I think you need something better than the AlCu 7000 to cool that .. how about a Cu 7700?

I bought a boxed 4400+ and it came with the best OEM heatsink I've ever seen. Thin-fin aluminum with a copper inset and 2 copper heatpipes (!)

Based on the benchmarks I've read, the 6600gt is clearly the best choice of the cards in its price range. And just to show I'm not a fanboy, ATI's x800 series is generally faster than the 6800 series within that price range. Be sure to check the refurbished section on newegg, you can find some kick-...

Well, the only downsidesto this approach are 1) it requires a mobo that has thermally controlled 3-pin fan headers 2) it scales the GPU fan with CPU load I believe most decent modern motherboards should have temperature controlled fan headers. I certainly hope this becomes a standard feature in most...

I just built a system with a 6600gt and the nvidia stock cooler was by FAR the loudest thing in the system. Based on your component list I believe you'll hav the same problem. I also own a 7800gtx and ironically, it is much quieter (when not under load). I am not kidding! So I would strongly suggest...

As I previously suspected, it looks like the 6600 is the "new" Radeon 9600-- eg, it has the best "bang for the watt" of this generation of video cards. That's assuming you do occasionally play 3d games. There is a huge leap in power draw (and performance) going from a 6600 to 6600gt though, so be ca...

If you're really that worried about price, why not use the stock boxed cooler? The venice 3000+ runs INCREDIBLY cool.. and if it's on a mobo that supports Cool n' Quiet (I think they all do now?), I can't think of any reason the stock boxed cooler wouldn't be sufficient.

See this thread for a way to make the vf-700cu temperature controlled.. eg, slow RPM at idle, fast RPM at load.

Yes.. and maybe I should get a calculator to add up numbers too.. or better yet, an abacus!

I recently purchased a 7800gtx*, and after running the surprisingly decent stock cooler for a while, I bought a Zalman VF-700cu to install on it. The results are summarized on page 3 of this thread . Here's the reader's digest version: forget 5v under load, but somewhere between 7v and 12v is fine f...

According to the GamePC review of the 7800gtx, the 4-pin header is for "pulse wave modulation" fan control. I am not sure this can be mapped to a traditional 3-pin header.. (from a different review, but same deal:) The Supermicro board also offers 4-pin fan connectors on the motherboard, while Tyan ...

Anyway, if someone uses the VF-700Cu on a 7800 GTX, I'd like to know if the fan can be run lower than @12V, and still be effective. I just tried looping 3dMark05 test 2 @ 1600x1200 with the fan at 5v-- I stopped the test when it creeped up to 93c. 5v is a no-go. 12v performance appears to have a li...

Anyway, if someone uses the VF-700Cu on a 7800 GTX, I'd like to know if the fan can be run lower than @12V, and still be effective. Well, I got home and installed the VF-700cu on my 7800gtx and the results are.. interesting. It's hard to compare apples to apples since the last time I was playing wa...

Anyway, if someone uses the VF-700Cu on a 7800 GTX, I'd like to know if the fan can be run lower than @12V, and still be effective. You'll know tonight. It's killing me that I couldn't do this over the holiday! Bear in mind that the 7800GTX uses almost exactly the same amount of power as a single 6...

Also, here's some data from an Anandtech forum showing the whopping difference that 1T vs 2T memory timing-- these benchmarks were performed using real world games at real world resolutions. Sample: Insomniak System: CPU - Winch@2400Mhz | Memory- 2.5-3-3-8 X @200Mhz Battlefield Vietnam 1T- 106.5FPS ...

When I have more games that benefit from >1GB than I do that don't It just seems ridiculous (to me, YMMV of course) that you're building a balls out dual SLI 7800gtx system with a whopping 1gb of RAM. But it's your system, and I find your beliefs fascinating, if not entirely grounded in real world ...

