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  • TheWereCat - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    This would be a neat replacement for the passively cooled GT1030 in my dad's PC.
  • Operandi - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    These cards are always cool in concept but fail to make practical sense when you take into account you will absolutely need some kind of active cooling in your case to deal with the amount of heat a system with a GTX 1650 will be generating.

    Still looks like a well made card and maybe it does make sense for the right use cases.
  • phoenix_rizzen - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    You can put much larger, slower-spinning (thus quieter) fans into the case, though, compared to the little screamers on GPUs. :)
  • Kangal - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    Overall efficiency of cooling would be lower.
    The closer the metal is to the heat-source, and the closer the fans are to the metal/heat-source, the greater the amount of "heat movement" you will achieve. And generally efficiency gets lower as you decrease the size of the fan (even if increasing the quantity). However, there is a limit to where a big fan actually has lower performance.

    I'm actually not a fan of liquid-cooling (unless the entire PC is underwater like a Nuclear Reactor). The best solution is actually what is called a "thermosyphon". If the mass-production challenges are accomplished, we might start seeing this anywhere from Home Consoles to Desktop PCs soon.
  • evernessince - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    Thermosiphons must be mounted such that vapor rises up and liquid flows down to the boiler, with no bends in the tubing for liquid to pool. Also, the thermosiphon’s fan that cools the gas needs cool air to operate. The system has to be completely airtight; if not, the process of thermosiphon will not take effect and cause the water to only evaporate over a small period of time.
  • MASSAMKULABOX - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    Linus tech tips "thermosyphon" .. supposedly quite good , but v v big.
  • FreckledTrout - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    Normally. There is a company https://www.icegiantcooling.com/ that has a variation of a thermosiphon CPU cooler design that can be mounted 90 degrees offset. Will have to see how well this works out but it so far has done very well in testing.
  • Spunjji - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    While you're correct that the efficiency (and thus the total amount of heat you can remove effectively) of a setup like that is lower, having a passive card like this in a well-arranged chassis with large, slow-spinning intake fans is still one of the simplest and cheapest ways to achieve near-silent cooling with a moderately capable GPU.
  • inighthawki - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    These types of cards I think are more typically for specialized scenarios such as ones where reliability is important (no fans = fewer moving parts = more reliable).

    I also recall a while ago some people on another article had mentioned that in certain settings like industrial environments there is a need for devices where airflow is not practical (e.g. due to very high levels of stuff in the air that eventually destroys long term reliability or corrodes the electronics). Such devices rely on being entirely passively cooled.
  • Samus - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    I’m the one they may have made that comment. In warehouses and factories I almost exclusively use kiosk or other sealed, 100% passive machines (which when paired with an SSD inherently have no moving parts)

    But the focus is on reliability by managing dust buildup. When factories are on the ocean it has a huge impact on preventing corrosion when they’re on loading docks with the garage doors open to the elements all day.
  • CheapSushi - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    There's always a person making a comment like this that assumes just because you want a passive GPU means you will have ZERO, absolutely ZERO, fans in the entire system. As if one passive component means ALL passive components. And then if you state no, they'll say, well what's the point if it's ALL not passive? Well genius, as another commentator said, you can have a larger slower case fan that does the work. Case design matters to. Why can't the PC world have some options like this without people constantly complaining when it does exist?
  • senttoschool - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    It's quite funny, isn't it?

    Every Anandtech product article has at least a few people saying that the product is worthless because they don't have a need for it. It's like the world revolves around them.
  • lilkwarrior - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    If it's a criticism of how the whole market or a particular player is doing things as a whole, that can make sense. For example, passive cooling on the PC market side of things should be standardized; Such standards should probably do something not unlike what Apple has done w/ MPX modules. Such specifications also would enable more powerful & passive cards to be made with particular types of cooling provided by the case standardized (i.e., the 2019 Mac Pro guarantees a flow from the front for the entire system).
  • Alex.A - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    Have the 750Ti KalmX which looks identical to this one. Works without problems with a quite case fan.
  • qap - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    GTX 750 Ti version of this works very well in my PC. Completely quiet... Only vent is slow moving in PSU. I am seriously considering this one. On the other hand 7nm nvidia is coming and in sub 75W class it will be again unchalanged and probably much faster than this.
  • Alistair - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    They released this after the 1650 was discontinued for the 1650 Super at the same price basically. Terrible.
  • lmcd - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link

