Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX

[W1zzard]

The Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX uses a completely passive cooling design, which guarantees the perfect noise-free experience. Thanks to NVIDIA's highly energy-efficient Turing architecture, you also get the latest display connectivity and hardware decoding capabilities..

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[Basard]

Back in my day.....

We would run top of the line cards passively cooled. Imagine what those cards could have done with triple the power draw lol....

W1zz.... what was the power draw on a rivaTNT?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I assume this is tested on an open air test bench?

I dont think the card will throttle if it was in a closed case with some airflow.

 

[W1zzard]

I assume this is tested on an open air test bench?

I dont think the card will throttle if it was in a closed case with some airflow.

It depends on the amount of airflow in the case

 

[joemama]

Feels weird to see a graphics card without a fan these days

 

[reggieb]

"The Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX is the fastest passively cooled graphics card available today."

The Tesla v100 and PNY's passive Quadro RTX 8000 would like to have a word with you.

 

[W1zzard]

"The Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX is the fastest passively cooled graphics card available today."

The Tesla v100 and PNY's passive Quadro RTX 8000 would like to have a word with you.

These are designed for servers with massive airflow in the case

 

[Frick]

Yeah, those server cardd are fan cooled but the fans aren't attached to the GPU.

Good to see passive cards.

 

[notb]

The Tesla v100 and PNY's passive Quadro RTX 8000 would like to have a word with you.

Server GPU and (usually) CPU coolers don't have a fan attached to the heatsink - which doesn't mean they can survive without airflow.

Similarly, the fact that you take a fan off the CPU heatsink and mount it to the case 2mm away doesn't make the CPU passively cooled.

The safe, binary approach to this term is to call things "passively cooled" if they can work (deliver the promised performance) without any forced airflow, i.e. on gravity alone.
And of course this can be further improved by a strong case airflow etc.

 

[jabbadap]

Well Compulab's Airtop3 has passive cooled quadro rtx 4000(or gtx1660ti) on it. But yeah, you have to buy whole system.

 

[notb]

Well Compulab's Airtop3 has passive cooled quadro rtx 4000(or gtx1660ti) on it. But yeah, you have to buy whole system.

It's a radiator case.
By principle, there exists a passive cooling solution that can cool any realistic heat source.
Sure, you could make a huge radiator that will cool a 1000W workstation or server. But we don't. It doesn't make much sense.

So yeah, KalmX is very likely the most powerful passively cooled card. A card is the whole product: GPU + cooler (and the rest).
But it's not that hard to imagine (or buy) a cooling setup that will beat it. You could do that at home with a large enough custom water loop.

BTW: I'm not entirely sure what scenario is this Airtop3 made for. Why so much fuss to avoid a fan?

 

[bob3002]

It's a radiator case.
By principle, there exists a passive cooling solution that can cool any realistic heat source.
Sure, you could make a huge radiator that will cool a 1000W workstation or server. But we don't. It doesn't make much sense.

So yeah, KalmX is very likely the most powerful passively cooled card. A card is the whole product: GPU + cooler (and the rest).
But it's not that hard to imagine (or buy) a cooling setup that will beat it. You could do that at home with a large enough custom water loop.

BTW: I'm not entirely sure what scenario is this Airtop3 made for. Why so much fuss to avoid a fan?

LTT reviewed a version of this, and mentioned industrial/dusty environments which can destroy fans. That sounded plausible at least.

 

[notb]

LTT reviewed a version of this, and mentioned industrial/dusty environments which can destroy fans. That sounded plausible at least.

That sounds extremely dodgy considering dusty/industrial environments are full of fan-cooled devices. Think about a digger in a mine. It's certainly not passively cooled...
It seems humanity has already managed to build fans that work in such scenarios.

Not to mention gathered dust will obviously impact radiator efficiency (not to mention blocking air channels).

Solution in search of a problem...
But with that 9900K and 1660Ti it's certainly the quietest decent gaming PC I've seen.

 

[Apocalypsee]

Ah memories where graphics card can be passively cooled. I remember Sapphire used to release passively cooled card and called it 'Ultimate' series.

