Anandtech said that the noise difference between it and the 7900GTX was "indiscernible". I guess SPCR's wouldn't count that as being quiet.

BFG is releasing a water cooled version.

I've got the XFX 8800 GTX. And its loud At 2d its ok at 3d forget its a screamer. Its like the stock fan on the 1900xtx. I hope zalman or artic cooling comes out with a silent solution for this soon

Well tech report states that it's actually quieter than the 7900GTX stock fan at load(check out the review and chart)..which is already amazingly quiet at load. It's one kick ass stock setup. I'd suspect only the hardcore silence lovers would want to replace the 8800 stock heatsink. It'll be a challenge as well with the amount of heat that the video card is outputting.

This is just making me a big advocate of dual slot coolers with large fans, it seems to be the path of least resistance to silent cooling, especially when there's a gpu outputting 170 watts.

There's also a SilenX Water cooler which for some reason they've made out of copper and aluminium.

Its excellent that the BFG version turns it into a single slot solution.. will probably be a selling point for more than a few people.

@falcon26: maybe your case doesn't give the 8800 GTX enough fresh air?
The 3700BQE might be not the best option. However, I'm pretty sure the 8800 GTX wouldn't fit in a P150 / Solo.
How do you find it in 2D compared to your previous 7900 GTX (which I have and find acceptable in a P150)?

Dual slot cooler with exhausting of heat out from case simply is only way for that outside watercooling.
Just think how much you would need to increase case cooling if that amount of heat would be just dumped inside case.

From EE Times:

"The GTX8800 adapter card provides twice the performance of NVidia's current graphics adapter. It consumes 145W maximum and 116W on average...."

The 8800 GTX and GTS do dump most of the heat in the case, but it's close to the back fan. The exhausted air is probably ~30%.
The maximum power consumption of the 8800 GTX is 177W, according to Jen-Hsun Huang. But in current games it won't go over 145W, usually less.
At Xbitlabs they weren't able to measure power consumption, but apparently noise levels were similar to the 7900 GTX.

Anandtech tested power consumption during different games. The total system power consumption jumped from 283 watts with one 8800GTX to 486 watts with two 8800GTXs in SLI during Oblivion.

Both Black & White2 and Oblivion can still choke two of them in SLI at high resolutions.

That ~200W power increase is in part due to the CPU and motherboard.
I'm tempted to get a 8800 GTS now, but only if I can sell my 7900 GTX, which is difficult in my country.
I hope that in 7-8 months the 65 nm refresh will be ~25% faster then the 8800 GTX and *FIT* in the P150 (or a P150-L will be available).

I can see where the motherboard and CPU might be a little more loaded in SLI, but I think the 200 watt figure can be accounted for in power supply inefficiency. Their figures are measured at the wall plug.

As much as I would absolutely love playing Oblivion with that card I don't think I could live with the noise or the power draw.

On the other hand, I have a Reserator sitting up in my attic, and that water cooled model is single slot, and I probably could rewire the outputs from my 180 watt external brick power supply from one of my old Shuttle Zens to a PCIe connector and power the card with that (provided it supplies the right voltages). Then all I'd need is the money for the card!

Unless every review I've read is wrong, there's definitely a misconception that it's noisy. Remember that there's always a way to quiet a hot device with a good cooler. The quietest stock Geforce 7 series with a fan was definitely the 7900GTX/GTO, far better than the 7900GT/7600GT/etc. Having an expensive two slot cooler helps keep things quiet assuming proper ventilation in the case. I'd definitely agree that the power draw is a huge minus though. It's enough to keep me away...along with the $450-650 price tag. I'm plenty happy with my relatively low power 7900GTO anyways

So when are the lower power versions of the 8x00 series coming out? Like in the 7x00 series, the 7800GT was a fantastic value both in performance and power draw. Has anyone else seen a timeline for when the 8x00 will spawn lower cost and power versions?

As far as I understand
7900GTX -> 8800GTX
7900GT -> 8800GTS

(not taking 7950 into account which is one strange card...)

There are rumours around of another part coming out in February, based on device IDs already present in the drivers. It could be a "GT" part, sitting below the GTS, or it could be a part which sits between GTS and GTX (GTO?). Or it could be a high-clocked part with DDR4 memory to take the gloss off R600. Or it could be a ... you get the picture.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4867

Then there are rumours of an eventual line-up of three parts, each in three flavours (so nine in all).

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4867

All very confusing, but I think the headline answer is "February".

http://www.matbe.com/actualites/14416/n ... 84-et-g86/

The low-end, G84 (8300), and the mid-end, G86 (8600). There isn't a concrete date but they aim for CeBIT 2007 in March (at least for the apresentation)

At least here a few cards will be in the shops within next week.. Or should be at least.

And my, er, educated guess, is that it is decently quiet.

An interesting addition is one of the comments in one of the threads listed after your post which stated:

NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0191.1 = "CompoTech GeForce 8800 GTX"
NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0192.1 = "CompoTech GeForce 8800 GT"
NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0193.1 = "CompoTech GeForce 8800 GTS"

The poster implied that the GT simply hasn't been released yet and that it will slot in between the GTX and GTS. To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense, but on the other hand, nvidia seems to enjoy producing as many cards as possible in hopes of finding the "perfect" fit for each buyer's budget and desires.

Actually there's sense in those.

Rember that GTS isn't just lower clocked version, it's also cut down version, it has whole 1/4th less processing power and narrower memory bus.
Previously there has been quite often two versions of top product with difference being in clock speeds, like for example 1900XT vs XTX and 7900GT vs GTX

AFAIK the PCB of the 8800 GTS can acommodate 12 memory chips so maybe we will see a 8800 GT with 384-bit memory.
But the 8800 GPU is very expensive to manufacture, so I guess Nvidia should do a 80 nm optical shrink ASAP in order to compete with R600.
The power reduction of 15-20% (from the shrink) will probably be spent for clock increase, maybe upto 700 MHz (1,500 MHz shaders).

I do have similar experience with Asus 8800GTS. I am puzzled, perhaps those fans do vary a lot. C2D is fine and I can't say that it's screaming in 3D but noticeably loud.