» PowerColor's Silent and Near-Silent X1950 Pros
Why, oh why is this comment posting thing done in such a confusing way? I'm trying to comment on the article I mention in the title, but it seems like when I click the 'Comment' link, it takes me to some random article about the SEC.
Anyway, there are a few things in this article that, being in a bitching mood, I have to point out:
"While heat pipe coolers do an excellent job of dissipating heat off the GPU, as anyone who has owned a Zalman ZMP series heat pipe unit can tell you, they do so while pumping out an extraordinary amount of heat that usually goes right on your graphics card and nearby system components."
First of all, a heat pipe cooler 'pumps' exactly the same amount of heat as any other (non-peltier) cooler, i.e., the heat being generated by the chip(s) it's cooling. No more, no less. And that heat goes wherever the fan on your heatsink (or airflow from other fans, on passive coolers, or straight up, in the unlikely case that there's no airflow at all over the heatsink) sends it; it has nothing to do with heat pipes or lack thereof.
"To help solve this problem, Sapphire for instance shipped their latter[sic] 9800 XT Ultimate cards with an external cooling fan. Without the fan in place, the card generated so much heat it could literally burn your finger to the touch[sic]!"
External cooling fan? As opposed to an internal cooling fan? And again, the card generates the same amount of heat with the fan as it does without it.
"But what if you could deliver a heat pipe cooling system that ran silently while also minimizing heat output?"
Again, unless you're somehow changing the power consumption of the card by, say, over/underclocking it, the heat output remains unchanged, regardless of heatsinks and fans.
Aaanyway... are they major, infuriating mistakes that render the article wothless? No. But hey, when you feel like bitching, any reason's good enough. Flag this | Edit this post |
