I want to stick a card in my secondary PC, so that my friends can use it for some LAN gaming when they come over at the weekend. It has to be inaudible at idle though, as I use this PC for music composition the rest of the time. I want to be able to play games like Arma2 OA, Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising as well as RTS like C&C, Company of Heroes, etc. At the moment it would be running at 1280x720 as my CRT TV works best at that resolution, but I imagine once I get a new TV I'll want to run at it's native resolution of 1920x1080 (although I plan to get a Plasma and I'm not sure if they have native res, so perhaps I could still run at 1280x720 with one of those).

I was looking at the Gigabyte Passive 1GB 6770 for £80 but now I'm thinking I might be better off spending £102 on a Asus 1GB 6850 DirectCU. I've got a spare Accelero S1 lying around, so I could always fit that if it's not quiet enough, but I'd rather avoid the hassle if I can, which is why I was interested in the passive 6770. It doesn't really matter if the 6850 is a bit noisy when gaming, just as long as it's unintrusive when idle/2D.

Take a look at MSI's R6850 Cyclone. Here's a review a HT4U.net in Googlish. Seems to be the sweet spot in terms of performance, price, noise, and power for mid-range gaming.

Wow, that looks pretty cool, only 12 dB(A) at idle, 25 dB(A) at load in Performance mode and 16.5 dB(A) at load in Silent mode. I wouldn't need use the S1 then, which saves a lot of hassle and I can get the Cyclone for £108, which is only £28 more than the passive 6770, so I think it's what I'll get.

Have fun!

Before I order it, I just wanted to check that the S1 rev2 will fit on this card, just in case I find it's not as quiet as the review makes out (I'm suspicious yes, but I've been disappointed before!), as I know third-party coolers are only designed for reference cards, which this isn't (which doesn't mean it won't fit, just that I can't take it for granted).

Well I took a chance and bought the Cyclone and I'm very happy with it.

I was a bit nervous as my Powercolor 6950 was anything but quiet, despite having two fans, but the Cyclone is inaudible at idle over my case fans or HDD. It's gets a bit noisy once I fire up a game, even in menus, but that doesn't matter as I've got headphones on then anyway. I haven't even tried it in Silent mode yet, only Performance, so I might find it does stay very quiet even when gaming in Silent mode.

Congrats.