Which card to upgrade to? (8800gt,~350$,1920x1080,Gaming)

pris0nerr

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Oct 15, 2007
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Hello,
I'm in need of a new GPU since new hot games will come (Medal of honor / mafia 2 /crysis 2).. So obviously I need it for gaming.

The one I have now is 8800GT, the display is 1920x1080, and my budget is around 350$.

I have a friend that had 2 ATI and he always told me that the fan sound is so high for all ATI cards, and that he always have to manually increase the fan power before entering a game, which I never had to do it with my NVidia. So does all ATI cards have this fan issue?
 

pris0nerr

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Oct 15, 2007
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I didnt really understand what you said..
My 8800GT also have high sound from the fan when play MW2 for example, but its not exaggerated like the ATI my friend has.

Does this Radeon HD 5850 also have the problem that I need to manually change the fan speed to 90% and then lower it after finishing? And does it have high sound?
 

jeffredo

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No and no. That one's an extremely quiet card and pretty fast to boot.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/EAH_5850_TOP_DirectCu/27.html

Here's another option HD 5850 that would be very quiet. I have another MSI Twin Frozr card (GTX 465) and I can't even hear the card over the case fans:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127500

Also, a GTX 460 1GB would be an excellent choice. The reference cooler is extremely quiet and cool running and many of the third party (non-blower types) as well.
 

Griffolion

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As Jeffredo said, this Asus card does not have the reference cooling design, the one which you are saying is very noisy. Instead, Asus have put their own cooler on there that is quieter and up to "20%" cooler than reference card designs.

By suggesting that to you, i have attempted to minimise the issue you were most concerned with. The 5850 is a good card and will serve you well. Manual fan control is entirely up to you, so long as your drivers are installed right, the CCC should control your fan speeds just fine.