Heatpipes and the 8600GTS!!!!!!

Hello all, this is a two part question:

First, does anyone have any experience with the fanless, heatpipe technology?  Does it work well?  Its not really a big issue for me, but my 7600GT is definately the loudest part in my PC and I was just wondering if it would be a worthwhile purchase.

 Second, concerning the 8600GTS, how many of you would consider the extra 50 or dollars well-spent if I bought an 8800GTS.  I am a college student so it is absolutely necessary that I get what I pay for, and I cant really afford "luxury" items.  I am more than happy with my 7600GT and while I am sure an 8600GTS would be sufficient, I want to upgrade for longevity and if an 8800GTS is worth the 50 bucks down the road, I Will get that.

1. if you don't have decent cooling in the system, it will run quite hot, but is silent of course. Back it up with good cooling if you are going the that route.

2. That 50 dollars is definitely worth it for the 8800 gts 320mb, definitely bump up to that. It performs just like its 400+ dollar 640mb counter part, which is the third best card out in the market, just behind the 8800 gtx and ultra, and only starts to show its limitations when you run really high resolutions, 19x12 and above, but i'm assuming you don't play at those high res? 

here to follow-up: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2975&p=1

Note the 8800 gts 320mb vs 8600 gts performance. It is worth the extra $50 trust me.

The thing is, at 17" and 19" resolutions on most games, the extra 320MB wasn't "needed", so they performed very similarly, and when you have one of them OC'ed cards, then the faster clock speeds will make a 320MB pull ahead of a stock 320MB. Definitely worth it. frost_mourne13

yep, precisely, so unless the TC plays at higher than 1280x1024, heck even at 16x10, you don't need that much vram, unless of course you are playing with qarl's texture mod on Oblivion or something ;) 

Eh, I play at 1024 x 768, and it's fine with Qarl's. I'm not using Parallax though..frost_mourne13

parallax! parallax, my bad.... still there's the 512 mb vers of qarl. 

If you're a college student livng off of cup noodles, then I'd defintely wait for the Radeon 2K series. It'll force NVIDIA's prices to come down and ATi/AMD will release the 2600 and 2900 at affordable prices.

[QUOTE="frost_mourne13"]The thing is, at 17" and 19" resolutions on most games, the extra 320MB wasn't "needed", so they performed very similarly, and when you have one of them OC'ed cards, then the faster clock speeds will make a 320MB pull ahead of a stock 320MB. Definitely worth it. jfelisario

yep, precisely, so unless the TC plays at higher than 1280x1024, heck even at 16x10, you don't need that much vram, unless of course you are playing with qarl's texture mod on Oblivion or something ;) 

Well, I am playing on a 20.5 in widescreen at 1600x1050.  Its funny tho because I do have Qarl's Texture Pack 3 and I run Oblivion at 1600x1050 just fine 98% of the time, and thats with a 7600GT!

THanks for all the feedback, looks like I will be getting the 8800GTS 320MB version. 

If you're a college student livng off of cup noodles, then I'd defintely wait for the Radeon 2K series. It'll force NVIDIA's prices to come down and ATi/AMD will release the 2600 and 2900 at affordable prices.

 

Wesker776

lol no, Im fortunate enough to work as a cook so I smuggle 2 out of 3 daily meals from the restaurant.  Thanks for the tips, it is gonna be a few months before I even buy the card, so hopefully ATI's cards will be out then.  I problably wont buy one since I am devoted to Nvidia, but like you said it reduces their prices.

Hello all, this is a two part question:

First, does anyone have any experience with the fanless, heatpipe technology? Does it work well? Its not really a big issue for me, but my 7600GT is definately the loudest part in my PC and I was just wondering if it would be a worthwhile purchase.

Second, concerning the 8600GTS, how many of you would consider the extra 50 or dollars well-spent if I bought an 8800GTS. I am a college student so it is absolutely necessary that I get what I pay for, and I cant really afford "luxury" items. I am more than happy with my 7600GT and while I am sure an 8600GTS would be sufficient, I want to upgrade for longevity and if an 8800GTS is worth the 50 bucks down the road, I Will get that.

mrbojangles25

Heatpipes and silent coolers typically work well, it depends on the model.  If you have sufficient air flow in your case, and do not plan to overclock than a silent cooling system is the way to go.

Deffinetly spend the few extra bucks on the 8800GTS!!!