That first link looks interesting because it says "SILENT" in big letters in the product title, but the image shows a card with a pissy little whiny fan bolted on. I can't help thinking "Yeah right".
I may well go with that though, if I can find any evidence of it actually being a quiet card. Thanks.
Oh, one other thing: Is the XP Pro 64-bit version any good? I saw a lot of reports when it came out of it being a bit ropey - has this improved at all?
although i REALLY reccomend the 8800GTS 640 MB, i have a 256 MB 7950GT (go for the 512 MB!) and it can play 1680*1050 LFS at 8xAA, High Quality, 16xAF with every hi-res skin and texture i've ever found while maintaining 45 fps with 32 cars ahead (although it hits 24 fps with 20 AI at T1, but thats my CPU), and will pump out everything maxed 4xAA (set in game), all driver settings at max while sustaining about 50 fps (although drops to about 40 sometimes) in BF2, just make your you get 2 GB of RAM for BF2!
More memory helps at high resolutions (although 1680*1050 doesn't seem to fall into that category), and also when you enable "super-high ultra excessive uber" detail in games like Doom3, although imo textures will get bigger and bigger, and 512 MB is a MUCH better idea - although a 320 MB 8800GTS will be faster than the 7950GT (about 1.5x times) and more future proof
if you want quiet, buy the card and a Zalman VF-900 - VERY quiet, GREAT cooling ability and fairly cheap (£17), although if memory serves me right XFX Made a passively cooled 7950GT 512 which worked quite well (although if it were me i would by a nice cheap Akasa Amber 120 mm, and ghetto-mod (tie raps ftw!) it underneath, and then plug it into my mobo and then ramp up the speed to 100% before i ran a game with SpeedFan, as you can't hear it in game, but at about 25% it moves a fair bit of air, imo, silently)
64 Bit XP Pro seems stable enough on systems i seen it running on... However there is still a large problem with driver support for some older hardware... Dont ask me why... cause i dont know <G>.. If you're on brand new top notch hardware all round though, you shouldn't run into too many issues tho
(as a side note... My Vista is 32 bit on a 64 bit machine... Cause i run crap hardware )
from experience with my Dad it seems 64-bit XP is good (if i don't like Vista on my laptop (when i buy the damn thing, or even if!) My XP will go on it, and 64-bit will go on mine), it has some of the stuff that Vista's got over XP, and it seems like a stable base, if lacking drivers - although he got it working fine, and tbh he's a bit of a n00b
It seems from the reviews I've seen that the 8800s aren't that much quicker than the last 7-series cards. Seems a bit of a waste of money, especially since I'm not going to run Vista.
Well the point was that if I was buying the DX10 OS, I'd be buying a DX10 card.
Yeah I'd rather have 512Mb (sick of my old 9800 Pro having to run low texture details and all my games looking like they're five years old!). I'll have to see what sort of prices I can find.
Good call, thanks.
Thanks to both of you for the XP 64-bit info too. I think I'll go with that.
Really? I saw a comparison on Tom's Hardware where the 8800s were putting out basically the same numbers as the top-end 7000s. Unless I read it completely wrong and they were comparing one 8800 against an SLi pair of 7-series cards? Maybe I'd also been smoking crack - I'll have to take another look.
Cool. See, my mate paid about £3000 for his last box, about a year ago I think. It was a running joke for ages so I'm looking forward to demonstrating to him that it's depreciated by over £2000 already, and my reasonably-priced computer is faster.
the 7950GX2 is two 7950GT's bolted together (with inbuilt SLi) and underclocked (To stop them cooking!) a little - that would probably only be a little bit slower than a 8800GTS, but seeing as they sell for £350, they make the 8800GTS look like a cheap card
XP 64-bit is pretty solid these days, been running it myself for the last 3-4 weeks on this system without any issues at all.
The only concern with it is drivers and other software. Check if there are drivers for all your hardware, and if the programs you'll be wanting to run work on it.
1) from what ive seen the 8series cars are a good bit quicker than the 7s and not that expensive really ... with your budget id aim at least for a 88gts 640mb even without running dx10
2) _dont_ trust anything on thg
3) xp 64 is pretty much useless ... its driver incompatible to vista 64 and nobody ever really used it so theres little incentive to develop good drivers for it ... unless you want to use 4 gigs of ram i suggest you stick with xp32
OK sod it I'm having a 8800GTS 640Mb. You're all bastards for making me spend all my money!
