Originally posted by: Obsoleet
Originally posted by: nitromullet
All I'm saying is that NVIDIA could have put a few extra dollars into putting a cooler on the 8800GT that was a tad bit quieter. Obviously, it doesn't need a cooler like the GTX, but even at $220 (which is a lucky find for a 512MB version), it still isn't exactly a cheap piece of hardware for most people. The OP in this thread isn't the first person to mention the noise on this card, and I'm sure he won't be the last.
I've been researching to decide between the 8800GT and 8800GTS512, and have decided on the GTS.
You are correct and found these testaments in other threads while searching AT.
Originally posted by: Snooper
Well, after playing with the 8800GT for a couple of days, I can definitely say that air cooler is GOING this weekend.
I'm really surprised at how much it makes my case fans spin up during gaming due to all the heat being dumped in the case. With my old watercooled X1900, all that heat was being dumped out of the case (in my closet to be exact), so the case temperatures never came up enough to cause Speed Fan to crank up the case fans from the default 55% even during heavy, extended game sessions. I do have the temperature threshold set fairly low. so the case temps don't have to go up much before the fans would spin up.
Hopefully, by this weekend the new card will be fully burned in and I can trust it enough to start unscrewing the stock cooler...
Oh, and all the people that say the fan is not that loud must either be deaf, or they have never spun it up all the way. At 100% speed, the thing sounds like a hair dryer!
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear
Originally posted by: angry hampster
Originally posted by: Belles Toaster
Thanks for the quick reply! I basically saw two variants of the 8800gt design:
a) the sleek one slot look with shroud ( with revised fan) and b) the open dual
slot heatpipe or gpu heatsink with central fan (with heatsinks optional on other
components). Sleek ones run hot; the open design requires good case evacuat
ion of heat. Is the open design a better value since you do not need to get an after-
market cooler ?
Depends how much you feel like spending, IMHO. I paid $220 for my BFG last week and after I gave the fan a custom profile in Rivatuner, it stays reasonably cool and isn't loud at idle. During gaming, it's like a little jet though. I'll be spending another $40 on a Zalman VF900 to stick on it to keep it super cool and quiet. $260ish for extreme gaming performance is not a bad deal at all.
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...key=y&keyword1=8800gts
I usually game online with a headset on (ETQW only), and other games offline (Witcher ect) I use the speakers. Either way, for $100 I get a better cooler with two slot design pushing the hot air out, a faster card (30% in Crysis according to one site@1920), and got a copy of Crysis. So if someone is angry about the noise, which I would be, because I thought my 7800/7900GTs were too loud (once I tried an upper end dualslot card that is). You'll spend $40 on a new cooler to quiet the GT down anyway.
So the $60 premium to have a full two-slot design pushing the hot air out, and having a faster stock clocked card makes a lot of sense to me. Crysis for free (I don't like Farcry nor Crysis but it's still a new game for free), makes it easily a better value than a $250 8800GT with no game (which you'd be lucky to find on a random day).
Just my thought process while trying to make this decision. Those little single slot coolers are for 'everymans cards', and great for people who don't care about the noise ever, but the 8800GT is a little bit too pedestrian for me.
I'm coming from a 8800GTX, which I sold 2 weeks prior to the GT launch (by chance) for $510. The GTX is a quiet card IMO, and in my case it never needed to spin up anyway (Antec 900 with side fan attached).