Silence is Golden: Silent GPU Roundup

Final Words

To give a brief summary of performance, we have the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent as the obvious leader followed by the Gigabyte 7600 GT in second place. Depending on the game, the next best card in terms of performance is either one of the Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, and ASUS 7600 GS cards or either of the ASUS and Gigabyte X1600 XT offerings/ The factory-overclocked Gigabyte 7600 GS scores slightly better than the rest of these, making it the overall third fastest silent card. The next step down would be the ASUS EN6600 GT Silencer, followed by the Gigabyte and Albatron factory-overclocked 7300 GTs. Depending on the game and settings, the HIS and Gigabyte X1600 Pro might do a little better or worse than the reference-clocked MSI NX7300 GT (better generally in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Rise of Legends, and worse in most of the other games). Then at the low end you have the HIS and Gigabyte X1300 Pro followed by the Gigabyte 7300 GS. Again in Splinter Cell and Rise of Legends, the Gigabyte X1300 performs slightly better than the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2, and in most of the other games the Sparkle 7300 GS performs the worst.

In terms of Overclocking, the MSI 7300 GT and the Gigabyte X1300 stood out with high core and memory overclocks (135MHz core clock increase in the MSI 7300 GT, and 160MHz core and 55MHz memory clock increase for the Gigabyte X1300) resulting in large performance increases in Oblivion and Battlefield 2 for these cards. The Gigabyte 7600 GS, in spite of already having a 50MHz core overclock, managed to go up nearly 100MHz on the core clock which was an impressive feat for this card. The Albatron 7300 GT is another factory-overclocked card that got a particularly high core and memory overclock: 102MHz higher in the core and 84MHz in the memory clock. The Gigabyte X1600 Pro got a decent 80MHz increase in the core clock and the HIS version of the same card got an even better 97MHz increase in the core. These were some of the examples that stood out when overclocking these silent GPUs.

Some people might have strong feelings about ATI or NVIDIA hardware and drivers, but we feel they are close enough - especially in single GPU solutions - that you can safely go with whatever card offers the most performance at your chosen price point. Both ATI and NVIDIA have certain strengths and weaknesses depending on things like which game and/or settings are concerned, and both have parts to suit most any gamer's needs. In this review, however, we've seen that prices tend to favor NVIDIA cards, particularly with the Gigabyte 7600 GS. This card is simply put a better value than any of the ATI parts. The X1600 Pro is about $15 less, but it can't compete with the Gigabyte 7600 GS, especially considering the card's factory-overclock.

Dealing with such a large number of cards in a roundup of this type can be a bit of a headache, and it's easy to lose track of which cards are which when testing them all. However, after lots of testing, it's interesting to notice how certain cards begin to stand out in a positive or negative way. Not surprisingly, the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent stood out at the beginning because of its high level of performance compared to the other cards. The Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 stood out as being one of the slowest and one of the more frustrating cards to test. With the exception of the issues in Battlefield 2, it performed just as would be expected for a card of this type, but we wouldn't recommend the 7300 GS solutions overall. Gigabyte impressed us initially with the sheer number of silent cards they contributed for this article, but they also impressed us later with the quality of their cards and their normal and overclocked performance.

The Gigabyte 7300 GT and Albatron 7300 GT did well in performance testing, but how good these cards actually are depends a lot on the price. Given that the Gigabyte 7600 GS is about $110 it doesn't make much sense to spend only about $10 less for the 7300 GT card. Whether the 7600 GS is a great bargain or the 7300 GT cards cost too much, the conclusion is that paying the extra $10 for the Gigabyte 7600 GS card is the best choice. We would also rule out buying any of the other 7600 GS cards in this review, given the fact that the Gigabyte 7600 GS comes factory clocked higher than any of the others, and is cheaper by anywhere from about $5 to $20. If you don't mind spending about $170, the Gigabyte 7600 GT isn't a bad choice for a silent graphics solution, as it is the second fastest GPU tested and it is actually readily available.

If you only want to spend about $70 on a silent graphics card, the MSI NX7300 GT is a good choice, especially if you plan on doing any overclocking. We recommend this card over the Gigabyte X1300 Pro, which is about the same price but doesn't perform quite as well in most games. For those that don't really play many games or just want a really cheap silent video card, the Gigabyte X1300 is the cheapest card in this group at $52 and will offer basic graphics functionality without making a sound. It's going to be two to four times faster than most integrated graphics solutions, but it will still have trouble running any of the more recent games (like Battlefield 2) at anything but the lowest graphics settings. Without concrete pricing information on many of the other cards, these are our recommendations. None of the tested cards are bad, but given the competition between ATI and NVIDIA as well as the various card manufacturers, it's not surprising that a few of the offerings stand out as being better than others.

We keep coming back to a single card that strikes the best balance of price and performance. Coming in as the third fastest silent GPU overall and with a price of only $110, we are pleased to award the Gigabyte 7600 GS our Gold Editors Choice Award for Silent GPUs. With a factory overclock of the 7600 GS core and a price lower than competing solutions, there is much to like with the Gigabyte card. It is also a single-slot solution unlike some of the other Gigabyte offerings, making it a card that can work well in HTPCs as well as SFF computers. Our only request now would be for someone to figure out a way to offer a similar price/performance ratio with a faster GPU, though perhaps we're simply being greedy. The Gigabyte card does just about everything right within it's price range, and for that they are to be commended.

If pure performance (and current availability) is the more important factor, only one card fits the bill. It is with this in mind that we bestow our Gold Editors Choice Award upon the Gigabyte 7600 GT. With a comfortable performance boost that comes with the 55% higher cost over the Gigabyte 7600 GS, we can absolutely recommend the 7600 GT for gamers who are happy with midrange performance and need a quiet card. At a cost on par with actively cooled parts of the same class, we feel comfortable recommending the Gigabyte 7600 GT over other 7600 GTs as well.



All of these cards offer acceptable performance for non-gaming tasks, and most will at least handle some moderate gaming. More importantly, this is all done while remaining completely silent. Looking at the power and heat results of the various cards, we are interested in seeing what the future holds for silent GPUs. It is doubtful that anyone will create a passively cooled 7900 GTX, 7950 GX, X1900, or other high-end card in the short term. However, Intel has raised the bar on expectations for performance per Watt. If a general purpose CPU can offer a 40% improvement over its predecessor (Pentium D) while consuming 40% less power on average, why can't a GPU revolution accomplish the same thing? Maximum performance may continue to require at least some form of active cooling, but hopefully ATI and NVIDIA can further refine their designs to be more power friendly in the future. With Windows Vista increasing the demands placed on GPUs, the desire to reduce GPU noise levels is only likely to increase.