I'm still picking out quiet cooling for the graphics card and the CPU (C2D 6600), if anyone has any other suggestions. Looks like the whole lot will come in around £950-ish, so it could be worse, and it should be quite mighty!
wait 1 week.Doesnt make much sense now to buy 8800GTS 640MB if the new ATI HD2900XT should be at the same price and with better performance.NDA end at 14th May so at the time there will be a lot of reviews.
If you want some decent DX9 card buy ATI 1950 PRO.MSI has nice version with custom coller which is very quiet.I recomended this one to my friend who was buying his PC 2 month ago and he couldnt be happeir.Performance around 7950GT and its very,very quiet card.
Is the 14th the release date or just the date the NDA is lifted though?
I've looked at what specs I could find but I don't think this would be an ideal card for the computer I'm building. I'm trying to go for quiet components where I can, and because of the higher clock on the HD2900XT I'd expect it to run hotter and draw more power (potentially making my PSU louder) than the 8800GTS.
Anyway here's what I ended up with, thanks to everybody's good advice:
MOB: Asus P5B-E
CPU: Intel E6600 (Cooling: Scythe Ninja-PLUS Rev B)
RAM: 2 x OCZ DDR PC2-6400 (CL 4-4-4-15)
GPU: Inno3D 8800GTS 640MB
Case: Antec P182
PSU: Corsair HX 620W (modular and very quiet)
I also found a nice quiet 250Gb HDD. I'm a bit concerned that the SATA DVD/RW might be loud, but it'll be behind the door on the P182 so fingers crossed...
Just noticed the Corsair PSU has the fan on the bottom, and my case mounts the PSU in its own compartment in... the bottom of the case. Better look for another PSU...
I've just looked into it further. The PSU is mounted normally, but there's a little caddy for the PSU that leaves it a 1" gap above and below, so it should be OK.
14th May its hardlaunch.So the cards will be at that date in the stores.There will be cards with custom collers which have bigger heatpies and low rpm cooler.Sapphire and HIS will have definately that version.The power draw should be around or between 8800GTS 640MB and 8800GTX.
8800GTS will be same loud at 2900XT.Just read the reviews on the 14th715th May and you can make quick decision then.
Regarding the 250GB HD from WD.I have the same one for storage and its really quiet.The 16MB cache with KS series helps a lot with performance.JS series have just 8MB cache.
Also I dont have good experience with Inno cards.Maybe it would be better to get the card from Tier 1 if you want to go with NVIDIA card.Tier 1 are for example Leadtek,XFX.If you want to go qo with ATI HIS,MSI,Sapphire.
I have an antec P180 and a PSU with a fan on the bottom (Hiper TypeR 580W) and the gap between the PSU caddy and the case is sufficient for the fan to operate normally, its slow rotating anyway so doesnt draw in air veryt quickly.
As for the 8800 GTS/HD2900XT debate, from what I understand the HD2900XT will be a bit more expensive here in the UK (Devil fyi I bought a 320mb GTS in the end as it suits my needs and budget). I havnt got it yet but apparently the 8800 GTS fan is very quiet anyway, so I wouldnt worry too much there.
Havnt read every post in this thread but just wondered if you actually need the 640mb version when the 320mb version can be had for less than £200.
320MB version is fine if you dont play in extra hi-resolution but I am not sure about upcoming games which might want more memory for textures and the performance might drop a lot.Also in feature games something like Crysis 256-320MB memory might descrease perfromance again.Sometimes its better to think further in future
Just example with frame drop 320MB vs. 640.One of the latest games and I think it will be not better ni future games but really depend on the engine how its wrote.
If I would buy new graphic card now I wouldnt got with less then 512MB ram but thats just my opinion.Well I live in more poor country so I am always thinking something must last a bit longer.If you can buy new card every year or 1.5 year then 320 version is definately fine.
pb3200 - congrats for new card.I know 320MB version is nowdays very cheap.Enjoy it
Great stuff. I just managed to find a store with one P182 left in stock today so I grabbed it, seems they're like hen's teeth. Had the same problem trying to find a Samsung 226BW last month.
Isn't everything?
Well I got a 640Mb one for £230, which still kept me within my budget so I thought what the hell. Thing is I'm not a PC "enthusiast", I don't tend to upgrade my computer incrementally - I'll probably put up with this one for three or four years without replacing anything in it. So having a bit of RAM headroom ought to help ease the pain in 2010!
Time I spend with the side off my case or tinkering with software settings is time I'd rather spend doing something else. In fact after 15 years of Windows I'm seriously considering switching to Mac for those reasons. I'm planning to pick up a Macbook for the summer to evaluate it properly.
