With the hoopla surrounding BFG's ultra-extreme GeForce GTX 295 H2O, here's a somewhat interesting card that almost past us by - BFG's GeForce 9800 GT with ThermoIntelligence Passive cooling.
As you'll have guessed by the branding, this is a completely passive take on NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GT, making it ideal for HTPCs designed with quietness in mind. But then, for media purposes, there are cheaper cards like the GeForce 9500 GT - isn't the 9800 GT a bit of overkill? BFG would argue that there are HTPC users that like to game from time to time, too, hence the product.
The card - complete with plain ol' green PCB - utilises a GPU-mounted block that's connected to a rear-mounted heatsink via four heatpipes. As you'd expect from a passive solution, frequencies remain at stock levels so we're looking at 600MHz for the GPU, 1,500MHz for the 112 stream processors, and an effective 1,800MHz for the 512MB of GDDR3 memory.
The prospect of passively-cooling a card that requires a six-pin power connector isn't going to put most users' minds at ease, but the GeForce 9800 GT with ThermoIntelligence Passive cooling is backed by BFG's lifetime warranty.
We've yet to see UK pricing, but US etailer NewEgg.com has the card listed for $159.99 excluding local tax.
Official product page: BFGTech.com