    This isn't at all about price, it's about thermals. Shame you didn't try and figure that out before commenting.
  • Alistair - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    Use a mobile 1650 super instead. Shame you didn't think before commenting. The 1650 was universally reviled as the worst of all the new GTX and RTX cards. You might as well use the old 1050 or 1050 ti then, if that is all you care about. The 1650 Super on the other hand is actually a good card. You can easily downclock any 1650 Super you buy to work fanless. Try the MSI Gaming one. Turn the fans off.
  • Alistair - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    https://www.newegg.com/msi-geforce-gtx-1650-super-...
  • BenSkywalker - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    Faster than a 780Ti, no external power and passively cooled, that is the point of this.

    People who go rabid fanboy mode over 8.37265% better performance per dollar aren't the target audience.

    I wouldn't consider one for anything I can think of, but if someone asks me for a passively cooled card I don't have to point them to a 1050Ti anymore.
  • Alistair - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    I'm not a rabid fanboy. You get 38 percent more performance per dollar, not 8. You can passively cool the super if you just turn the fans off and lower the power budget, just make sure you buy the best one, like a Gaming X.

    I think people seemed to miss my point. Passively cooled systems aren't good unless the heat sink is larger than the ones with fans. Otherwise you can just turn the fans off and use those instead. Adjust the power limit yourself.
  • Spunjji - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    The heatsink also needs to have widely spaced fins, not be too encumbered by brackets, and ideally extend far enough over the top of the PCB to allow for a little convection.
  • DirtyLoad - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    I don't have time to do the calculations, so please tell me: does that 38% apply after turning down the thermals and turning off the fan?
  • BenSkywalker - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    Without a six pin connector and with fans off 38%?

    You know that is absurd to even imply.
  • A5 - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link

    The target market for this doesn’t care.
  • Lord 666 - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    Hi, I am one of the accidentally targeted market for this. Don’t care about all out performance but will gladly pay a premium for noise reduction/elimination in my home office due to my clinically diagnosed ADD. My current rig is a 9900k using the integrated graphics without any case fans. Need a bit more graphics power along with dual DP, so this is perfect. Just wish it was from Gigabyte or Asus.
  • sonny73n - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    It should have the cooling fins stacked 90 degree to the bracket so the front case fans can push air thru easier. How stupid.
  • Korguz - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    yea.. ans make hiw many pcie slots unusable in the process ?? that would of been stupid...
  • lmcd - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    I'd contend there's often a closer case fan on the side of the case that can pull heat out.
  • jeremyshaw - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    Modern case design going to all glass/plastic side panels, which usually negates side panel fans nowadays.
  • Spunjji - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    In a standard ATX tower with a vertically mounted motherboard, around 50% of the heatsink's area is unobstructed by the PCB and air can freely flow up through the fins.
    In a case with a horizontally-mounted board where the card is mounted vertically, air flows freely up through all of the fins.

    So that's two common situations where convection flow works well and you just need fans to carry away the heat.

    Having the fins run parallel to the motherboard works great in situations where you have guaranteed forced front-to-back cooling, like 2U servers, but it's absolutely terrible when you can't guarantee strong airflow - which defeats the point of a "silent" card.
  • damianrobertjones - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    I owned (2017) a Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti in my editing rig and, despite having NO games hitting the thing it broke in less than 1.5 years. The pc has a front fan etx. Shame as it's obviously silent. Be wary.
  • Alistair - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link

    If the MSI Gaming X 1650 Super has a heavier heat sink, it most likely cools better. I was annoyed that Palit and this article don't have any stats or info about the heat sink.

    There is a 30 watt gap at max load, but the 1650 Super is 38 percent faster for the same money. I do it all the time, make passive systems out of the best video cards that come with fans.
  • peevee - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link

    I love it, although I guess it would not work to well in a tower case (the board would be on top and heatsink on the bottom preventing normal flow of a heated air).

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