Graphics Card Purchase Advice w/o Cooling system

blairemrgn

Honorable
Aug 1, 2013
6
0
10,510
BACKGROUND: I'm changing out my entire system for an upgrade to DDR3 from DDR2, and I always had trouble with my graphics card (EVGA GTX 285 -- it should be noted that several people had heating issues with this card, so it may have been a design problem) concerning the running temperatures with max fan speed on a full tower Lian Li PC-P80 (ref: ran L4D2 around 87-90c and crashed constantly on League of Legends [kernel crash on W7 prof], though DotA 2 is no problem -- is this stemming from a driver or programming complication?). I avoided going to water cooling because frankly, I think I'd do more harm than good while trying to install it solo.

WORRY: I don't want to cook my setup that is w/o a heavy-duty cooling system.

QUESTION: For newer cards that come overclocked in the box, which cards would work well in a full tower with ample air flow for cooling? The only reason why I was looking at

EVGA 03G-P4-2667-KR GeForce GTX 660 FTW Signature 2 3GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

was due to the lower chances of overheating since it is -not- overclocked.

SUMMARY INFO
Budget for GPU: ~200-500 USD.
Mem Pref: > or = 3GB
HDCP: I don't see why I'd need it.
SLI: No intention to do so but am willing if necessary in 2 years. I intended to SLI the GTX285 but never really felt the need to before it went off main market.
Investment time: I'd like to not upgrade this for at least 4 years.

Proposed MB: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
Proposed CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)
Proposed RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Proposed OS: Win7 Professional or Win8
Proposed Usage for GPU: Able to keep up with the newer Frostbite Engines for the next few years.
Current PSU: 600-800W

All suggestions and advice are welcome. Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
Liquid cooling is the 'heavy duty' solution, but just to keep a system quiet or extra cool. Air cooling is still totally adequate. Stock OC cards usually have beefed up stock cooling as well, and as long as your case has good airflow you'll be fine, newer cards haven't been plagued with some of the catastrophic problems certain older cards have like you're talking about, so even playing a taxing game on an OC card, if you have good air cooling, you're totally fine.

The power efficiency of newer cards is so much greater that even with an OC they don't get too warm

Jaxem

Honorable
Liquid cooling is the 'heavy duty' solution, but just to keep a system quiet or extra cool. Air cooling is still totally adequate. Stock OC cards usually have beefed up stock cooling as well, and as long as your case has good airflow you'll be fine, newer cards haven't been plagued with some of the catastrophic problems certain older cards have like you're talking about, so even playing a taxing game on an OC card, if you have good air cooling, you're totally fine.

The power efficiency of newer cards is so much greater that even with an OC they don't get too warm
 
Solution