Fast & Quiet.

[BoomAM]

Hi.
Ive been tempted for a while now to get back into PC gaming, but im gonna be needing a new graphics card.

At the moment i have two passivly cooled ATI cards (X800XL & X1650) feeding 3 outputs. Although i barely use the 3rd and could get away without.

Now, ive been out of the 'graphics' game for a while now, but im unsure if the newer cards can do video acceleration on both of its outputs, as older ones couldnt.
If they can, then i could get away with just the one card. But thats not a large question to sort. Cheap PCI-E Video cards for the other output are fine tbh.

Anyway.
Do either of the current top ATI/AMD or nVidia cards either have a very quiet version from a specific manufacturer, or are near enough silent during normal windows usage anyway?

Key info:
No max budget, but im not paying silly money for only a few % difference.
My two monitors are 1920x1200.
I have 2x PCI-E 16x Cards.
Intel P35 chipset.
& i have no problem replacing a cooling solution on a new card with a 3rd party one.

Thanks in advance all.

 

[95thrifles]

Yeah your best bet is to fit an aftermarket cooler, I fitted a couple of neo vortexx's to mine and cant hear them now, the stock ones were pretty loud when running above 30% which they had to do to cool it effectively. But you can use CCC to set up different profiles so you could have one for normal windows usage where the fan spins low whilst gfx isnt needed then another profile for gaming where it spins high, and makes more noise. I did this with my stock coolers before I replaced them, now tehres no need theyre on 100% all time and cant be heard

 

[schumi84]

The newer 4870s have the better coolers (fan in the middle of the cooler) and are pretty much silent.

Otherwise, like said above, get an aftermarket cooler like one done by Arctic Cooling.