much to choose between different vendor's 7800GTXs?

[koshling]

Hi,

I'm shortly building a system with which my goal is high performance with good thermal and accoustic properties. I am unlikely to overclock (in order to keep cooling needs down). I'm looking at approximately:

P180 case
Antec TPII 550 PSU
ASUS A8N-SLI Delux MOBO
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo
Zalman CPNS9500
Twin Raptors in RAID0 (yeh, I know these are not accoustically ideal!)
some sort of 7800GTX

My question is whether there is much to choose on accoustic and thermal grounds between 7800GTX vendors. I think this boils down to the cooling solutions they use on their cards (I don't really want to replace the fan with a 3rd party device such as a Zalman unless there is strong advice to do so (??)). I'm current thinking of the mildly overclocked XFX card (the 450MHz core, 1250 RAM as shipped version), and would appreciate any advice you guys can offer.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mrkun]

The stock coolers on all the GTXs are exactly the same, with the exceptions of the eVGA KO ACS, Leadtek Extreme, and Asus TOP. As such, they will be sonically and thermally the same.

 

[Zenoth]

Leadtek and ASUS, can't go wrong on both.

BFG Tech is also quite good.

I believe my Leadtek GTX is probably the best thing I ever bought in terms of PC component, ever. Nothing to say against it.