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4830/4850 in HTPC

enigmo

enigmo

enigmo

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Joined
3 Jan 2007
Posts
462
Location
London
I'm looking for a new graphics card for my htpc as part of a long curve of upgrades. Do either the 4830 or 4850 cards run quiet enough to use in a htpc? I'm looking at the XFX range with the externally-exhausting coolers.
 
Not really, I wanted to go for a low power card that at least had some decent gaming performance. Was originally going for the 4670, but at the time when the 4830 card was around the £80 mark back in January, it made me decide on that instead. The PCB is smaller than the stock reference ATi 4830 and this card is capable of overclocking to 4850 speeds, so it was pretty much perfect for my needs. Anything higher, then it may as well just be a gaming PC. The 4830 is only like 10-15% less performance than the 4850 anyways.
 
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Gigabyte do a passive 4850. As long as there is a bit of air flow it stays in the 'safe temps' range when gaming. It cannot be O/C too much without turning up the case air flow.

My priority is low noise but I still want to play the odd game :D
 
I have a 1gb 4870 in my HTPC. Although its a very large HTPC case with enough room yet for a second graphics card. Its pretty cool and quiet overall.

The case is a Antec fusion Max
 
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I guess what I'm getting at is; is an XFX 4850 quiet enough for a HTPC case that in general has reasonable but not good airflow, won't be doing any gaming on it, but some recoding, or should I go with a lower power card like a 4830 or 4670. I'm having some trouble finding noice comparisons under load for these cards.
 
likewise ... I have a sapphire 4830 in a HTPC - it comes with a nice cooler but I slapped a zalman vf1000 on it

Absolutely in love with the sapphire 4830s - I've bought 3 of them in the past week and am considering more albeit I'll wait a couple of weeks for the ATI/Nvidia price cuts (get the feeling the 4830 won't go down - it's dirt cheap as it is :D )
 
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Ta :) I've just grabbed myself an XFX 4850 XXX for £103! Finally I get to retire my AthlonM/9600SE based PVR and hopefully the new setup should be a bit quieter :) If not, I'll invest in the Zalman cooler. It may not exhaust to outside, but thanks to the bargain I got on that card I won't cry over the extra cost :D
 
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