8800GT cooling and SLI advice needed

[cliffordbyrne]

I am looking at buying 8800GT and anticipate overclocking it to around 700Mhz on the core clock. Are the units with a Zalman/Asus/Palit cards with exposed cooling fans running both cooler and quieter then the reference design cards? Any experiences to tell?

When, in the future I will buy another card for SLI, does it make any difference if I use a different 8800GT brand and different amount or RAM in the second slot?

Thanks for your help

 

[coxmaster]

Brand and RAM amount does not make any difference when using SLI. As long as it is the same chip (8800GT) they will work in SLI although there are benefits to keeping the RAM and clock speeds the same.

If 1 card is superclocked and the other isnt they will both run at the non-superclocked speed.

 

[BernardP]

A good cooler makes a big difference. See these comments on hardwarezone.com:

the temperatures on the GeForce 8800 GT have been generally quite high

the Zalman makes for a much cooler 8800GT

As for SLI, chances are that when you are ready to buy a second card, the 8800GT will have lost its great price-to-performance ratio.

The merits of SLI are debatable.

 

[angry hampster]

I'm running a Zalman VF900 and zalman ramsinks on my GT. Loads around 55-60 overclocked above 700mhz core. Completely inaudible over my case fans.