Hi guys!

I'm going to be pushing a 2560x1440 monitor, and I'd like to be able to play games at high quality with a certain degree of future proofing. I'd originally planned to get the Powercolor passive 6850, but I'm starting think that it'll be a little underpowered.

I've read in a few places that the Sapphire HD 6950 2gb is very quiet. I'm very interested. How much louder would the Sapphire be than one of the custom coolers people like on this forum?

Mike

Which Sapphire design are you referring to?
They have two own designs, with one fan or two. The newer two fan version should be one of the quietest 6950 models you can get without changing the cooler yourself. There's a thread on this topic you might find interesting

Oh! I hadn't realized there were two different editions - thanks for the heads up!

This is the one I'm look at. I'm seeing two fans there, so I think I'm on the right track.

http://digitec.ch/ProdukteDetails2.aspx ... kel=217938

I don't mind some noise under gaming conditions; I just want the thing to shut up when I'm using office applications. If necessary, I'd buy a cheaper card and look into aftermarket cooling, but I'm kind of thinking that I've already spent about as much of my life fiddling with cooling systems as I really want to spend ...

I have a Silverstone FT02 case, so air movement is nice. I have an inkling it would do nicely at getting the heat from that double fans system out of the machine.

Mike

Full review at HT4U of the Sapphire 6950 Dirt3.
[edit] oops wrong thread, sorry [/edit]

I don't know how they compare but my Powercolor 6950 2GB has two fans and certainly isn't quiet at the default 24%, but I can turn it down to 10% with MSI Afterburner and it's quieter than my AMD X4 stock cooler at that speed. Once I fit my TRUE rev. C it might become annoying again though and I'll have to fit it with an Accelero Xtreme.

Review and pictures of the 1GB version of my card here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphi ... html#sect0