Gigabyte Radeon HD5750 Silent Cell Video Card Review

Silent-Cell is the brand name that describes the passive cooler technology used on Gigabyte video cards. 

The Silent Cell cooler is comprised of three 6mm heatpipes connected to an all copper base plate.  There is no shim used with this cooler to be very careful while handling this card to keep from damaging the GPU.

The heatpipes spread evenly across the heatsink to help promote proper heat dissipation. 

Heatsink construction is very solid, both in strength and weight.  A good passive cooler will have several key elements to determine how well it can work.  The most important of these is surface area, there needs to be enough to dissipate the anticipated heat load and still keep GPU temperatures in check.  For heatpipe coolers you'll need to have a very dense collection area as this will promote rapid heat dissipation. Lastly you need small changes in the radiator surface to promote the collection of ambient air movements.  If you look carefully, you'll notice a wave carved into the edges of the radiator, these are key in cooling performance.  Inside a case the air typically moves from front to back across the long side of the cooler, as air passes over the radiator it will begin to swirl at these waves and collect heat that would otherwise not be picked up.

All of these things together to create a silent and reliable cooling solution provided you stay within the design limits of the cooler.