Testing the cooler was of great interest to us, as a passive solution rarely cools a powerful video card such as this one as effectively as an active design. With the cooler positioned in the upright position, we were shocked to see that the Silentcool 2 cooler is actually more effective than the reference design thanks to cooling from the CPU fan. With the cooler in its adjacent position, it was somewhat less effective, but still well within safety margins for the card, and at no point did we experience instability even in a poorly cooled chassis.
With the cooler in its upright position, we were able to overclock the core to 645MHz, and the memory to 844MHz. This is not an insignificant overclock for even an actively cooled card let alone a passive one, so hats off to Asus for making such a competitive and innovative solution.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the EN7600GT is the perfect card for silent PC junkies who don’t want to sacrifice video performance. Whilst it won’t dethrone a 7900GTX or X1900XT-X, neither of these cards can be described as even remotely silent once the fans spin up. Naturally, the cooling system makes the Asus more expensive than some other 7600GT solutions, but then you would expect that for a card of this nature. Anyone looking to upgrade their current year-or-more old mid-ranged or even high-end card would be well advised to check this card out – quite simply it works, provides a great bundle, gives you excellent performance at a price that’s fair (£158 or so from Scan. What more could you ask for?
Click for an explanation of our awards.
Pros
- Superlative bundle of games, software and cables
- Superb passive cooler provides totally silent computing
- Fast enough for the vast number of gamers
- Excellent warranty
Cons
- Naturally more expensive than conventionally cooled cards
