A silent 6950/6970 or equivalent

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kensai

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I'm looking a 6950 or 6970 and I'm looking one as silent as possible. Could you recommend any?

I'd look for nVidia cards too but I don't know which cards are in the same league as 6950/70.
 
With stock cooling the GTX 580 is a great gpu for performance and silence and now for overall best bang for the buck the 6950/6970 is a great deal. Now if you want super silent I know Asus has a 6970 in which is quieter then normal.
 
Triple slot cooler? Great idea.

Putting all the hot air right back into the case? What the shit Asus engineers!?

A three or four slot squirrel cage would be wonderful, but at least this is step in the right direction.
 
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Lengradde said:
Triple slot cooler? Great idea.

Putting all the hot air right back into the case? What the shit Asus engineers!?

A three or four slot squirrel cage would be wonderful, but at least this is step in the right direction.
Click to expand...

It's a fair point but most half decent cases these days have plenty of ventilation so it shouldn't necessarily put people off getting one...
 
Lengradde said:
Triple slot cooler? Great idea.

Putting all the hot air right back into the case? What the shit Asus engineers!?

A three or four slot squirrel cage would be wonderful, but at least this is step in the right direction.
Click to expand...

I bought myself a Arctic Extreme Plus on my 6970, the temp inside my case did not rise even 1c...

If you worry about hot air into the case, I think you should be more worry about your venting first...
 
Camberwell said:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/14/asus_engtx580_eah6970_directcu_ii_review

Asus 6970 DirectCu II, very quiet and cool running, I will be ordering one myself next week...
Click to expand...
I have upgraded my Core i7 950 machine from 2x 4870x2's in quad fire, to a single Asus 6970 DirectCu II
The Asus 6970 DirectCu II card is very quiet and temps are very reasonable.
I do have an Antec 1200 full tower so the heat dumping into the case is not an issue.

The card occupies two and a half slots and yes three brackets on the back.
 
Lengradde said:
Triple slot cooler? Great idea.

Putting all the hot air right back into the case? What the shit Asus engineers!?

A three or four slot squirrel cage would be wonderful, but at least this is step in the right direction.
Click to expand...

Rear exhaust is overrated by most people. Larger diameter low RPM axial fans blowing down are much more efficient in terms of noise to cooling ratio than squirrel cage fans despite squirrel cage fans having higher static pressure.

As long as your case has good airflow, most importantly exhaust at the top of the case where heat naturally rises, a large cooler that exhausts into the case instead of a shrouded, noisy, squirrel cage dustbuster, is cooler and quieter.

I have an Artic Cooling cooler on my reference 5870 with 92mm fans and it's completely silent unless I put my ear 1 inch from the card. My only issue is inadequate VRM cooling which is a design flaw with this particular cooler and not with others.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions, ASUS 6950 seems to be what I'm looking for.

My motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R. ASUS card requires PCI Express 2.1 and my motherboard seems to have 1 x PCI Express x16 slot. Can I use this card with my motherboard?

Also I'm gonna need a new PSU, I don't think my 400W will suffice. Considering I have one HDD, DVD-Rom and very few USB peripherals, how much of watts should be my new PSU?
 
You will probably have a hard time locating this card,
It's worth hunting down. I found it in stock at tiger direct.
Coming from a previous setup with two Asus 4870x2 Tri fans in quad fire.
The build quality is great. and the card has a metal bracket
that runs the length of the card that supports the weight.

ASUS EAH6970DCII/2DI4S/2G
Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II Video Card
2GB, GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.1 (x16),
Quad Display Port, Dual DVI, DirectX 11,
Eyefinity 6, CrossFireX, Triple-Slot, Overclocked



A455-6972-v01.jpg

A455-6972-v02.jpg

A455-6972-v03.jpg
 
I my self was looking at reference 6950...

I figured I could put an aftermarket cooler on. I'm assuming isn't not exactly quiet as is. But I am really more concerned with idle and near-idle noise. I can tolerate more noise while gaming, but idle is a deal breaker. AFAIK, most 5800 series AMD compatible coolers will work with the 6950/6970.
 
Idle noise on the above card is very good.
I hate loud computers.

My two 4870x2's would really generate allot of noise at full tilt in Crisis
This Asus 6970 is very good and quiet.
Also the card is 2 1/2 slots wide, the bracket is 3 slots.
This should give crossfire players a bit more space between cards,
provided your motherboard spaces out the PCIe slots well.

My Asus ROG Rampage III Formula has enough space between the PCIe slots
 
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Twat about reference designs? The 6950's use a vapor chamber design with a blower. Is it quiet at idle? I never trust reviews noise measuring methods.
 
kensai said:
Thanks for the suggestions, ASUS 6950 seems to be what I'm looking for.

My motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R. ASUS card requires PCI Express 2.1 and my motherboard seems to have 1 x PCI Express x16 slot. Can I use this card with my motherboard?

Also I'm gonna need a new PSU, I don't think my 400W will suffice. Considering I have one HDD, DVD-Rom and very few USB peripherals, how much of watts should be my new PSU?
Click to expand...

Based full load worst case power draw from a 6950, it looks like your 400w would be iffy. You didn't state what CPU was being used. The card should work with your motherboard, but I would say that it depends on the PSU whether you'd need an upgrade or not there.

What CPU and PSU are you using?
 
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II is a way quiet card. I have a 6870 twin frozr II and I can barely hear it with fan speed set at 68%. Really cool card, I haven't seen it get above 54 C. Same temp and sound qualities of the 6950 frozr edition.
 
ckryan said:
Twat about reference designs? The 6950's use a vapor chamber design with a blower. Is it quiet at idle? I never trust reviews noise measuring methods.
Click to expand...

My friend has one. It's still quite noisy sometimes. It's just something you have to live with when the cooling is based on a single small blower fan forcing air through tightly packed fins.

Nothing can beat a large heatsink with large diameter radial fans at low RPMs for great cooling in silence.

You just have to accept hot air going back into your system though. Should not be a problem for most people who have decent air flow (good intake and good exhaust).
 
I have a stock xfx 6950 2gb ref card unlocked, and a gtx 570. I dont hear any difference between the 2 at idle or gaming. Both are great cards. Alot of these reviews run benchmarks that load the card big time and cause excessive fan noise. When gaming, Black ops etc, I dont hear any loud fan from either card.
 
Noise is also a subjective thing for many people. Two cards can have the same dBa rating at a certain distance yet one noise profile might be more annoying to one person's ears than the other.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
Silent Video Card = Water cooled card. Unless of course the card can run passively with just a heatsink and none of the amd 6800/6900 series cards can. You can get a very quiet card as mentioned above but silent would be http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=power_color_6970-_-14-131-390-_-Product

Or buy a reference card and buy your own water block to install. e.g. http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._Cooling_Block_-_Nickel_EK-FC6970-Nickel.html
Click to expand...


The loudest systems I have ever heard were water cooled. The fans on the radiators needed to cool the fluid are WAY louder than most setups.
 
Spare-Flair said:
Noise is also a subjective thing for many people. Two cards can have the same dBa rating at a certain distance yet one noise profile might be more annoying to one person's ears than the other.
Click to expand...

Which is why I don't trust noise measurements in reviews (for anything, except for maybe SPCR). I figured an Arctic Cooling system would work well on a reference card. If I almost never buy reference cards, but was thinking I might get better results with a reference card and a decent aftermarket cooler.

Supposedly though, the 6870 XFX Black Edition is very quiet, so that makes me think the dual fan BE XFX cards are quiet in 6900 series too.
 
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