Reviews: BFG NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB PCIe 2.0 with ThermoIntelligence Passive Cooling

9800gt_passive_angle_225_max192w

BFG NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB PCIe 2.0 with ThermoIntelligence Passive Cooling

BFG Tech
Category: Computer Hardware
Subcategory: Video Cards
Price: $149.99
Average Rating:
  •  
(2 Votes)
Description:

BFG GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Passive Graphics Card

Member Reviews

  • Portrait_for_linkedin_max30
    Enabler, Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:35:20 UTC.
    1st review

    This card tends to run very hot. Using only the case fan in my system blowing directly over the cooling fins (turned up as high as it will go creating more noise than I prefer), the 9800 GT idles at ~60C, runs 2D applications such as Photoshop at ~65C, and runs at well over 90C for games resulting in a system crash and BSOD error. The system will sometimes crash before the card even reaches 80C.

    For this reason, this card is only useful for 2D applications, and given it's cost I would recommend buying a cheaper card for this purpose. If you plan to play games, buy a graphics card with an onboard fan and learn to live with the extra fan noise. At least the card will stay cool.

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  • Photo_user_blank_big
    atomicpunk, Sun, 10 May 2009 23:09:51 UTC.

    Everyone buying this card should be aware of two major downsides. You would think a "silent" card would both try to reduce heat output and try to reduce power consumption (they tend to go hand in hand, but so do people seeking quiet PCs with those seeking power efficiency).

    Unfortunately, this card does NOT support PowerMizer. Or more, it does, but there's only one PowerMizer level - FULL SPEED. It will NOT underclock to save power and reduce heat output! Nuts!! This thing draws a hellacious amount of power compared to my 8800GT because it won't clock down during normal desktop usage!

    Further, this card prevents my system from recovering from suspend to RAM properly; despite a variety of BIOS config attempts, video POST on resume, etc.

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