Sapphire Unveils Passively Cooled Radeon HD 7770 Card

[Guest]

Sapphire demonstrates its new, passively cooled HD 7770 Ultimate graphics card at Computex.

Sapphire Unveils Passively Cooled Radeon HD 7770 Card : Read more

 

[amuffin]

40-50 above regular price is kind of bloated, don't you think!?

 

[kcorp2003]

did anyone read "Earth's Collapse is Imminent" below this one? makes me wonder if i would recycle all these GPUs i have in collection.

 

[blazorthon]

It's silent, doesn't need a PCIe power connector, and has two Displayports, meaning that it supports up to 4 displays at once. It probably won't overclock well, but it's stock value is actually superb IMO.

 

[theuniquegamer]

I would rather go for normal reference cards instead of giving a $50 premium on a $110/$150 cards for only passive cooling block.
If its an oc 7970/680 like cards with passive cooling then i may give $50 more for that

 

[blazorthon]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102980

This is the 7750 Ultimate with a passive cooler. It is $125 without the MIR and is $115 with the MIR and it has $5 shipping. Where is the $40 to $50 premium?

 

[joytech22]

[citation][nom]kcorp2003[/nom]did anyone read "Earth's Collapse is Imminent" below this one? makes me wonder if i would recycle all these GPUs i have in collection.[/citation]

I read it, but nothing can be done. Us Humans are too stupid and lazy to do anything significant and we take much too long. If the world is to change then we will adapt, but in doing so we will still be as destructive as we have always been.

Anyway... This card would go well in my HTPC. I just wish AMD released a single-slot solution for their 7870 or something.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]joytech22[/nom]I read it, but nothing can be done. Us Humans are too stupid and lazy to do anything significant and we take much too long. If the world is to change then we will adapt, but in doing so we will still be as destructive as we have always been.Anyway... This card would go well in my HTPC. I just wish AMD released a single-slot solution for their 7870 or something.[/citation]

A single-slot 7850 is on the way from AMD. I don't think that a single slot 7870 is coming, except maybe a water cooled 7870. However, I might be a little worried about airflow and noise with a single slot 7850 in an HTPC case. They probably aren't too quiet and I prefer silent HTPCs.

 

[unksol]

[quotemsg=9374094,4,412399]doesn't need a PCIe power connector[/quotemsg]

Where did you see that? all the 7770s require a pcie connector afaik and its running at stock clocks. I suppose they could be doing some very aggressive binning to get low power/heat chips for this (which would explain the cost). Which would be something special. I'm just not seeing that stated or a tdp

 

[blazorthon]

[quotemsg=9374099,9,564915]Where did you see that? all the 7770s require a pcie connector afaik and its running at stock clocks. I suppose they could be doing some very aggressive binning to get low power/heat chips for this (which would explain the cost). Which would be something special. I'm just not seeing that stated or a tdp[/quotemsg]

I was talking about the 7750 model there, but W/E. Besides, 7770s are barely over the 75 TDP mark, so simply dropping voltage on them (admittedly sharply reducing overclocking potential) would let them be used without a PCIe power connector. They wouldn't need extreme binning. Heck, an improved PCB design could be more than enough to ditch the PCIe connector.

However, I don't see a PCIe connector on the 7770 in this article either, although that doesn't mean that there isn't one. This 7770 probably has one because there's no way that Tom's would not have said something about it not needing aux power if it didn't need a PCIe power connector.

 

[kcorp2003]

[citation][nom]joytech22[/nom]I read it, but nothing can be done. Us Humans are too stupid and lazy to do anything significant and we take much too long. If the world is to change then we will adapt, but in doing so we will still be as destructive as we have always been. [/citation]

yeah sounds about right. i still do what i can and afford to help on my part.

 

[Bloob]

Still waiting for that 7830 to fill that sweet spot. 7770 is nice and all, but a bit underpowered for me to upgrade to it. Not to speak of this version which would require better air flow and more space than my case can handle.

 

[silverblue]

[citation][nom]joytech22[/nom]I read it, but nothing can be done. Us Humans are too stupid and lazy to do anything significant and we take much too long. If the world is to change then we will adapt, but in doing so we will still be as destructive as we have always been.[/citation]

For most general computing, current CPUs are definitely "fast enough". It'd make a lot more sense (to me, anyway) to go the APU route (albeit improve the current CPU efficiency level) and maintain or slightly improve on a particular performance level but make the main selling point the energy and thus money you're going to save over the previous generation or competitors' products. I built a spare machine the other day running with an XP3200+, a 77W TDP CPU from 2002 that would be out-performed by an E-450 for a fraction of the power... if only I had one to hand, I'd have a very frugal and quiet machine.

From my standpoint, if you keep throwing faster, hungrier CPUs and GPUs at the task, who is ever going to really spend their time developing to push the very limits of a specific architecture when the top CPUs and GPUs have far more grunt than is good for them? "Can it play Crysis?" is a question that shouldn't really be asked when you've got relatively decent hardware from the past four or five years.

Sustainable computing. Sure, humanity strives for excellence, but what if we just decided to make do for a change? How much could your machine handle if developers realised that this was the fastest kit available and performance would have to depend more on software? If there wasn't any merit to this, companies like SeaMicro wouldn't have a market.

