Discrete Cards: Heat and Noise

I've been looking at laptops for a bit and was seriously looking at the M1330 but the initial report is that it runs a bit hot/loud. I know that if I want a quiet and cool system I can get an integrated card but that is not an ideal solution for me. Obviously the more powerful the GPU the more heat it produces and more cooling it requires. Rather than look for a specific model (ie, filling out a specific 'what should I buy' faq) I'm more interested in general trends with discrete cards.

With an x600 sort of card can you get cool and quiet in a laptop or is that just unworkable? If you can get that what size laptop can you get that?

Can you get cool and quiet discrete laptops in the 13.3" and smaller size?

The 17" models are really a bit large for me but it seems like they would have enough size to put adequate cooling in for the big cards. Do those systems still run loud under stress?

Any specific models that have discrete cards that run cool and quiet?

 

Smaller systems tend to be noisier because they use smaller fans that operate at higher speeds.

Just idling or doing basic stuff, it shouldn't be loud at all. Gaming/video editing/etc. will be though.

 

if you want a lower power gpu, get one with a "4" in the second digit...

8400, 7400, x1400.

at this point you should really only consider the nvidia 8 series cards. so an 8400 will do.

if you want a faster card (8600), its not going to be much louder until it is under load.

in fact, it wont be louder at all... it will just generate more heat and force the fans to go. so loud fans will create a loud machine. quiet fans will keep even a high powered machine quiet.

good luck.

 

One of the solutions here might be to underclock the discrete GPU and perhaps undervolt the cpu, as both of these will reduce the heat output and thus may cause the fan(s) to run at a slower speed/setting. Underclocking the discrete gpu will however also result in reduced performance.

If you can get one of the newer discrete cards (8400, 8600, HD2600) and you underclock them they will still outperform an integrated solution (significantly in the case of 8600M and probably also the HD2600 (only vague performance numbers this far)).

This is the way that companies such as apple manage to fit mainstream cards in comparatively smaller cases than their competitors while still keeping them relatively cool and silent (specially designed coolers may also be part of it)

 

im really getting tired of people not giving the X1400, go 7400, etc. the respect it needs. Its a good card. Thats beside the point. If you want a quite computer, get something with the integraded intel graphics. They save battery, and run quiet.

 

It's more that I don't really want to buy two laptops. Having one that can run games and another laptop that is quiet and cool is more expensive than finding a nice all in one solution. I'm just wondering if an all in one solution exists.

 

There is really no point in buying those cards now unless you have a very low budget and don't want integrated graphics (i.e. x3100). It is already being phased out.

 

And it was in a way, Top of the line 1 year ago.... thats laptops for ya.