Hi,

Well, the title pretty much says it all. I’m looking for a 8800 GTS card w. 320 MB RAM that is quiet, especially in 2D.

At the moment I’m leaning towards the Asus EN8800GTS/HTDP/320M. Do you think I can find one that is more quiet than that?

Thanks in advance,
LC

Any 8800 GTS that is water cooled......

Only water cooling...otherwise it depends on the case's sound proofing (if any) because they are all loud. I have two in sli and I am lucky that I don't care about noise.

Although I might be going tone deaf...what? repeat louder please...

Thanks for replying, Phreejack and Bornking. As for the water cooled cards, aren't they bigger than the regular cards, or something? I'm a little concerned about how many slots in the MOBO will be blocked.

Btw, can you recommend a waterproofed card? I haven't come accross any in my research (I'm in Denmark, maybe the supply is more limited here).

Other than that, I read in a review that the Asus card was pretty quiet. Does anybody have experiences with the card and can back this up?

(I meant "water cooled", not "waterproofed" )

I have an Evga 8800GTS 640, and I don't find it loud at all in my Sonata II. I ripped out all the case heat channeling and tossed it a long time ago (like most other Sonata users), and I really don't find it noisy.

I have the Inno3D gts 320.
Same as the reference card, and i have a water cooled sys, very quiet, and i cant hear the fan over anything.
Still, went for a thermalright cooler, just as quiet, just cooler.

They're all about the same.

Sparkle seems quieter but it has a special type of cooler which in fact makes the total heat in the case and power consumption go up, so I wouldn't go for that.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc [...] =2953&p=12
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

I would recommend BFG because they have some very innovative coolers that do handle noise well. I got a BFG 8800 GTX OC2 and can't hear it while watching movies or playing Diablo. As far as quality goes eVGA, BFG and XFX get the best reviews.

Edit: and yeah, the case matters a lot here. An Antec P182 would solve the problem nicely.

Thanks for the replies.

Btw, are there any differences in the size of the cards from the various manufacturers? I'm going to be using one or more PCI-sound cards, and I'm a little concerned that the 8800 will block them.

Aevm, that is the case I was planning on getting.

(Though it will also block a PCI-slot, from what I've read.)

Several sound cards? That's a new concept for me... Why not just one?

If it helps. I got a GA-P35C-DS3R and my BFG 8800 GTX does not block any PCI slot. It's a pretty intelligent mobo layout, I guess. I have 3 PCI slots, using the 1st and 3rd, and the one in the middle is fine, I can always stick a tuner or something in there. I hear you can't do this with an Asus P35 mobo and an 8800 GTX. I don't know about GTS cards, those may be thinner.

Geez, more than one soundcard? I have found my SB 24 bit OEM for 20$ SO adequate that I am going to have it buried with me.

Hehe. Well, to be honest I'm not really sure why you'd need more than one sound card. But as you (Aevm) may remember I want to use the PC to record music, and most people who do so seem to have several cards. I haven't really gotten around to figuring out which cards do what task yet, I've just been focusing on the main PC components.

Aevm, thanks, that's good to know about the GA-board. Do you have the P182 case too? It would really ease my mind to know that an 8800 card could fit in a P182 case without blocking any of the PCI-slots.

Oh by the way, do you know what PCI-revision the GA-board has? On their website it just says "3 PCI slots".

Cheers,
LC

I've got a Silverstone TJ09.

I've got revision 1 of the P35C, and revision 2.0 is already available. The physical layout is very much the same though.

http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/ [...] uctID=2631
http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/ [...] uctID=2626

There's a lot of room between the PCI-E and the closest PCI (see pictures). The video card won't interfere with PCI in revisions 2 either.

OK, if you're serious about the music then I guess it makes sense to have multiple sound cards. I hope your software won't get too confused. Here's my little horror story: I got two DVD burners, and audiograbber sees one of them (at random, I think) every time. It never sees both, and I haven't figured out what to do about it


Edit: oops, you mean revision of PCI, not revision of the mobo. No idea. I thought PCI was all the same, and PCI-E was the one with revisions. If I remmeber my history right they invented PCI, then AGP, then PCI-E 1, and now PCI-E 2. Don't remember a PCI 1 or PCI 2, for example. I may be wrong. Anyway, I'm sure they got the latest type and it will work with PCI cards you can buy these days.

Thanks a bunch for your reply, Aevm.

About the different mobo-revisions and their layout: The boards you linked to were the ga-p35-ds3r (not 35c), rev.1., and the ga-p35c-ds3r, rev.2. They don’t seem to have a page for the ga-p35c-ds3r, rev.1 (the one you have) anymore. But you said it looks the same as the new ones, PCI-slot-wise, right?

Anyway, the GA-DS3 series looks more and more interesting. However, since I don’t need raid or DDR3-memory, maybe I could just go for the ”plain” ga-p35-ds3. Here’s a picture:

http://www.giga-byte.com/FileList/ [...] s3_big.jpg

It looks a lot like the other ones, so I shouldn’t have any problems, right?

By the way, a while back I came accross a post on another forum where someone wrote the following about the DS3-series: ”I was looking at the Gigabyte boards and they seem to have very poor board layout - am I the only one thinking this? The SATA and IDE slots block a long PCI card. ... Also, the south bridge looks like it will block long PCIe 1x boards - unless it is a low heatsink.”

What do you make of this? Personally I have no idea what he’s talking about, but that may be due to my profound ignorance about computer hardware.

About the PCI-revisions, they have names like 2.2, 2.1, and so on. I did some research a few months ago about their compatibility, but unfortunately I’ve forgotten what I found out.

Thanks again for your help.

Yeah, I don't know why they have to make it all so complicated. Your safest bet is probably the GA-P35-DS3R, it's the bestselling motherboard these days and I'm sure there's a good reason for that

Thanks, aevm, I'll check it out.

I've just installed the EVGA 880GTS 320mb Superclcocked and it's in all honesty, 'silent' ! it's the quietest gpu I've ever used.

I'd do a recording for you....but you wouldn't be able to hear anything...and it's fan cooled too.

It's running inside a Dell Dimension 9100.

Thanks, jch318.