7950 GT (fanless) or 8800GTS (320mb)

[Fayd]

my video card crapped out on me. xfx gave me a choice, because the video card was no longer made or in stock, between a 7950GT (the fanless one, retrofitted with a fan...dunno why, but includes fanless heatsink in the box with it) and an 8800GTS 320mb for 150 dollars more.

i cant decide which to go on, lol.


any opinions?

 

[Ika]

Depends on a few things, like what resolution you're going to use the monitor at, what games you play (because most people buy video cards for games, duh!), and how long you want to keep the card.

Initially, I'd say go for the 8800GTS, because it's a really nice card, but it's hard to say without your equipment.

 

[n7]

$150 seems like quite a bit more for the 8800 GTS 320 MB, but then again, it is a way better card.

8800 GTS/GTX/Ultra fans are extremely quiet up till around 85% fan speed, so honestly, unless you're running a fanless or ridiculously low rpm HTPC setup, noise should not be an issue.

An yeah, Alfac said it.

If you game alot with newer games at higher resolutions/settings, the choice is obvious.
If not, a passively cooled 7950GT sounds nice to me.

 

[Fayd]

i suppose i should have said my other system specs

abit KN8-SLI
2 gigs OCZ DDR PC3200 (really low timings, but i'm not running it at spec. i dont know much about overclocking memory, so i left it at whatever it defaulted to.)
Athlon X2 3800+ (manchester, 939)
Antec Smartpower 450w power supply (sonata II case...)

the system is fairly quiet, on the previous video card i used a zalman vf-900cu as the video cooler. and at 5v, it was still the loudest component. currently i have an 8600GTS fanless that i bought for someone else's computer, but it's not getting built quite yet. so it's in my rig till i get a card back from xfx.

i'm making some (small) money now, so the 8800GTS upgrade represents about 2 days of work to me.

the video fan isnt such a big deal to me, i believe that the 8800GTS series fans are quiet enough for my needs.

i play pretty much only 1 game. lineage 2. while my rig was a powerhouse a year and a half ago, modern sieges with over 1000 participants on the screen at a single time bring my system to a crawl. worse than a crawl. i generally get under 10 fps in the middle of sieges, sometimes getting pegged at an astounding 0 fps.

i'm just worried that the upgrade to a 8800GTS is gonna do the same thing in a year and a half.


edit: i play at 1280x1024, the max resolution supported by my monitor. unfortunately, L2 is a pretty poorly coded game that no matter how much hardware i throw at it, it will always be sluggish.