Yes, look for something like this: https://www.staples.ca/products/2840481-en-gl … d-cooler-caf-12

(I have several of these which I bought many years ago for a lot less than $20. They are very useful and I wish I had more.)

You can also buy a cheap Zotac PCIe card of the same generation and use its heatsink/fan. The passive card has an unused fan power connector.

Here are pictures of a PCIe GT520 and PCI GT610.

@BitWrangler

I have two of those chunky ASUS cards, a GT 730 and GT 710. They're nice because they're PCIe x8 and so fit in old servers which only have x8 slots. However, being servers, they have very efficient (and LOUD) cooling, so overheating is not a problem.

Errius wrote on 2021-09-05, 15:28:

Yes, look for something like this: https://www.staples.ca/products/2840481-en-gl … d-cooler-caf-12 […]
Show full quote

Yes, look for something like this: https://www.staples.ca/products/2840481-en-gl … d-cooler-caf-12

(I have several of these which I bought many years ago for a lot less than $20. They are very useful and I wish I had more.)

You can also buy a cheap Zotac PCIe card of the same generation and use its heatsink/fan. The passive card has an unused fan power connector.

Here are pictures of a PCIe GT520 and PCI GT610.

Thanks, yeah I was thinking to change the PCIe passive heatsink but unfortunately these days even broken cards are sold almost expensive as the functional ones... it seems like anything video card related nowdays is not cheap. For the PCI old bus version I think it might be considered that the couple of watts of the fan might stress the PCI bus a bit cause the passive GT610 PCI already is around a TDP of 29W with the 30W of absolute limit of every PCI bus. The PCIe obviously doesn't have that problem.
It'd be interesting to know if the 210, 430, 520 and 610 have all the same heatsink compatible.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-05, 15:27:

386SX wrote on 2021-09-05, 11:16:

I'm actually using the E8600 @ default clocks and is quite a fast cpu considering how obsolete it is. I might upgrade to the Q9650 but for now this is quite a solid processor. Too bad the GT610 passive card I'm using on this config even changing thermal paste, have absurd high temperatures and not even two case fan can keep its temperatures into safe ranges. I don't understand why they did passive cooled vga if not intended to work in ANY situation.. If I'd run an heavy benchmark temperature would go up without stopping.

Was it this heatsink or a shorter flatter one?
Just wondering, as I've got one of these that had been getting moved around, used for testing, but not committed to a system yet, so wanna make informed decisions about cooling. It's a bit of a PITA actually that thing makes it a 2 slot card, think I'd rather have single slot active cooling on it. Might be 3 slot if I try to strap an 80mm on top of that.

It is similar to that double slot one still that big but with flat design; one almost identical is this https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/N210-MD1GD3HLP/Gallery heatsink even for the 210 model. I know this is not a Pixel Shaders oriented card, but a bench like Unigine Valley can make it reach 100°C and goes on... after changing the paste it saved a bit degrees but not as much as I thought. When in idle the PCIe version (that seems running much higher temps than the PCI one) goes down to 45/50°C but cause its freqs goes down too with the vcore. I've a fan frontally on the case that push cold air to the cards, than the lateral big case one that push that air directly and above the vga, then the CPU one that push it to the VRM/CPU and should end up into the PSU and back out of the case... still.. much noise for a GT610.. 40nm gpus simply lasted too much imho..
Obviously on less heavy games and bench temps stay lower than 80°C at max but not really a safe temp imho.. The PCI Zotac version instead seems working much less on its x1 bus speed to its bridge IC so temps are lower indeed.

386SX wrote on 2021-09-05, 16:58:

For the PCI old bus version I think it might be considered that the couple of watts of the fan might stress the PCI bus a bit cause the passive GT610 PCI already is around a TDP of 29W with the 30W of absolute limit of every PCI bus. The PCIe obviously doesn't have that problem.

This is interesting, because the GT610 is available in PCIe x1 configuration, with a fan. I wonder why the 25W limit of PCIe x1 was not seen as an issue in this case. It's doubly strange, because the Zotac GT610 PCIe x1 PCB has what looks like pins for a Molex connector, but they didn't actually put one on it.

dr_st wrote on 2021-09-05, 17:15:

386SX wrote on 2021-09-05, 16:58:

For the PCI old bus version I think it might be considered that the couple of watts of the fan might stress the PCI bus a bit cause the passive GT610 PCI already is around a TDP of 29W with the 30W of absolute limit of every PCI bus. The PCIe obviously doesn't have that problem.

