On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:17:04 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.com>
wrote:


>>> If you can find the 6200 card for a reasonable price, then that might
>>> run a bit cooler. If you don't want to deal with Internet sellers, then
>>> get the 7600GS card. You'll need to provide a source of power to the 7600GS,
>>> to the four pin Molex on the end of the card. If your power supply doesn't
>>> have any spare Molex power connectors, you can use a "Y cable" to make
>>> another connector for it. (Some video cards, like my ATI 9800Pro, included a
>>> Y cable for power.) There is a female and two male connectors, and allows
>>> extending power from the back of a disk drive. I've used quite a few
>>> of these, for my computers, for one thing and another. I've also used
>>> them to power fans.
>>>
>>> http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...201-006-02.jpg

In some cases, some cards will automatically run at a lower
speed if one merely *forgets* to plug in the aux power
connector - an automatic downclock would serve the purpose
of lowering card temp and power as another alternative to
the custom display resolution setting in nVidia's last few
driver releases. IOW, with a card this age it would be good
to get the newer nVidia.com driver, not installing the one
from the included CD.


With the Gigabyte's stock passive sink, the next PCI slot
empty, that empty slot's rear bracket cover off, and driver
("coolbits" registry entry enabled) underclocking of GPU
speed, 7600GS should stay cool enough without an addt'l fan
unless the case cooling was already poor w/o the card
installed. Underclock it enough and it might not even
reach 20W in 3D though anything beyond the Vista Aero
interface wouldn't be very good playing on an underclocked
7600GS unless a quite old game or 2D only.