Trying to figure this out is sending me crazy, so I'd like some help here.
I'm looking to spend up to £200 exc VAT, and here's what I need:
1. decent performance in 1920x1200 in current games (I believe a 260gtx or 4870 would deliver this)
2. low noise
3. low heat
4. low power consumption
5. ability to move to crossfire/sli in future (if I upgraded to a 30" and wanted to run 2560x1600 for instance, or if i just needed more power)
Now, from my criteria I'd been looking at GTX 275 with an arctic cooling xtreme cooler, however this is a 3 slot cooler so sli wouldn't be possible, these are also pretty impossible to find at the moment and with the cooler end up a bit over budget. I've reconsidered a bit because I think actually a 260-216 or a 1GB 4870 would run at 1920x1200 just fine.
The problem here is, SLI seems pretty bad compared to Crossfire, so that would mean a future upgrade wouldn't be so great compared to the ATI option. Seems then like ATI would be an easy choice... however the 4870 cards appear to run very hot, hence I'm thinking the fans work harder and they would be noisy.
This kind of pushes me towards 4890, they actually seem to meet all my criteria though really I don't need a 4890 I think, but lack of other viable cards has pushed me that way. I did briefly consider 4850 and even 4830 crossfired, but this would leave me with no upgrade path and higher power consumption to start off with.
I'm thinking perhaps a 4890 non reference design with a quieter cooler would be pretty perfect, I do love the Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme GTX 280 I'm not sure if there is anything equivalent for 4890's, I'd prefer if it came with the cooler installed but I would consider installing it myself, looking for a 2 slot max card though.
Any thoughts and opinions welcome!