The large passive heatpipe cooler on the Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH videocard is dubbed the Silent-Pipe II. It is a dual slot solution, and will definitely take up the expansion slot directly beneath the videocard. Depending on the motherboard layout (and the size of expansion cards), the radiator on top of the videocard could also take up an additional expansion slot or interfere with northbridge cooling solutions.

A single GeForce 7600GT GPU generates a moderate amount of heat, and that's why manufacturers can get away with passively cooled GPUs. The core first comes in contact with Silent-Pipe II's copper heatspreader which helps draw the heat away quickly. The heatpipes are sandwiched between the copper heatspreader and the large die cast copper heatsink directly above the GeForce 7600GT GPU.

Two separate heatpipes move the heat to different places, the one on the left moves the heat to a 20 aluminum finned radiator that will take up the expansion slot just below the videocard. The heatpipe on the right moves heat to the back of the videocard where there is an additional 28 finned aluminum radiator located.

The Silent-Pipe II cooler is obviously designed to work with system airflow, but looking at Gigabyte's diagrams, it appears that Silent-Pipe II is designed specifically for cases with negative pressure (more exhaust airflow than intake). Cold air is supposed to be drawn into the case through the GV-NX76T256D-RH's radiator fins along the PCI slot bracket, and expelled out by the power supply. The heatsink on the rear of the videocard is cooled by exhaust air from the adjacent CPU heatsink fan.

These two thermal images were provided by Gigabyte, but you can clearly see that the Silent-Pipe II cooler keeps the GeForce 7600GT core nice and cool. Next up PCSTATS tries a little silent videocard overclocking.