Several queries regarding HD4000 series

[samuelmorris]

Hi there, eventually I will need to upgrade from my solo HD3870, since I run 2560x1600, and the 4800 series cards are unquestionably the ones to buy for the moment. However, I have numerous reservations about using one (or more likely, eventually two), primarily noise.

a) I know the stock coolers run the cards hot but they seem to survive. However, 27dB is far too noisy for a GPU. My current Asus card with the fan undervolted to 6V runs at 65C load, and around 19dB (Certainly inaudible behind a Corsair HX PSU at idle). The Asus heatsink is available on HD4850s, but only the 1GB versions, which are overpriced and pointless, and in addition to that, I use a 32-bit OS so will have no RAM left if I get two of those. Given what happened to my other HD3870's stock cooler when I took it off, I'm not risking transplanting my existing Asus cooler.
This leaves me with a choice of third party coolers. I have to consider that I will want to use two cards at some point, in a standard midi tower case, using an X38-DS4 motherboard (2 slot gap between the PCIe slots, and one spare slot above).
The Accelero S1 rev 2 is out, as I destroyed my last card trying to install one. The install process is shocking. I'm well aware dozens of people use them here successfully, but I'm not risking two expensive cards with such an archaic install procedure.
The HR-03GT looks nice, but is it up to the job in a low speed case fan environment? (NZXT Lexa, all Nexus fans fitted, running at 900rpm max, preferably less)
Do I have any other sub-23dB options?

b) The capacitor whine in the silentpcreview article was horrendous. Is this common? Does it affect the 4870 too or just the 4850?
c) Is there a simple way of getting the cards to use less than 50W at idle?

Thanks in advance,
I did try searching through the forums but didn't really find a coherent answer to any of these...

[FartingBob]

You say the S1 isn't an option because of the install process, but ive installed one 3 times on 3 different cards and ok the instructions aren't exactly the most simple, but if you go slowly and use common sense when the diagrams confuse you you'll be fine. And i think most large heatsinks have very similar install methods.

My 4850 doesnt appear to have any coil whine yet, but it seems pretty random as to what cards seem to whine more than others, even if they all are using the same reference design.

Right now the power consumption at idle is higher than expected, although the general consensus is this can be fixed in a future driver release. Im starting to doubt that now though, they released 8.7 last week and despite all the talk about the 4800 powerplay it was not fixed or changed in any way. So it could well be as low as we;re going to get.

[snake plissken]

Im starting to doubt that now though, they released 8.7 last week and despite all the talk about the 4800 powerplay it was not fixed or changed in any way. So it could well be as low as we;re going to get.

I think so to, tough I really hoped they would fix it in the driver because 80°C at idle is really hot and adds allot of heat in the case that needs to be removed.

[Doomer]

According to spyre, Ati beta tester from the Rage3d forums, "4850 already has all aspects of powerplay functional".

So it doesen't look good for those using reference cooler. However, Sapphire 4850 Toxic edition with the Zalman heatsink has much lower temperatures:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?i ... 60&page=11