Which 8800GT for me?

[Beerlake]

Howdy again folks.

I finally got some extra cash and decided to get a 8800 gt 512. The only question remaining is which brand and model to get. I've been looking at the Palit models, mostly because of the non-reference cooler, which is, according to some reviews, much more silent than the reference single slot from nvidia, and runs a lot cooler than the reference as well. Any other suggestions?

What I'm after is;
512MB model
cool
quiet
reference clocks are fine, I can clock it myself if I feel like it


I was thinking about getting a reference board and aftermarket cooler, but quite honestly I'm a bit uncomfortable with installing coolers and would rather have preinstalled cooler that just works very well. Which is why Palit is on my radar.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[error8]

You have to love the Gigabyte 8800 GT with the zalman cooler on it. To me, that is the perfect 8800 card, as it also has software controlled voltage of both ram and GPU, and it is on the cheap side. I'm just sorry that I was in such a hurry to have one of the first GT's back in november, and bought the vanilla 8800 GT from gigabyte.

 

[Magusigne]

Um...if you don't get this then your crazy....

MSI 8800GT OC

Its an amazing card. Runs probably 30-40C cooler than the vanilla boards and can be overclocked like crazy.

Also its CHEAP!

 

[scheibler1]

MSI 8800gt oc.

 

[gorobei]

the GB is suppposed to be among the coolest of the GTs because of the 4phase power and higher end components. probably quiet too, but i saw one review that called it loud. ~$240

the Palit and Galaxy are 3phase and have custom coolers as well, but there aren't many reviews on how they compare in noise to other cards. ~$220 and ~$170

the ECS is two phase but has the best cooler possible(AC accellero) coolest and quietest. but the warranty is only 2 years. ~$200

IIRC the MSI is two phase but comes with a really nice 4 pipe zalman. ~$180


[I was considering all of these cards, but really wanted the GB due to size and 4 phase. Unfortunately newegg had the BFG 8800gts on special sale which came out to be a little cheaper than the GB. So I had to buy]

 

[Syntax Error]

Originally posted by: Powernick50
Um...if you don't get this then your crazy....

MSI 8800GT OC

Its an amazing card. Runs probably 30-40C cooler than the vanilla boards and can be overclocked like crazy.

Also its CHEAP!

:thumbsup:

 

[agathodaimon]

I have that MSI card... It's QUIET... I also OC'd it to 700mhz on the core (a mild overclock) and the temps never went over 55C with an hour of "The Witcher".

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Powernick50
Um...if you don't get this then your crazy....

MSI 8800GT OC

Its an amazing card. Runs probably 30-40C cooler than the vanilla boards and can be overclocked like crazy.

Also its CHEAP!

It's also even cheaper now at Newegg with $15.00 off coupon - MSIVGA15 .

See the MSI thread in Hot Deals for all details!

Hot Deals MSI 8800GT OC thread.

 

[Beerlake]

That MSI one looks like a sweet package, too bad the hot deal is out of my reach, living in Finland sucks sometimes.

Anyways, I've been looking at my options locally and it looks like the NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC is also available with the reference design. What sucks is that most of the time e-tailers around here don't bother with the details of the card, so I have no way of knowing which version of the card they are selling. Pictures are no help either because of the usual "the product picture may differ from the actual product" line.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Beerlake
That MSI one looks like a sweet package, too bad the hot deal is out of my reach, living in Finland sucks sometimes.

Sorry, I missed the part where you live in Finland. Good luck!

 

[Beerlake]

No you didn't, I forgot to mention it.

I e-mailed a few retailers about their cards and hopefully atleast one of them has that one in stock.

 

[angry hampster]

The Asus GT with the zalman cooler would be a good one as well. I had an 8600GTS made by them with the same cooler and it was very quiet.

 

[Beerlake]

While I'm waiting for a reply from e-tailers (it's night in here, so maybe businesss hours tomorrow), does anyone have a review or two for that MSI card? All I can find are reviews with the reference cooler, and would like to see some numbers & graphs on the temps and sounds of the better cooler.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: Beerlake
While I'm waiting for a reply from e-tailers (it's night in here, so maybe businesss hours tomorrow), does anyone have a review or two for that MSI card? All I can find are reviews with the reference cooler, and would like to see some numbers & graphs on the temps and sounds of the better cooler.

This may be of a little bit of help:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/.../viewtopic.php?t=46527

The cooler, a Zalman VF1000, was also featured in a roundup over at H:
http://www.hardocp.com/article...wxMSwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

 

[Beerlake]

Oh, that's nice, even with low speed setting its temps are rocking.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: Beerlake
While I'm waiting for a reply from e-tailers (it's night in here, so maybe businesss hours tomorrow), does anyone have a review or two for that MSI card? All I can find are reviews with the reference cooler, and would like to see some numbers & graphs on the temps and sounds of the better cooler.

This may be of a little bit of help:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/.../viewtopic.php?t=46527

The cooler, a Zalman VF1000, was also featured in a roundup over at H:
http://www.hardocp.com/article...wxMSwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

A little off topic, but I have to say that you are the biggest fan that Zalman ever had.

 

[Beerlake]

Well, I got a reply from one of them so far, they tell me it's this one.

http://beerlake.net/dump/msi.jpg

Does anyone know what cooler is that and if it's any good?

 

[Beerlake]

So, since MSI card that was on stock wasn't the one with the zalman vf1000, decided to go with the Palit card that I originally was looking at.

Big mistake.

Looks like it doesn't have fan control at all. The cooler runs at 100% all the time, and neither ntune or rivatuner can adjust the fan. I googled around a bit and it looks like I'm not the only one with the problem. Bright side is that it runs pretty cool because of this, but it's loud as hell.

So I'll probably end up replacing it with something else. Maybe with the Gigabyte equipped with that Zalman, or even a vanilla card that I can later upgrade with some aftermarket cooling.

 

[surfsatwerk]

You could replace the Heatsink with an aftermarket cooler of your choice?

 

[Beerlake]

I could, but the Palit card is of non-reference design, so I don't know about the compatibility.

 

[surfsatwerk]

The bastards.

 

[Sutareteiru]

EVGA 8800 GT OC 650mhz, sells for 200 bucks roughly and comes with a lifetime warantee if you sign up for it online within 30 days of purchase. Also they have a stepup program that if you find a new card you want that comes out within 90 days of your purchase date, so if you buy it today 03/13/2008 for $200 bucks, and say the brand new 9800 gtx comes out for 300 bucks and dominates the 8800gt , you can just upgrade it to the new one for the difference between what you paid and the msrp of the new card. They give you alot of options with good customer support, I have the card and it is super quiet, cant even hear it, the heatsink it comes with stays at around 47 degrees Celsius.