I don't see where I'm losing this dramatic performance you're talking about for using "just" a gig, even though I have the settings in the game maxed out while playing at 1600x1200 with 4X AA. You won't lose anything in-game, but you'll page to disk like a mother once you exit the game; bf2 is usin...

but I'm hoping this example is enough as is. Well, 1999's Quake 3 Arena @ 1024x768 and a game based on that same engine @ 1024x768 are not exactly compelling examples of even remotely modern games. And would you really be running at 1024x768 with 7800gtx SLI? Somehow I doubt that. Even considered s...

I said I have more games that don't, and benefit more from the tight timings I can achieve with the amount of RAM I have now Do you have any benchmarks showing the better framerates you get from this "tighter RAM timing"? I was under the impression that tweaking memory performance just wasn't that ...

Also, I have a 7800gtx, and while it is reasonably quiet for a single slot stock solution , you will definitely want to invest in two Zalman 700cu coolers. No doubt about it. For heat, noise, and overclocking reasons. I have a ghetto cardboard duct I am experimenting with on the single 7800gtx, duct...

a gig of RAM

This is a mistake; Battlefield 2 actually uses almost an entire gig while running [at highest detail]. I can send you taskman screenshots if you're skeptical.

As of mid-2005, all high end gaming rigs should have > 1gb. And any gaming rig definitely needs 1gb minimum!

Aleksi, thanks for the pointer. Clearly this is the HFX case. It's a great design. I've always wondered why manufacturers have taken so long to exploit the obvious "case as free heatsink" design element. It's particularly easy to do in a desktop-style case! edit: here are some product links for the ...

Computex Day 3 report - SilverStone Does that case remind anyone of the Hush ATX ? And it even says.. This case was originally made specially for one customer, but is now available to everyone. It uses heat pipes and very large heat sinks to passively cool the entire system. It can even run SLI as ...

for heatsinks, Copper > Aluminum. And that extends to Cu > AlCu. All the data I've seen contradicts the popular SPCR assertion that "AlCu is almost as good as the full Cu version!" -- to the tune of ~5c under load. 5c under load is not "almost as good". The most recent data point was a comparison of...

You're still talking about 40w+ under load, which is the problem. That is not a trivial passive cooling scenario. I know from my Pentium-M system that 20w under load is possible to cool (mostly) passively without killing yourself doing it, but doubling that to 40w... uh.. no. Can you clarify-- do yo...

Most likely speeds around 1.2GHz-1.4GHz should be enough for movies, music and using a digital TV-card, correct? Yeah-- I'd say an Athlon 1.2ghz would be my minimum spec for overall speed and responsiveness in MCE. The encoding part is another story. That's what the Hauppauge PCI MPEG-2 encoder car...

I didn't try the XP-120 because I couldn't find any proof that it would work before I bought it. I think the XP-120 would be, uh.. pretty kick-ass.. at cooling a ~20w load processor compared to the ~130w Prescott load it is designed for :D Mostly I picked the Alpha because I thought the pin-fin desi...

What sort of case are you using and what cooling does it have? Standard mini-tower; it's my wife's computer actually. The only fans in the system are a 80mm low-speed exhaust, and a power supply with 120mm internal fan. Airflow is probably better than a SFF, but not by a tremendous amount. No fans ...

Right that's why the very first line of my post is..

NOTE: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ATI VOLTAGE "TICKING" ISSUE. As far as I know.

Update: A few small changes. I dropped the Audigy in favor of the SPDIF bracket for onboard digital out. I had to buy it from the AOPEN web site for $15 as I mentioned in the previous post. I also switched the very hot running, older model of the Hauppauge PVR-350 I had with the PVR-500 which not on...

I changed my NV5 on my 6800GT. It was fairly quiet but didn't cool that well. Agree. This was a problem with the original VGA silencer when on "low" speed as well. I had to switch it to "high" for it to be truly effective at blowing the heat out of the case, at least on a 9800 pro under gaming load...