overall cooling capability by utilizing the precision process to deliver zero-interval combination between heat pipes and fins. Furthermore, 2 additional fins increase 52.87% surface area to dissipate the GPU temperature."
GIGABYTE said that--when compared to other cards--the Ultra Durable VGA Technology provides 10- to 30-percent more overclocking capabilities, 5- to 10-percent lower GPU temperatures, and "excellent" power efficiency, decreasing power switching loss by 10- to 30-percent. Ultra Durable VGA also features a 2 oz. copper PCB board, Samsung and Hynix memory, Japanese solid capacitor, Ferrite /Metal Core Chokes, and more.
With a core clock of 850 MHz and a memory clock of 4800 MHz, the new GIGABYTE card comes packed with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and support for DirectX 11, Eyefinity, Stream, CrossFireX, and more. Although the product is not yet available on the GIGABYTE website, more information can be obtained here. Unfortunately, pricing and availability was not provided.
I am not a big fan of passive cooling. I tried with a single 9800gt, it heated up to 121c. Needless to say I went back to active cooling.
"the cooling system resembles a car's radiator grille"
Not the full radiator, learn to read the article and not just the title.
Passive cooling relies on the native airflow of the case, rather than having an onboard fan on the card. Your card heated up so much (most likely) due to poor air circulation where the passive unit was.
With a big case cooler fan, it helps to suck out the heat generated by the radiators.
As shown on this ATI5770, the 2nd slot is used as an exhaust vent. This CUSTOM design use used by Gigabyte and looks very much like my 7600GT from years ago... and it was HUGE back then.
For heat issues, I switch to BIG-FAN coolers like HIS graphics cards which come with ICE coolers, which I had before my 7600GT. My 4670 is ICE and silent.
Paid $180 for my 7600GT - Passive and $80 for my 4670
this is why air duster cans were invented...prob solved
Seems like 95% of graphics cards come with a little factory reference fan and thats the end of it. Unless you mod it yourself or find a solution like this your stuck with the norm.