HD2900XT upgrade

Hiya,

I've had this card for around 18 months and I must say I've never been happy with it. Performance has always been OK, but it's noisy, hot and power hungry.

Recently I removed the stock fan and plastic shroud, and cable tied a 120mm fan to it, and I'm getting 80 degrees @ idle! I haven't dared run a game yet.

I was thinking of going for a 5850 as an upgrade, as at idle it has low power consumption, but I really want a card that will run silent with a passive cooler (can be an aftermarket cooler).

Is it worth blowing £200 on a card that may well present itself with the same problems of being too big/noisy/power hungry or maybe go for something cheaper (£100), not so powerful, but a small, silent card with better performance per £ ?

I don't want to make the same mistake twice.

I only seem to play Fallout 3 and C&C3. But who knows what I might try in the future..

Cheers,
adsmithy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adsmithy

Hiya,

I've had this card for around 18 months and I must say I've never been happy with it. Performance has always been OK, but it's noisy, hot and power hungry.

Recently I removed the stock fan and plastic shroud, and cable tied a 120mm fan to it, and I'm getting 80 degrees @ idle! I haven't dared run a game yet.

I was thinking of going for a 5850 as an upgrade, as at idle it has low power consumption, but I really want a card that will run silent with a passive cooler (can be an aftermarket cooler).

Is it worth blowing £200 on a card that may well present itself with the same problems of being too big/noisy/power hungry or maybe go for something cheaper (£100), not so powerful, but a small, silent card with better performance per £ ?

I don't want to make the same mistake twice.

I only seem to play Fallout 3 and C&C3. But who knows what I might try in the future..

Cheers,
adsmithy

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The HD5850 has power consumption lower than that of an HD4890 and even an HD4870!!

According to these reviews the card is quite quiet:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/..._card_review/1

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/

Looks promising. I really do want something that is silent at full load if that's possible.

I suspect/hope Arctic Cooling will bring out a version of the Accelero that will fit in the future.

I do game on a 24 Dell so need a decent card, this could be the one. Will wait on a few more opinions however..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adsmithy

Looks promising. I really do want something that is silent at full load if that's possible.

I suspect/hope Arctic Cooling will bring out a version of the Accelero that will fit in the future.

I do game on a 24 Dell so need a decent card, this could be the one. Will wait on a few more opinions however..

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TBH,once you put the card in your case the sound will probably be muffled anyway. Also you can use ATI Tray Tools,Rivatuner or ATITool to manually change the fan speeds too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adsmithy

Looks promising. I really do want something that is silent at full load if that's possible.

I suspect/hope Arctic Cooling will bring out a version of the Accelero that will fit in the future.

I do game on a 24 Dell so need a decent card, this could be the one. Will wait on a few more opinions however..

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u could get a 5750 which could soon be passivly cooled

powercolour is gona release a pssive cooling hd 5750 here read:

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16290/65/

I had a 2900XT until this summer and upgraded to a 4850 which i got on the cheap. Definite improvement in performance but both my cards were watercooled so heat and noise werent an issue.

If you are happy with the performace you are currently getting just upgrade the cooler with one which will also be compatible with current gen cards.