€1000 Budget...what to get?

papu

k then for new builds xt > gts

Timans

Yeah, you speak sense papu,

as does your sig.

DirkVoodoo

But he wants a quiet system, will this be satisfied by a power hungry, stock fanned 2900XT??

papu

power dosent equal Loudness

the fan isn't much louder than the gts stock fan, anyways if its to loud he can get an aftermarket cooler , some are comming out soon

Timans

papu wrote:

power dosent equal Loudness

the fan isn't much louder than the gts stock fan, anyways if its to loud he can get an aftermarket cooler , some are comming out soon

Give him the link papu,

the link of Dooom. The one link to rule them all...

papu

lol what i dunno?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147999

this?

Timans

No, you twat


This http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=148245

RuggieBear

the reviews i have read say the 2900 is a loud hot power hungry beast. And appears to be quite hit and miss in games. The reviews above are the first very positive ones for it i have read.

My psu will be 500 antec. Unless the 2900 offers a huge advantage over the 8800gts i'm not that into it at all as i'll have to spend a fortune on a cool case, and a psu.

Anti

RuggieBear wrote:

the reviews i have read say the 2900 is a loud hot power hungry beast. And appears to be quite hit and miss in games. The reviews above are the first very positive ones for it i have read.

My psu will be 500 antec. Unless the 2900 offers a huge advantage over the 8800gts i'm not that into it at all as i'll have to spend a fortune on a cool case, and a psu.

The 2900xt is still a bit of a unknown entity. It is VERY hot and it is alot louder then the stock fan on the 8800gts and the gtx. Im sure with a driver update the 2900xt will be a force to be reckoned with, but at the moment the 8800gts holds the upper hand.

Also depending on your monitor, there really is no need for a 2900 or 8800 unless you plan to play games at high resolutions with AA and AF. A 8600gt will be fine for anything upto 1280*1024. And its almost silent, and actually comes in fanless versions(iirc)

Also be very wary what you read on extremesystems, there are a lot of ati fan boys there. I am neither, and would be happy with which ever is the fastest card. As you can also see from these forums, None of the hardcore tech heads bothered with the 2900xt. But went for the 8800gts super clocked if they were on a budget. That card keeps up witht he 8800gtx at lower resolutions with no aa of af.

But at the end of the day the choice is yours.

DirkVoodoo

I didnt say it was loud because it can draw plenty of juice with overdrive. Just that normally the stock ATI coolers tend to get a bit loud. His needs dont specifically require a 2900xt, i think an 8800GTS 320mb would suit fine. Plus he is on a budget, a HR-03 costs about £40 (~€60).

Quote, Extremetech:

All this power consumption seems to have affected the card's ability to quietly deal with cooling itself off. We were happy to see that the new cooling design on the Radeon X1950 XTX managed to reduce the shrill whine of some of their earlier high-end GPUs, and though this card uses a very similar cooler, we can't give it passing marks on noise. It's difficult to reliably measure noise in a realistic situation, because coolers for high-end CPUs and power supplies kick out too much competing sound. In use, we noticed that the card operated at perfectly reasonable volumes for a high-end card much of the time, but the fan would often kick into its highest gear for a good 20 or 30 seconds, and then settle down again. This isn't the result of a bum card or hot case: We observed this behavior with two separate HD 2900 XT cards, both in a closed case and in an open-air case in a well air-conditioned office. At this "cool off the card at any costs" speed, it's simply too loud for our tastes. This bothers some users more than others, but we feel the card frequently enters a mode where it's clearly beyond our tolerable threshold for high-end GPU noise.

Quote, TheTechReport:

Here's where one place where those power draw numbers have an impact. AMD has equipped the Radeon HD 2900 XT with a blower than can move an awful lot of hot air, and that inevitably translates into noise. This isn't anything close to GeForce FX 5800 Ultra Dustbuster levels—that card hit 58.8 dB on the same meter—but the 2900 XT is in a class by itself among high-end graphics cards. I think I probably could live with these noise levels, since the thing is only likely to crank up during games, but it definitely makes its presence known. The GeForce 8800's hiss is whisper-quiet by comparison.

Quote, xbitlabs:

# High power consumption
# Noisy cooling system

Quote, [H] Enthusiast:

The fan sits offset from the GPU with the entire system being enclosed in a shroud. This ducts the air from the fan pulling it in over all the heatsink material and out through the back of the video card. The fan is variable speed and ramps up and down in RPM depending on the temperature. You’ll be happy to know there is no “whine” to the fan, but when the fan gets going at full speed there is a decent amount of audible wind noise and the air exhausting can be felt a few feet away from the back of the video card. The actual change in the fan rotation speed is also noticeable as it will go from quiet to somewhat loud very quickly.

awhir

ruggie i would reccomend the GTS.under your 500w antec the 2900xt might be a small bit hungry.i am also not a fan boy as my last card was a ati 1900xtx.

oh btw shut up all ye UT n0obs :rolleyes:

RuggieBear

i'm not a fanboy at all. i always try to get the best bang for buck card...be it a kyoro II, Ti4200, 9800pro, x800pro (what i have at the moment) and i haven't upgraded in a good long time....my socket 754 AMD64 3200 is getting a little long in the tooth:)

DirkVoodoo

Ahh memories, I had a Riva TNT2 Ultra, 64MB as I recall. My most recent card has been an x1900xt, power hungry mo-fo, but a great card. Stock fan was very noisy but swapped it out for a zalman vf900.

If I were buying a replacement now, I'd probably buy an 8800 GTX but the 2900XT is a good alternative.

BUT, if you are buying a very good midrange card that is quiet and doesn't require 2 PCI-e power connectors, then the 8800 GTS can't really be beat.

TerrorFirmer

I just got an 8800gts 320mb the last day and I'm really happy with it. I had considered the X2900XT but despite all the rabid fanboyism the bad reviews far outweigh the good plus it runs like a furnace. My 8800Gts runs relatively cool, much cooler and quieter then my x1800xt. So far I've tried Rainbow Six Vegas and Company of Heroes, COH running at 1680x1050 at max settings pretty good so far, Vegas, with maxed out settings at whatever the closest res is, don't think it supports ws but you get the idea....

Although I do have a strange problem with COH...in single player, even with only one or two guys on screen, it just sticks at about 20fps....in skirmish its about 60fps....can't work that one out, but don't really play SP anyway so its not an issue for me...

Also, be careful of your board layout. The X1800xt fit into my case/board fine but the 8800GTs didn't, the caps at the end of the pcb were blocked by the ide cable so now I have to use an external dvd drive while I get a sata drive instead. Pain in the arse.

RuggieBear

thats a good point. the sonata isn't the biggest of cases. better get a measure of the 8800GTS.

Saw the coolermaster stacker in peats the other day. it's ****ing huge....i'd love it but it costs well over 200 without a psu