have nothing against ATI but have used NVIDIA cards for ages and have not had problems with them, whereas have had a niggling problem with an old 2400PRO in the past going all blocky when playing video, but that eventually got sorted but i'm getting off the point.

i'm upgrading my old core2 e4300/scythe ninja/geforce 8800gts workhorse system to a more recent offering (likely to be an overclocked i5 2500k/asus p8p67/arctic freezer 13 bundle) that will play games nicely

am using a dell 24" monitor which is 1920x1200 but i have no issues dropping down the the 16:10 res below that for performance which i am doing with games on my current rig.

any suggestions? (whereas i dont mind spending the money, i dont need bleeding edge cards and the premium they come with)

Going passive imo is not worth it, specially if you plan to play. If you already have a fan running, i would just try to go with a good aftermarket cooling setup. Some have had good results lowering the rpm with MSI afterburner or flashing the vbios to even lower it more. Idk whats your budget, but there are good cards for all ranges,

Galaxy Geforce GTX580 1536 MB DDR5 Video Card
SPARKLE Calibre X570 GeForce GTX 570
Sparkle Calibre X460G GeForce GTX 460
SPARKLE Calibre Series X450G GeForce GTS 450

having looked around, i see that passively cooled ATI card which is meant to be comparable to a nvidia 460 but its passive. might wait to see how that pans out, cost wise, else i may just go with a fan based nvidia card.

There are some cards around now with very quiet coolers as standard, for example the Gigabyte GTX 560 OC http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-gigabyte-gtx-560-oc-40nm-4008mhz-gddr5-gpu-830mhz-shader-1660mhz-336-cores-2-x-dvi-i-mhdmi. This particular card is fitted with twin 100mm fans, and produces very little noise at idle. Even at load it would probably not be that intrusive.

Hi, you might take a look at the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti OC 1GB
The 560 has 4008MHz GDDR5, GPU 830MHz, Shader 1660MHz, 336 Cores
The 560 Ti has 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 900MHz, Shader 1800MHz, 384 Cores
The cores x MHz is 24% more performance for an extra £7!

Anandtech review of GTX 560
My summary of their findings is the GTX 560 Ti is ~10% faster than "base" clocked GTX 560 but most will be over-clocked, like the aforementioned Gigabyte, and the power consumption relative to performance pretty much matches the 560 Ti.
The Gigabyte 560 Ti OC has GPU and shader clocks 9.5% above stock 560 Ti.
There is also a 560 Ti SOC (super over clock) with 4580/950/1900 clocks and a different cooler.

How the Gigabyte 560 Ti OC fits in I wouldn't like to say but suspect the difference in noise to be minimal vs the GTX 560 OC version.

Regards, Seb

The twin 100mm fan setup fitted to the GTX 560 OC is the most recent of Gigabyte's twin fan technologies, in fact this is the first card I am aware of with it that you can buy retail. The web reviewers talk about how quiet it is at idle, and even when overclocked from the stock 830Mhz it features relatively low load temperatures (mid 60s C) with what one reviewer describes as a faint drone from the fans. So cooling maybe as good as or slightly better than the Arctic Twin Turbo Pro, without the cost and hassle of having to replace a stock cooler yourself. And with a custom fan profile created with MSI Afterburner could have even more potential as a relatively quiet gaming card.

interesting, having not kept in the pc upgrading game (havent done for a good few years) i had always assume/associated fans = moving parts = noise.

despite my bias towards NVIDIA i am not that closed minded as some fanboys are, that new passive 6850 that is set to be released soon, looks promising as being the fastest passive card around, whats the equivalent NVIDIA card to one of those?

do you think it will be able to handle 1920x1200 gaming when bundled with a i5 2500k @ 4.5ghz?

afaik, the HD6850 is generally equivalent to the 1GB edition GTX460's (NOT the SE), as for 1920*1080 gaming, I think they are fine in generally, might need to turn down the effect for specific titles

the "SE" --is that a faster(/special?) edition of the 460?

quite the opposite, turned out to be slower than the original 768mb version of 460

ah i see, did a google around with some people suggesting the SE stood for "sucky edition" heh

If bigger fans are the solution (as Gigabyte has done here) why not go totally passive and crossfire 6850's without fans and let your much bigger casefans do more work?

[quote="tanassi]If bigger fans are the solution (as Gigabyte has done here) why not go totally passive and crossfire 6850's without fans and let your much bigger casefans do more work?[/quote]
its an interesting option but its not released nor do i know how much its likely to put me back. i suppose i could upgrade the cpu/motherboard and worry about the gfx later, hmm!

Get a motherboard with fan control for both cpu fan AND casefans. This has helped my rig a lot. On my Asus P8p67 deluxe I can set graphs like afterburner for the fans in my Lian Li case. Works wonders and makes more sense than using the tiny fans on a vid card.

I run my 580 passive at idle. Bios modded sparkle 580 (comes with cooler). I suggest the Galaxy 580 as it comes quiet enough stock without bios mod and is reasonably priced.

What case are you using?

And you dont have to mod the bios to get a fan settings lower than 40% in Afterburner?

is there any specific make of 560 or 560ti is more "quieter" than others, i think i've settled on one of those two if my replacement psu is going to take it..