Looking for a *quiet* AMD/ATI/Radeon video card for development and gaming...

[slugg]

So I have an EVGA Geforce GTX 460. Great card - no complaints. I will, however, be doing some OpenCL development and I'll need a faster card. For the kind of stuff I'll be doing, the Radeons are quite a bit better. I'll want at least 2 gb of memory on the card, too.

At the same time, I want something I can game with. I'm running 1920x1200 resolution. The most graphics intense game I play right now is Natural Selection 2. With everything turned up to maximum, I get about 40 to 50 FPS on average with my GTX 460, but this can drop to as low as 20 if a ton of stuff is happening at once. I'd like to exceed this performance, but I don't need to blow it out of the water.

On paper, the AMD 7950 looks good. But I don't really know; I've been out of the loop for quite a while. So I need help picking a GPU to begin with. Don't really know what's the best bang for my buck, but $300 is about my maximum. But if you all say that a few bucks more gives me a significant boost, then I'd be willing to budge.

Another huge consideration is fan noise. I want something that is silent. If possible, I'd like something that is silent out of the box without any modding (AKA: replacing the cooling solution). I'd be willing to, if that's the only way to get what I want, but I prefer a completely "stock" solution.

What say you all?

Thanks in advance

 

[thujone]

i'd say either a 7950 or a 7870 will cover your needs... as far as silent... it's really hard to say since almost everyone overclocks these cards. most people don't seem to invest in 3rd party coolers though... the stock cooling seems to work ok. especially with all the companies having their own proprietary (non-reference) coolers now

 

[slugg]

I should add that my GTX 460 has an Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo II - that's the kind of noise level I'm used to and would like to get...

I understand the OEM coolers are sufficient for cooling. Of course they are. But I'm hoping to find one that has the added bonus of being quiet

 

[3DVagabond]

The 7950 is very close to the 7970 in OpenCl performance, just a few % difference. The 7870 is quite a bit slower, maybe 30% slower. The 7950 is the sweet spot, IMO.

The Gigabyte with the WF3 cooler is one of the quietest and least expensive.

 

[Zxian]

Be warned - the Gigabyte Windforce 7950 will spin it's fans to 100% on boot, and then slow them down after a few seconds. It's not a dealbreaker for some, but it was certainly annoying for me. I ended up returning my card for a Sapphire Vapor-X.

 

[wand3r3r]

Be warned - the Gigabyte Windforce 7950 will spin it's fans to 100% on boot, and then slow them down after a few seconds. It's not a dealbreaker for some, but it was certainly annoying for me. I ended up returning my card for a Sapphire Vapor-X.

Is that the feature that is now on the Lightning?

The lightning (Twin Frozr IV) spins up (in reverse) for a bit then stops and spins the right way, they call it some dust remover feature. I think that's a great feature on paper but I don't know how well it actually works. I didn't find the noise irritating as it should help reduce dust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNwi0MHRiRw

Now if it was randomly spinning up or you didn't know the purpose it could be annoying.

And about the OP, with a $300 budget and the features you describe definitely point towards a 7950.

Just check into the ones that can still be overclocked and where you can touch the voltage.