I remember the days I had my x800. Probably the hottest running card I have ever owned
This is coming from a man with a 7900GTX??
My current card runs idle @ 45 C (7900 GTX) w/ Zalaman air cooling kit. Highest load temp I have seen is around 55 C.
As a former resident of Cali, I doubt your temps are that low...
Especially if your running the VF-900, that sure as hell aint happening.
My abient temps right now at the time of my testing are 25 C or almost 80 F. I'm not in any A/C if that's what you're thinking.
Here you can see my temps 2 minutes recording the desktop temps 45 C. The next is after running the graphic test on Company of Heroes w/all graphical seetings maxed @1920x1080. I think it runs for a minute and half. Looks like my maxed out temp was around 65 C. After 1 minute you can see I go right back down around 49 C.
If my ambient temps were a bit lower today I'd probably be at around 60 C. I have recently added (2) more Raptor 150's and put the Ageias Physx paper weight back in my rig. This probably accounts for a bit more rise in temps since my last time I ran any kind of temperature benchmark.
I think this does clearly show the 7900GTX runs cooler with the proper heatsink mods than a 800SE. That was my point.
I Think my x800 was my first 2-slot card.
All X800's were single slot solutions. The only time this diverted was after the X850pro.
I wasn't sure if my card was an x800 or x850 off the top of my head when I wrote my post. I thought it was an x800 and was hot for sure. I did see on newegg they have x800GTO's with 2 slot cooling. That's why I said I thought I had an x800, but now that you mentioned x850 pro I think that's what I had. We're are talking about 5 video cards ago for me. So, the memory gets a bit muddy after a few years.
9800PRo>X850Pro>6800Ultra>7800GTX>7900GT>7900GTX my timeline
***EDITED*** I remember now. I did have the 850 Pro and it was the hot AGP card I was talking about. I later got a ATI AIW X800Xl PCIE thinking I could do cross-fire set-up after talking to ATI's Tech support *chuckles*. I returned that card shortly after buying it. I don't remember it running to hot. I did play Guild wars when it first came out on this card. I remember it did a real good job, but no crossfire support at that time was what made me go with the Sli options.