Quiet card faster than my x800xl?

[Alistair]

Upgrade time... am I right in thinking that the 7900 GT is the best balance of cash/speed/noise these days..?

 

[trinibwoy]

There are a bunch of silent 7600GT cards but I haven't heard of a non-watercooled quiet 7900GT. The stock fan is reportedly loud enough to annoy some people. Not sure if it's any quieter but you can take a look at the X1900GT too.

 

[Bobbler]

With either a 7900gt or an x1900gt/xt you'll likely want to replace the fan/hs with something quieter anyways (Zalman's quiet thingies work well in my experience).

 

[Skrying]

I'd personally spring for the X1900XT and get a after market heatsink, but that depends on your budget.

A 7900GT and after market wouldnt be bad.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

http://www.hisdigital.com/html/product_ov.php?id=227&view=yes

 

[BrynS]

The HIS IceQ3 X1900GT is available at a UK E-Tailor for £150 at the moment -- if I was upgrading my whole system now, I'd plump for one of these at that price, perhaps even two for some dongle-less CrossFire on an RD580 mobo.

 

[pharma]

Might want to check this recent review of "very quiet" GPU's.

 

[Entropy]

Upgrade time... am I right in thinking that the 7900 GT is the best balance of cash/speed/noise these days..?

IMHO, you are perfectly correct.
ATI has nothing which is interesting, if power draw matters at all.
7900GT is the only card right now that would give you a tangible performance increase at a similar power draw as your x800xl, but its slightly cut down sibling the 7900GS has just become available, and should offer good performance at even lower power levels, and the 7950GT that still isn't available will also be attractive if you can accept somewhat higher power draw than your x800xl. For both of these, factor in the cost of a Zalman VF-900 (set at minimum fan speed), unless someone actually offers a 7900GS with passive cooling. Asus, Gigabyte or MSI might.

That said, the 7900GT has fallen so much in price in anticipation of the new cards (and the price pressure from the x1900xt) that it represents a good deal in spite of the new nVidia arrivals.

 

[INKster]

How about the new 7900 GTO ?
GTX cooler and core, slower memory, much lower price (at least the batch that they announce at overclockers.co.uk, anyway).

I always thought that this cooler was very quiet and efficient.

 

[IgnorancePersonified]

Don't get a x1800XL with stock cooler - very very noisy when in 3D mode.
Good card but just too noisy.