Thanks for the feedback. I haven't bought a cooler yet--I've been surprised at the quietness of the X1800GTO at idle. Apparently the reference cooler has been improved and doesn't run the fan as fast as before. Since I rarely game, the fan never spins up. I still intend to replace the stock fan/sink...

I returned an almost three-year-old TruePower 430 under warranty in January--fortunately I had kept the receipt.

The entire process was smooth and easy, and I was shipped a new, retail-boxed TruPower II 430 replacement within a few days.

I have an X1800GTO on the way from Newegg and I will want to replace the stock cooler. Since the GTO is basically an XL with 4 of the 16 pipes disabled, I'd expect that anything that works on an X1800XL would work fine on the GTO. X-bit labs rates the X1800XL at 57.1 watts peak power consumption, an...

The Asus EAX1600XT Silent is a very nice card--I know, I've had two and RMA'd both of them. So be aware of the potential compatibility problems with nForce4 chipsets, particularly on Asus boards. The problem is with some X1600Pro and X1600XT cards and some nForce4 implementations--the problem mostly...

Update How about the Gigabyte X1600 Pro Silent Pipe II? Where will this go in the list? I'd say it's a medium performance card, and would fit near the bottom of the medium list. Also, on re-reading the thread, I noticed that Halcyon had already posted this card. Apologies for the duplication.

How about the Gigabyte X1600 Pro Silent Pipe II? http://img458.imageshack.us/img458/8217/gigabyterx16p256derh9xq.th.jpg They're now available from Newegg for $109.00, and probably less soon, as prices are dropping on these. More pictures: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681412502...

Thanks for everyone's input and advice. Spent time on the phone today with Asus, escalated quickly to Level 2 tech support--smart, knowlegeable guy, by the way. Net result is that there is probably an incompatibility between the motherboard and graphic card, and I was advised to return the card and ...

JazzJackRabbit wrote:If you're talking about 2D quality it's fine and been that way for very long, probably since GF2/3. You shouldn't notice any image quality difference.

Thanks--2D is my primary concern. The last nVidia card I used extensively was the original TNT.

I bought an Asus EAX X1600XT Silent, and it's a very nice card. Unfortunately, there's an irresolvable conflict with my Asus A8N5X motherboard--the card causes the system to freeze within minutes (almost instantly on any 3D application.) I've owned several Radeon cards over the years--I know how to ...