"[Silent Pipe 3] utilizes natural convection inside the chassis to disperse heat. Similar to the principle of turbulence in fluid dynamics, Silent-Pipe 3™ introduces an all-new concept of VGA card cooling - Inner Turbulence Fluid Mechanics Design. Utilizing a series of layered long and short fins with trapezoid punches, Silent-Pipe 3™ transforms laminar (smooth) air flow into turbulent (rough) air flow inside the heat sink, increasing the heat exchange ratio and enhancing overall thermal performance". That's what the proud manufacturer has to say, but there's a review about Gigabyte's GeForce 8600GTS at Hardwarelogic that raises some questions about the last implementation of this cooling desing.

Since no comparison with the second generation of Gigabyte's propietary heatsink is offered, it's difficult to say if it's actually better. The GeForce 8600GTS doesn't draw as much power as 8800 models (that would have been a chalenge): 43W, more or less what Silent Pipe II had to deal with. And you can't directly compare temperatures of this card with those obtained in other systems.

Nevertheless, what should really bother you about this passively cooled card is the fact that the cooler does not make contact with the card's memory chips. Something that kept it in the past, from outperforming rival desings like the one from Asus, which cooled worse, but cooled everything.

The card itself features four Samsung K4J52324QE-BJ1A 1.0ns GDDR3 (the same chips used on the much more expensive 8800GTS and GTX) operating at 700MHz (1400MHz effective clock speed). The problem is that the memory bus is only 128-bit wide, so you can figure out by yourself if the effort was worth it.

Last but not least, if you want an entertainment center PC or SFF system, don't forget your case needs good airflow, as the card gives off a fair amount of heat and the whole Silent-Pipe 3 depends on it to work properly.

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