Any experiences on the Gigabyte 4850 512mb w/Zalman cooler?

[nerp]

Yeah, I'm that anal noise guy who worries whether the latest edition to darned quiet setup will make the quiet whirr turn into a roaring whine.

The card looks good. I don't have much experience with aftermarket coolers. I generally have gone for reference designs over the years and find they're good for basic stuff but get pretty loud while gaming. My experience with Zalman is that they offer a good blend of cooling performance/quiet.

Newegg reviewers seem to state that this card is quiet, but I put as much stock in newegg reviewers as I do in apple pie baked with plastic fruit.

I am excited to see this card perform. My x1950Pro has been a very good card for me and I could get away with running it longer, but. . . The time is right for me to make the jump.

Seems like this card came out recently. I haven't seen that many reviews for it.

 

[Butterbean]

Maybe you should look at the new Gigabyte passive 4850

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814125237

The cheaper Gigabyte with the non ref fan (Zalman type) seems to be anything but quiet according to reviews. Better yet the VisionTek 4850 is $150 this week at Best Buy. Get that and then add an Accelero latter for $30 usd. The VisionTek card they are selling runs hot but its not that loud at all - and I dont like fan noise either

 

[nerp]

Ok, so the fan is pretty loud. However, I can easily plug in a Zalman Fan Mate 2 and lower the speed to virtual silence. Lucky for me, I have a spare fan mate controller hanging around my spare parts pile. With the fan going full speed, temps are 40C idle and 55C under load. I'm going to try it at the lowest speed and see what the temps look like.

The card is very nice. Fired up a couple things real quick, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., jacked up the detail settings and was blown away. Wow. Used to get about 150fps in the CS:S video stress test. With the new card I got 275. Booya!