A couple of you guys probably already know that the good folks from Sparkle recently released a GeForce 8800 GT that is actually passively cooled. Our Sparkle representative asked us to do an article on the product. We repeatedly warned Sparkle up front that they probably would not like what we were going to write, because the reference cooled GeForce 8800 GT already runs insanely hot. Doing the cooling part passive would definitely make things even worse. With that said Sparkle still is not bothered by us checking out the product, and well you have to respect a manufacturer that is balsy enough to send out a product that potentially will get flamed. - Guru3D

Sparkle GeForce 8800 GT Cool-Pipe3 Version Review

The new standard GeForce 8800 GT cards are surely pretty to the eyes. A nice slim single slot design. The silicon powering that this card is based on is NVIDIA's new 65nm silicon. As it's pretty much the good old G80 core yet with some exceptions, the fabrication processed was moved from 90nm towards 65nm, meaning a smaller die-size, likely resulting in lower core voltages, more energy efficiency and perhaps better clock speeds. The one thing that is very odd, yet interesting though, is that the GeForce 8800 GT has an increased amount of shader processors over the GTS series, while being cheaper.

Sparkle recently released this rather special passively cooled card. Passively cooled simply means there are no active parts cooling the GPU. Therefore while retaining the nicest noise level you can imagine, heat is building up somewhere which needs to dissipate. And with a GeForce 8800 GT you'll have a lot of heat to get rid of. Therefore you'll notice that the card follows reference specification throughout the board. The card will be released in two versions. One with a new Cooler Master cooling device equipped with 3 heatpipes keeping the card chilled and stable and one with a high speed fan which is unfortunately too loud.

This is a little hard to sum up conclusion as our feelings to the product are two fold. We think this passively cooled Sparkle card is a very innovative product. You need to give it the conditions that it needs and you'll love the product. Let there be no mistake, if you do not have proper cooling in your PC then you'll have a problem. During gaming the card will quickly rise to temperatures of over 100°C and above. While not recommended, your GeForce 8800 GT still can cope with that. However the surroundings and the PCB will get so darn hot that the inside of you PC will warm up as well and that is not really an added value.

Right, if you factor these things in and get your system setup right, you end up with a reference performing product with acceptable temperature levels making no noise at all. Combine that with the GeForce 8800 GT core and it sure does offer a stack load of performance for the money. We are not saying we would like to have this card on a home theatre PC despite the nifty high definition features do to the dumped residual heat, but for a properly ventilated PC we dare to state that if you like an in-audible environment, this could very well be the way to go. Combined with a two year warranty we'd say this is a pretty safe bet.

With this passively cooled product Sparkle brings a very unique and gutsy product onto the market. Surely this is not everybody's cup of thee. But it absolutely is nice to have options in such a high demand product series. If you do it right and follow my guidelines, you'll absolutely will like this product. As you guys know, we have so much respect for companies doing innovative work. You can pick up the 512MB version for $275, add another 25 bucks and the 1GB version is also at your disposal.