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All these cards actually use the same cooler (the 8800 GTX has a longer heatsink). With the launch of the 8800 series we roll back to the old turbine design with a fan at one end of a closed heatsink that drives the air through.
This solution has a number of advantages.
Firstly, the device drives ALL hot air out of a PC case.
Secondly, the turbine is very large and slow, so it's quiet even under heavy load.
Thirdly, efficiency of the cooling system is reinforced by heat pipes at the sides of the heatsink.
The cooler is not heavy, as copper is used only for the plate that touches the GPU. Other components are made of aluminum alloy. The design resembles devices from Arctic Cooling.
We found out that the cooling system worked very efficiently in all cases and did not allow the core temperature to rise above 85°C. But on the whole, both 8800 cards get very hot during operation, their PCBs may even burn your fingers. So you'd better install a good ventilation system inside your PC case.
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