I hope there is more card like this. Would like to see single slot GPU to make a comeback. I still using single slot GTX 1070 Katana which is I believe the fastest consumer graphics card (in b4 some dude named some Quadro/Tesla card)

 

[Palladium]

That sounds extremely dodgy considering dusty/industrial environments are full of fan-cooled devices. Think about a digger in a mine. It's certainly not passively cooled...
It seems humanity has already managed to build fans that work in such scenarios.

Not to mention gathered dust will obviously impact radiator efficiency (not to mention blocking air channels).

Solution in search of a problem...
But with that 9900K and 1660Ti it's certainly the quietest decent gaming PC I've seen.

LTT is full of shit as usual (Geez, who is surprised?). I have many 1U HP servers and other assorted fan-cooled networking gear that worked flawlessly in dusty environments for 5 years straight. Most of those are in remote locations that makes regular maintenance difficult.

 

[jabbadap]

LTT is full of shit as usual (Geez, who is surprised?). I have many 1U HP servers and other assorted fan-cooled networking gear that worked flawlessly in dusty environments for 5 years straight. Most of those are in remote locations that makes regular maintenance difficult.

Try pour some aluminium dust on those fans and see what happens. Server rooms are designed to use fans, but every industrial use case definitely are not... Either way being fanless is more like protecting inner parts of the systems, than anything to do with saving cooling fans for being destroyed: no fans sucking particles inside the system, it's making it most likely dust free system. Have you ever looked inside fanless systems? I.E. well designed fanless PC:s can be dust free inside even for years of use.

 

[notb]

Try pour some aluminium dust on those fans and see what happens. Server rooms are designed to use fans, but every industrial use case definitely are not...

Seriously? Aluminium dust? Like in a mine?
Industrial equipment is full of fans. In mines, ironworks, building sites and so on.

Either way being fanless is more like protecting inner parts of the systems, than anything to do with saving cooling fans for being destroyed: no fans sucking particles inside the system, it's making it most likely dust free system. Have you ever looked inside fanless systems? I.E. well designed fanless PC:s can be dust free inside even for years of use.

Radiators are outside of the main box in this case. They could have added fans with absolutely no impact on the inner parts.

The way I see this: you're trying to defend a product that tries to look very military-grade and maybe even has some actual industrial use cases - although IMO they could be more about noise, not dust protection etc.

But I look at this PC and what I see is a posh, passive gaming PC for people to braag about how "pro" and "without fans" their PC is. It can be ordered with 9900K + 1660Ti. That's very industrial.

 

[jabbadap]

Seriously? Aluminium dust? Like in a mine?
Industrial equipment is full of fans. In mines, ironworks, building sites and so on.

Radiators are outside of the main box in this case. They could have added fans with absolutely no impact on the inner parts.

The way I see this: you're trying to defend a product that tries to look very military-grade and maybe even has some actual industrial use cases - although IMO they could be more about noise, not dust protection etc.

But I look at this PC and what I see is a posh, passive gaming PC for people to braag about how "pro" and "without fans" their PC is. It can be ordered with 9900K + 1660Ti. That's very industrial.

Or it can be ordered with xeon processor, ECC memory and quadro graphics with extended -40°C to 70°C operating range. That is veery gamery... And no I'm not really try to defend it. I despite those external power bricks, which one have to use with them. I just have a little soft spot for tiny PCs, especially passive cooled ones.

Nah but in all seriously, I must apologies for all this OT nonsense. Thanks for the review @W1zzard, looks like a card for passive freaks. Did you notice any coil whine during game benchmarks?

 

[Athlonite]

Bah nVidia and Passively cooled GPU's aren't exactly synonymous with long life spans and cool running

 

[watzupken]

The idea of passive cooling is great, but I wonder what sorts of use case will this card fit. If I think of a m-ITX HTPC, I feel the lack of fan for some low profile or smaller case is going to be a problem with this. For a big case, I don't have a problem with active cooling.

 

[Turmania]

I like these passively cooled GPU and CPU's but you need airflow to make it work.that means case fans. Than what is the point of all this trouble.

 

[claes]

???

My passive 640 is still chugging along just fine. Limited cooling in a SG05. I don’t game much with it, it’s in an HTPC and mostly used for hardware decoding, but who buys anything less than a x60 for gaming?

On that note, it’s be great to see some transcoding and encoding benchmarks on lower end cards like these, and maybe even mentioning any coil whine, @W1zzard. The 4K gaming results are interesting but not really what the card was built for. Thanks for the thorough review!