Yesterday I met with AMD's well known GPU partner Sapphire. Among their laundry list of AMD based graphics cards was this passively cooled Radeon HD 7770. The board layout had to be redesigned to accommodate the gigantic passive cooler (DRAM had to be relocated to the back of the board) but the end result is a fully clocked (1GHz core clock) Radeon HD 7770 without a single fan. 

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  • gorash - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    Wow, they can passively cool 7770... that's actually pretty amazing.
  • Rick83 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link

    There's even passively cooled 6850s, which output 1/3 more heat, and perform 1/4 better.
    Only a matter of case airflow.
  • Iketh - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link

    dying for a passive 7850... i'd be ALL OVER that
  • tipoo - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    Most of the time only the lowest end options are passively cooled unless you go for something more exotic, this is a nice change. I'd like to see it tested to see if it can keep up with actively cooled ones at safe temperatures.
  • LordOfTheBoired - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    My bet? Only if you're careful with case airflow.
    That said, I'm willing to try.
  • Ytterbium - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    I like to see some 'new' half height card come out with just PCIE power, the 7750 and 640 are ready to go!
  • etamin - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    I built a system using Gigabyte's passively cooled 6770 last year but the cooler on that one is significantly wider. I really like Sapphire's design, but I wish the retail PCB would be black, it's just so much more versatile when building.
  • etamin - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    *aesthetically versatile that is.
  • landerf - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link

    You can rip off the hideous air blocking plastic thingy right?
  • Binkt - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link

    Like the Sulaco from aliens... good memories, I'm in!

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