Need quiet video card

[Squigmont]

My system is so quiet that all you can hear is a whisper from the CPU fan...
not bad for a system based on an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ w/ 2 gigs o' memory.
That's the problem... it took a great deal of effort and research to get my
PC this quiet, and my current video card (a Radeon 9600) helps in that
regard because it's fanless.

I'm not a huge gamer--the last game I played was MOHAA about three years
ago!--but right now I've started playing CoD2, and I don't have to tell many
of you in this newsgroup that my current video card is sorely lacking in
this game. :-( My motherboard is an Asus A8V Deluxe, which is a perfect
motherboard AFAIAC, but it only has an AGP slot. So... I'm considering
getting an XFX GeForce 7800GS from Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150131

Until I'm ready to upgrade my mobo, which won't be for a good while, the
7800GS should tide me over just fine. The only question I have is, how loud
is this card? I suppose I could get a big heatpipe cooler for the thing if
it's *really* loud. If that's the case, then I'd like to order it at the
same time I order the card, rather than install the card first and then find
after three days that I can't tolerate the fan noise. To those of you who
have this card, or perhaps the version that EVGA sells, what is your
experience with it?

 

[bgd]

How do you stay quiet and perfoming with OEM style cpu cooling? Above 110 F
sys (If you monitor in your research) kills the video. I too, have silent
system. Cpu fan blowing down on heatsink, all over system (north bridge,
vid, and memory) made an impossibility. Reverse dusct cooling and
aftermarket heatsink dropped sys temp by 12-15 F (thats just the idle!) and
vid came to life as well as ram bandwidth. Your 9600 upon comparing to other
cards is by no means a slouch in performance. I've got an even smaller ATI
doing everything (9550 SE).
Be even more precise with system and cpu heat, you'll get the 400mhz ramdac
out of that 8x AGP.You did mention a few years on that card..... it could be
too late no matter what you do with it.
I did this the hard way on more than one system (my own) and lost a few
items along the way.Slow reverse cooling on proper heatsink (oem has never
worked) was my best silent option performer to this day.
)

 

[Squigmont]

How do you stay quiet and perfoming with OEM style cpu cooling?

I'll tell you! Have you seen the stock cooling unit for the X2 CPUs? They're
impressive... they have copper bases and heat pipes. Plus, I have both AMD's
Cool-and-Quiet option *and* my motherboard's fan controller (Q-Fan) enabled.
I have a case designed for quiet operation, an Antec 3700BQE:

http://www.supergooddeal.com/PhotoGallery.asp?ProductCode=CA-3700BQE

I have two 120mm near-silent case fans (one front and one back) from Nexus:

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/nexus120mm.html

My power supply is an Antec NeoPower 480W which is silent. (That one didn't
come with the case... I bought it special.)

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article177-page1.html

Finally, as I had mentioned in the original post, my current video card is a
fanless Sapphire Radeon 9600 and it has served me well until now. However,
because I haven't played a game in a while, I wasn't aware exactly how
graphically demanding CoD2 is on my poor video card!

Anyhow, my temps are typically 33-37C for CPU temp, and 28-29C for system.
The CPU temp can jump all the way up to 50C after an hour of heavy-duty
gameplay, but if I disabled the motherboard's fan-speed controller and let
the CPU fan at its default speed, the CPU would run cooler even under a
heavy load. However, even when the CPU temp jumps during gameplay, my
*system* temp never goes above 30C. Not bad, eh? ;-)

 

[schematix]

I just got XFX 7800GS and its so friggin loud i am ready to return it
after half an hour, even though its the fastest video card i've ever
had... argh!!! i'm going to scream its so annoying!

 

[Chris Hill]

I just got XFX 7800GS and its so friggin loud i am ready to return it
after half an hour, even though its the fastest video card i've ever
had... argh!!! i'm going to scream its so annoying!

Long cables and a closet.

 

[John Doe]

I think this is supposed to be quiet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122206

The fan assembly looks better than most to me.

Good luck.