GeForce GTS 450 passive cooled GPU from Sparkle

GeForce GTS 450 Passive Cooling version
from SPARKLE, model number SXS4501024D5SNMP

I wrote about ATI Radeon HD5770 passively cooled graphic card from Gigabyte just few days ago, so it's only fair to have an article of its competitor too. GTS 450 was introduced 13.9.2010, and several manufacturers introduced their own versions in the very same day. This graphic card is on the market today with a variety of clock speeds, voltage levels and cooling solutions. Only fanless GTS 450 was introduced by Sparkle

In tests for fan cooled GTS 450 cards, idle temperatures of only 30-36 degrees have been measured. Low temperature is promising and it seems like passive cooling is clearly possible for GTS 450. Power consumption at idle stage is not officially told, but it's supposed to be <16W. In idle state  power consumption of a reference card beats HD5770 by couple of watts.

At load power consumption is quite high for a passively cooled card. Nvidia is providing a TDP value of 106W, notifying that this a a "real world number" and for example furmark (100% load test) can exceed this. Between reference cards measured load consumptions are close to those measured with  ATI Radeon HD5770, so these cards should emit equal amount of heat in their maximum use.  However, HD5770 gives us better results in performance, so it's obvious that it's full power is not yet needed when GTS 450 is running at its max. However, temperatures at full load (Furmark test) for GTS 450 have been well under 70C, which is another promise for passive cooling possibility. Decent airflow in the case is still important.

Conclusion: We need to see a passively cooled version of both cards tested side by side before we can tell which card is actually better for passively cooled systems. Before that you can try to get an idea with following basic data:

	NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450	Radeon HD 5770
GPU Engine Specs:
CUDA Cores	192	-
Stream Processors	-	800
Graphics Clock (MHz)	789 MHz	850 MHz
Processor Clock (MHz)	1576 MHz	850 MHz
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz)	3760 effective	4800 effective
Standard Memory Config	1 GB GDDR5	1 GB GDDR5
Memory Interface Width	128-bit	128-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)	~60.0	83.2
Feature Support:
Multi GPU support	2-Way NVIDIA SLI®-ready	ATI CrossFireX™
3D Ready	yes	yes
Microsoft DirectX	11	11
OpenGL	4.0	5.0
Bus Support	PCI-E 2.0 x 16	PCI-E 2.1 x 16
Certified for Windows 7	yes	yes
Display Support:
HDMI resolution	1080p dual-stream	1080p dual-stream
Maximum Digital Resolution	2560x1600	2560x1600
Maximum VGA Resolution	2048x1536	2048x1536
Standard Display Connectors	Mini HDMI	Mini HDMI
	Two Dual Link DVI	Two Dual Link DVI
Multi Monitor	yes	yes
HDCP	yes	yes
HDMI	1.3 (1.4a*)	1.3
Supported video formats	?	H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2
Audio Support:
Audio Input for HDMI	Internal	Internal
Channels via HDMI	7.1	7.1
Supported formats	AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD	AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD
Power Specs:
Idle Graphics Card Power (W)	<16 W**	18 W
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W)	106 W	108 W
* Support for HDMI 1.4a including GPU accelerated Blu-ray 3D support, x.v.Color, HDMI Deep Color, and 7.1 digital surround sound will be added in a Release 260 driver.
** Estimation

I hope to soon find a test where these cards are standing against each other. Until that I give my recommendation for Sparkle GTS 450 Passive Cooling version too (previously given to the other card).

Yours

Silenssimo

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