Gigabyte's GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe Video Card
Overclocking and Conclusion
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Rounding out our testing, we took the V-Tuner2 utility to task and started to see what extra overclocking headroom the GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe Video Card had in store...
Initially, we were not expecting this card to overclock very well, with its passive cooler and memory already running close to its rated speed. Interestingly enough, we had a surprisingly good experience with the GV-RX80256D. In the end we topped the core speed with an additional 47MHz while the RAM went up to a respectable 576MHz (1152MHz DDR). This resulted in an increased VPU speed of 11.75% while the memory speed increased by 16.59%. This resulted in an increase in Half-Life 2 performance of over 7%, or 6.44 FPS.
In the quest for a near-silent PC, choosing quiet components can be a daunting task. While one component may not stand out as loud at first, the cumulative volume of case fans, video card fans, CPU fans and hard drives can all add up to fairly high noise levels. To combat this, user's need to choose their components wisely if near silence is high up on their list of priorities.
As we already know, there are a number of options available in regards to near silent video cards. But Gigabyte has taken it to a higher level with the introduction of the GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe Video Card. Throughout our assessment of the GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe, we were continually impressed with its performance, especially considering its price. Not only did the card itself perform very well, proving to be an excellent option in the mid-range market, we were also impressed with the Silent Pipe design. Surely this type of cooling package requires special attention, because proper case cooling is a must, but as long as those bases are covered, the GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe does its job well. Many may be a little reluctant to accept the fanless design of the Silent-Pipe, but in the end, the card worked beautifully and even drove that point home with a very good overclocking performance.
Overall, aside from our initial impressions of the retail package, we have few negative things to say about the GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe, especially when we look at its price. Selling for about $260 at some reputable on-line retailers, the GV-RX80256D is a value that is priced like a reference X800 card with stock cooling. With dead silent operation and a price point only $23 higher than the HIS X700 Pro reference card used for reference in our benchmarking tests, we think the Gigabyte GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe is an excellent choice for those looking for a quiet video card, that can play any of today's games at more-than-acceptable frame rates.
We give the GigaByte GV-RX80256D X800 Turbo Silent Pipe a Hot Hardware Heat Meter of 9
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