A real world case (october2009).
This is "Zurq" (fast thing, but super quiet !!), with the previous graphics card.
The PC was built with a second hand (300kr.) card ATI X1650 graphics card with passive cooling, but since the GPU chip is made in a somewhat older process, it develops a lot of heat.
The heatsink got very hot, and even after I mounted an air duct (see previous real world case) the rest of the PC wasn't specially happy.
Now the PowerSupply had to suck out most of the heat from the CPU, since the Cabinet blower was now used fully by the air duct, and the powersupply blower was often going up in speed.
So finally I decided to upgrade to a newer generation card.
I bought a second hand ATI HD4650 card with passive cooling for 300kr. and sold the old one for 200kr.
That was the best thing that happened to Zurq!.
The nominal temperature of the Graphics card passive heatsink fell from 53 to 40 degrees C, and the performance went from 1920 to 4379 3Dmarks (3DMark06 v1.1.0 benchmark program).
Here a picture of the HD4650 card.
Also note that the heatsink is at the opposite side of where it was on the X1650. Very important!
This helps to get the right airflow, from the cabinet front blower via the heatsink to the cabinet rear blower.
