Sapphire 6870 Vapor-X not that quiet... alternatives?

[Sunfox]

Bought a Sapphire 6870 Vapor-X based on the fact that it was the quietest/fastest card available (ie. there are no quiet 6900 series cards yet), and I'm a bit disappointed. It can be quiet. It's inaudible when my monitors are asleep. It was even perfectly quiet running a single 1280x1024 screen while I was configuring the PC. And I don't care that much about in-game noise levels, although it's a LOT noisier than my old HIS 3870 IceQ3, which actually had higher power consumption than this 6870.

But now that it's hooked up to dual 1920x1200 screens running full Windows 7 effects... it's less quiet. What I'm noticing is that the fan tends to have something of a "buzzing" sound at speeds above 45%. When idling, the card tends to stay around 42-47% fan speed depending on what I'm doing (like if there's flash, or watching a video, etc.), and it's not that there's a lot of actual FAN noise at that speed, but I keep hearing the buzzing sound. It's by far the loudest thing in the case when it's at the right speed, and I'm rather disappointed as it was billed as the quietest. I even avoided the turbo version (with the same fan) based on the idea that this would be quieter.

But now I see that HIS has their new 6870 IceQ X. Any ideas if it's any better for noise freaks like myself?

[Modo]

The MSI 6950 is supposed to be OK on its own, plus it comes with the Afterburner software, which allows you to customize the fan speeds if need be. I should know if it's as good as it looks around May. Since there are fanless 6850's, maybe a fanless 6950 will also be available this year.

[Sunfox]

I tried out ATI Tray Tools, but it only offers full auto / one speed manual fan control (same as the Catalyst drivers). It's taking a surprisingly long time for quiet versions of these cards to come out.

[quest_for_silence]

Any ideas if it's any better for noise freaks like myself?

AFAIK the MSI R6870 Twin Frozr II OC should be substantially quieter than your one, and probably the quietest HD 6870 around (currently I'm not aware of any midrange or high-end videocard quieter than it).

[quest_for_silence]

I tried out ATI Tray Tools, but it only offers full auto / one speed manual fan control (same as the Catalyst drivers).

You have to use MSI Afterburner (even if you got a Sapphire card) in order to tweak a suitable custom fan curve.