 

[WyomingKnott]

[citation][nom]amuffin[/nom]40-50 above regular price is kind of bloated, don't you think!?[/citation]
Not really. They have to make a profit over the design, testing, and manufacturing costs. And this is probably a low-volume seller. Only people who are committed to quiet machines would buy an item like this. Maybe they provide OEM parts to www.endpcnoise.com .

 

[eddieroolz]

That's cool and all, but a 7770 isn't for the typical HTPC users and $50 above normal is a bit expensive.

 

[frank_drebin]

i wish all the video cards would be passively cooled and therefore quiet...

 

[A Bad Day]

I can see someone turning that GPU into an active cooled one. Maybe three fans.

 

[silverblue]

[citation][nom]frank_drebin[/nom]i wish all the video cards would be passively cooled and therefore quiet...[/citation]
In days gone by, they were... I remember getting my first Dreamcast (it got stolen... :/) and hearing its small exhaust fan. I didn't really think that it was going to get worse from here on in. It's strange that consoles became more PC-like in their hardware, yet there's a push for quieter and smaller PCs.

It'd be great to see HTPCs really take off as a true alternative to console gaming and with all the bells and whistles of using a computer without needing to plonk yourself in front of a desk. I also think that SODIMMs should be more widespread outside of mobile devices; we've seen them in some uATX boards but I'd like to see a wider adoption.

 

[Zingam_Duo]

That card stinks! Too few 7s! Needs more 7s!

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]yobobjm[/nom]Seems kinda cool, especially if there really is no premium, as the 7770 has replaced the 550 ti in terms of the best value card, and I have already made 2 builds with the msi version of this.[/citation]

The 550 TI was always a poor value card... The 5770/6770 beats it most of the time and has been much cheaper than the 550 TI for a long time.

Also, guys whining about the price, I just showed you all how the 7750 version of this is only $115 after MIR ($125 without MIR) with $5 shipping at newegg, so chances are that this 7770 will not have a premium over other 7770s either. Tom's premium number is wrong and if it's not fixed in the article, an outright lie.

Here's yet another link to it if anyone somehow missed the other one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102980

 

[livebriand]

[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]For most general computing, current CPUs are definitely "fast enough". It'd make a lot more sense (to me, anyway) to go the APU route (albeit improve the current CPU efficiency level) and maintain or slightly improve on a particular performance level but make the main selling point the energy and thus money you're going to save over the previous generation or competitors' products. I built a spare machine the other day running with an XP3200+, a 77W TDP CPU from 2002 that would be out-performed by an E-450 for a fraction of the power... if only I had one to hand, I'd have a very frugal and quiet machine.From my standpoint, if you keep throwing faster, hungrier CPUs and GPUs at the task, who is ever going to really spend their time developing to push the very limits of a specific architecture when the top CPUs and GPUs have far more grunt than is good for them? "Can it play Crysis?" is a question that shouldn't really be asked when you've got relatively decent hardware from the past four or five years.Sustainable computing. Sure, humanity strives for excellence, but what if we just decided to make do for a change? How much could your machine handle if developers realised that this was the fastest kit available and performance would have to depend more on software? If there wasn't any merit to this, companies like SeaMicro wouldn't have a market.[/citation]
I agree. Most of the time, my desktop's i5 750 CPU goes to waste. (I have no reason to upgrade it in the next few years for sure.) However, I have an E350 laptop, and the CPU actually does bottleneck things like web surfing and general performance noticeably there. For a low-end machine, I think a chip like that (or the E450) is a bit on the slow side, but a Pentium or A4 APU should be fine. It's stupid how some people keep upgrading when they don't need the power. I'm probably going to build a low-end machine like that sometime, and I'm thinking about underclocking it just for efficiency. It's not like anyone who uses it will notice.

 

[g-unit1111]

I'm really curious to know how some of these experimental designs will hold up in long term testing. Between this fanless 7770 and Gigabyte's gigantic 5-fan 680 - they're interesting designs but how are they going to hold up in actual tests?

 

[freggo]

Silence has it's price !

Every Mob 'rat' knows that

 

[silverblue]

[citation][nom]livebriand[/nom]I agree. Most of the time, my desktop's i5 750 CPU goes to waste. (I have no reason to upgrade it in the next few years for sure.) However, I have an E350 laptop, and the CPU actually does bottleneck things like web surfing and general performance noticeably there. For a low-end machine, I think a chip like that (or the E450) is a bit on the slow side, but a Pentium or A4 APU should be fine. It's stupid how some people keep upgrading when they don't need the power. I'm probably going to build a low-end machine like that sometime, and I'm thinking about underclocking it just for efficiency. It's not like anyone who uses it will notice.[/citation]
My 710 is undervolted, thanks to a Toms article on the subject.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]g-unit1111[/nom]I'm really curious to know how some of these experimental designs will hold up in long term testing. Between this fanless 7770 and Gigabyte's gigantic 5-fan 680 - they're interesting designs but how are they going to hold up in actual tests?[/citation]

I'd think that they should hold up fine. Passive coolers on video cards are not a new idea and have often worked very well in the past. However, Gigabyte's new 680 does worry me a little, but with good air flow and well-placed intake and exhaust fans, it could prove superior to other 680's in SLI setups with very high overclocking. It doesn't look like it would get choked for air if it has no free slot between it and the next card down.