This is interesting, because the GT610 is available in PCIe x1 configuration, with a fan. I wonder why the 25W limit of PCIe x1 was not seen as an issue in this case. It's doubly strange, because the Zotac GT610 PCIe x1 PCB has what looks like pins for a Molex connector, but they didn't actually put one on it.

Yeah even if it's just a theory but I noticed that with the Atom mini-itx board the GT610 gives gfx problems in the GUIs (not in games) while the GT210 lower demanding card works flawless. This doesn't happen in a common G41 mainboard, so I suspect the GT610 PCI might reach some limits there in the power requirement, who knows.

UPDATE: I think I have an opinion about this... the PCIe x1 version of the Zotac GT610 does not have a IC bridge chip on the back of the card, looking at the official images. So probably it's a native connection limited to x1 speed but without the work of an external chip to translate the interface. So That might be a reason for it; I don't think the IC bridge whatever version might requires 5W but probably some power demand goes there. Compared to the old AGP to PCIe bridges these chips doesn't heat up a lot but at the end it might have something to do with it.
I know also there are unknown brand similar cards based on the GT610 PCI with the same layout sold around that have the fan but I'm not sure about clocks, voltages or if designed without even think about such possible problem.

Rikintosh wrote on 2021-09-04, 15:33:

I'm building a cool computer for the year 2007, but I'm in doubt about which processor I should use, c2d or c2q? […]
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I'm building a cool computer for the year 2007, but I'm in doubt about which processor I should use, c2d or c2q?

The answer seems obvious, the core2quad has four processors, and it would be faster, however, at that time many programs weren't optimized for multithreading, and the quad had low clocks, which made the c2d better in some respects.

My intention is just to run the most diverse games from that time

My current motherboard is an Asus P5B-Plus, which has an fsb of only 1066mhz, so 1333mhz processors are out of the question here

Games didn't start reliably benefiting from four threads until around 2014. There is a difference between the first generation and second generation core2duo though. The best of all worlds is a wolfdale core2quad, which reliably overclock pretty similar to core2duo. You don't need the highest clocked version IMO. A decent motherboard can handle a 1600mhz FSB no problem, which is enough to take a Q9550 from 2.83ghz to 3.4ghz. For a retro rig I can't see much point in going past about 3.6ghz as that is when heat starts to get a bit out of control.. and at that point you might as well just build a faster PC.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-09-05, 17:53:

Rikintosh wrote on 2021-09-04, 15:33:

I'm building a cool computer for the year 2007, but I'm in doubt about which processor I should use, c2d or c2q? […]
Show full quote

I'm building a cool computer for the year 2007, but I'm in doubt about which processor I should use, c2d or c2q?

The answer seems obvious, the core2quad has four processors, and it would be faster, however, at that time many programs weren't optimized for multithreading, and the quad had low clocks, which made the c2d better in some respects.

My intention is just to run the most diverse games from that time

My current motherboard is an Asus P5B-Plus, which has an fsb of only 1066mhz, so 1333mhz processors are out of the question here

Games didn't start reliably benefiting from four threads until around 2014. There is a difference between the first generation and second generation core2duo though. The best of all worlds is a wolfdale core2quad, which reliably overclock pretty similar to core2duo. You don't need the highest clocked version IMO. A decent motherboard can handle a 1600mhz FSB no problem, which is enough to take a Q9550 from 2.83ghz to 3.4ghz. For a retro rig I can't see much point in going past about 3.6ghz as that is when heat starts to get a bit out of control.. and at that point you might as well just build a faster PC.

Oh, but the fun of a 480Mhz fsb (1920) and DDR-2 960 is really fun performance-wise. Still, a first gen i7-920 is still way faster with a mild overclock. The on-die memory controller brings a whole new level of performance.

My setup was still air-cooled.

Makes me kinda wonder why I am even holding onto most of my LGA775 stuff. I do have all of the different Extreme CPUs that I really want to play with a bit, but for multiple video cards, the PCIe lanes available and CPU power is lacking.

@Rinkintosh - you have a PM. You won't be able to respond to PMs yet.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-09-05, 18:49:

@Rinkintosh - you have a PM. You won't be able to respond to PMs yet.

Thanks for getting in touch, I responded by email