Which graphics card 4870/260?

[Tricky1]

Hey,

I've almost finished building my new PC (my first build), it's all set up and working I just don't have a 'proper' graphics card yet. At the moment the PC is pretty quiet (P182 case with noctua fans, 620w corsair PSU, noctua cpu cooler, old passive 7300gt) and I really don't want to spoil that because I use my PC for work and I find it impossible to concentrate with noise. Unfortunately, I need a good graphics card and from reading around for the last few days I'm completely and utterly confused which one to go for .

The PC is used for 3D work (and sometimes gaming) so the graphics card will be under heavy load often.

I've got a budget of £140-150 so it's probably between the 4870, 4890 or the nVidia 260 gtx (the nVidia would be preferred because I would like to use CUDA for a project sometime), none of them seem to be perfect though, I've read quite a few cons about each, e.g:

260 GTX
- Runs in 3D (so hotter/noiser) mode at all times if you have dual screens (I run 2x24")
- Coil whine
- Stock coolers on the 55nm ones are all noisy
- None of the 3rd party coolers seem to be suitable 'out-of-the-box' because of the VRM heatsinks

4870
- High idle power consumption
- Difficult to cool properly
- Again, none of the 3rd party seem to be suitable 'out-of-the-box' because of the VRM heatsinks

Passive 4850
- Can reach 110 degrees under load
- Not as powerful as I'd like



Could anyone suggest a good option on my budget? I don't really want to fit a 3rd party cooler because of this being my first build I'm not comfortable about, for example, cutting chunks out of VRM Heatsinks to make them fit onto cards they're not 100% compatible with. I would consider it as a last resort though.

Thanks in advance for any advice, sorry for the long post!

[thepwner]

To get a good video card and silence...you need to get an aftermarket cooler. May I suggest one of Arctic Cooling GPU coolers?

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/main.php?cPath=2

They have ones to fit both the Radeon 48xx and the 260 that you're thinking of.

[lodestar]

Inno3D have a GTX 260 which has the Accelero heatsink fitted as standard, see
http://www.inno3d.com/products/GRAPHIC_ ... ro_xxx.htm

[Tricky1]

Do you know of anywhere in the UK that has the Inno3D iChill 260 (and in stock)? I did see that one, but I can't actually find the product for sale in the UK.

About the 3rd party cooler, I would be OK fitting one (Accelero Xtreme) but aparantly it doesn't cool the VRM properly, so they hit about 115 degrees under load (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cooler ... html#sect0)

If I did go for the 3rd party cooler option do you know if these are definitely compatible (I can't find if the card uses the reference PCB, but I assume it does)?
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=1013325
+
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Artic-Co ... 260280285)

and do I then need to buy something extra to cool the VRM?

Thanks again.

[nutball]

You can add coil whine to the list of drawbacks for the 4870 too.

Regarding cooling the memory and VRMs on a 4870, some folks round here (myself included) have addressed this by dismantling the stock heatsink and leaving the metal baseplate in place. This works well with the Accelero S1R2. You'll still need a little bit of airflow to help the baseplate cool the memory/VRMs, but then you will anyway. Maybe this trick will work for NVIDIA cards too?

[rei]

My GTX 260 core 216 (BFG) is fine at 25%.

[kiwik]

My EVGA GTX 260 55nm has coil noise, but I've heard way worse. The blowerfan is very quiet when it stays under 50%, which it does because the card doesn't climb over 75C at load during a very hot summer day. I can't hear it over the rest of my 4x 800RPM Slipstreams.