I like the silence.

[deimos3428]

My coolermaster Elite 330 has a mesh front.

Hey, whatever works...we all have our own idea of quiet.

I had the very same cooler on my 6850s and at full load they were quiet-but-audible, so I went fully passive. Mind you, there were two of them and that didn't help.

 

[Athadeus]

Yeah silence if definitely subjective, but despite the title, it doesn't appear that the OP really needs it to be all that quiet. I have a Gigabyte dual fan GTX 460 and an Asus DirectCU 6850 and both are very quiet at idle and reasonably quiet at load. I'm sure his friend's 6970 blower is terribly more audible than the average midrange option.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Love my Asus gtx560 direct cu 2, what a awesome card it hasn't ever hit over 43 cel housed in a cooler master storm scout case and its not all that loud either which is nice.

Had a hard time letting the antec 900 go after using it time and time again for the last 5 years.Now this rig is the most quiet rig iv'e ever used while being powerful too.

 

[Bill Brasky]

In my opinion, the key to having a quiet system is massive heatsinks and awesome case fans. I prefer to accept the fact that the system will heat up during gaming, but solid case fans, a manual fan controller, and good cable management will take care of that with little noise. My system is practically inaudible at idle, but the the 5850 reference cooler goes nuts when I'm playing a shader heavy game. It's a bummer.

 

[RampantAndroid]

I can't hear my GTX580 for the most part, fwiw.

 

[bwanaaa]

tnx all , i appreciate your input. in summary
1) case matters - maybe i'll get that fractal R3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352002
2) 2500K
3) asrock extreme 4
4) vertex3
5) 6970
6) seasonic 750