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512mb 3850 noise

manic111

manic111

manic111

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I am looking at buying a 512mb 3850 or a 3870, and am torn more due to the noise and cooling differences than by the extra power. Ideally I want a cooler which expels the air from the case, which means either going for an expensive 3850 or going for a 3870. I have heard that the 3850s are also louder.

Does the air being expelled from the case make a difference? I currently have one 120mm intake and one 120mm output from my case. Is it worth the extra money to have this feature on the card? Is the 3850 noticeably louder than the 3870?

I currently have a blower seated below my GPU which effectively does the same thing as the dual slot cooler but it is too loud, and I dont really want to use it again.

Also, how are Asus' cards? I am looking at their 3870 for £136 at another website.
 
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The OcUK HD 3850 is silent. I seriously can't hear it, and I'm very picky about fan noise.
Apparently the Powercolor HD 3850, with the "copper flower" cooler, is actually noisier than HD 3850 with the the reference HSF design/fan.

I don't see why the 3850 should be louder than the 3870, surely the latter produces more heat/uses more power, if either was noisier I expect it would be the 3870.
 
I used OcUK 3850 512mb as part of a budget build last week, silent enough fan and runs games much better than I thought it would :)
 
I read the Asus 2nd revision fan has no fan control but this could be rubbish, you might wanna check it out though.

i have the 3870 manufactured by HIS, their fans are silent. Depends what manufacturers fan is on the card...
Click to expand...
The ICEQ3 or reference cooler?

I don't see why the 3850 should be louder than the 3870, surely the latter produces more heat/uses more power, if either was noisier I expect it would be the 3870.
Click to expand...
Probably cos the reference cooler for the 3850 is single slot and may lose some of the grunt/cooling power cos of the more compact size.
 
I will take a look into the problem with the Asus fan control.

I dont know whether 3850s are louder in general than 3870s. What I do know is that a lot of people praise 3870s for their lack of noise, whereas I have not seen the same praise for the 3850.

Do you know if the standard HIS 3870 (not the ICEQ) has a controllable fan speed?
 
JG234 said:
The OcUK HD 3850 is silent. I seriously can't hear it, and I'm very picky about fan noise.
Apparently the Powercolor HD 3850, with the "copper flower" cooler, is actually noisier than HD 3850 with the the reference HSF design/fan.
Click to expand...

Think I've read a comment elsewhere that on the powercolor card the fan is 100% on all the time and cannot be adjusted.
 
Do you know if the standard HIS 3870 (not the ICEQ) has a controllable fan speed?
Click to expand...
The 3870 reference coolers are thermally controlled (as are the 3850s). The fan control problem seems to be with the "flower style" coolers on the Asus and Powercolor cards. If true you may still be able to mess with them manually, using a 3rd party tool (like RivaTuner).
 
Don't go for one of the powercolor ones with the "flower" cooler if you want a quiet system. As they've OC'd it slightly they've permanently fixed the fan at 100%, and there's not a BIOS out there which will change it (I've tried!!).

Mine's on its way back for a refund to spend on something else. Anyone else able to guarantee which 3870s are quiet?
 
Hi there,

I have the Gigabyte 3870 that has the flower style fan and is silent, even under full load I cannot hear it.
 
I have the Sapphire 3850 (256mb), with the reference HSF it was silent on idle and little noisy @ 60-70% fan speed when playing games.

If you want totally silent, then look no further then Thermalright HR-03 Rev.A VGA Cooler.
I got this as a present and using it without any fan!

idle = 32C
load = 60-70C (Crysis) / 50-70 (rest)
 
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