Building a new PC

[fishstix]

What resolution do you expect to play at? I cringe at such a strong system and then a weak video card :3
I actually did the same thing a few months ago, but only because of money issues and I fully intended on upgrading the card. I bought a $40 geforce 8500 gt. It also came without a fan, but I found that the card became very hot when I stressed it playing ffxi to the point where I'd start to get lag because of the hardware. Looking at the specs of your 9600, while they are better than my 8500, I'd expect that you'd have some of the same issues with prolonged play. What I ended up doing was taking the fan from an old AMD heatsink, and screwing it into the video card heatsink lol. I then overclocked the card for a placebo effect

The 9600 with 16 cores, 128bit ddr2 memory, you're probably looking at something like 50-75% max settings @ 1280x720; 25fps city, 80fps max. These numbers are generally based off of the results I get from my card, being somewhat similar. You might find different results, idk, but I wouldnt expect max settings

[softpain]

I bought an ati 4870 512mb last year and I was worry about the noise but i was pleasantly supprise how silent it is.

I only bought ATI cards since my first celeron 100mhz a very long time ago and i never felt any problem with the drivers or any cards.....

At the res you are playing you need a really fast GPU.

Before you see games with directx 11 it will take a few years!

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by JanKo

ATI
ALTERNATE - 404 - Page Not Found

ALTERNATE - 404 - Page Not Found

NVIDIA
ALTERNATE - 404 - Page Not Found

ALTERNATE - 404 - Page Not Found

Hope this helps

Edit 2:

Hmm, with two 24" Screens it'll be hard to play games at max res using passively cooled cards, I think. Are you using Matrox DualHeadToGo or are you using one to play and the other for other stuff?

These ones are nice. I have looked up the Sparkle also, but I didn't know the manufactorer and didn't want to buy something that might end up pretty bad. But the other ones look quite nice. I'll have a closer look at those. Thanks!

Actually I'm playing on one of those 24" widescreens and the other one is for surfing and stuff like that. Got both of them initially to work with them, but right now I'm stuck 10-12h hours a day in office and I don't do anything else apart from gaming and surfing with the PC by now. :) If I intended to use a Matrox DualHeadToGo I clearly would get some better GPU and SLI/Crossfire those.

Originally Posted by fishstix

What resolution do you expect to play at? I cringe at such a strong system and then a weak video card :3
I actually did the same thing a few months ago, but only because of money issues and I fully intended on upgrading the card. I bought a $40 geforce 8500 gt. It also came without a fan, but I found that the card became very hot when I stressed it playing ffxi to the point where I'd start to get lag because of the hardware. Looking at the specs of your 9600, while they are better than my 8500, I'd expect that you'd have some of the same issues with prolonged play. What I ended up doing was taking the fan from an old AMD heatsink, and screwing it into the video card heatsink lol. I then overclocked the card for a placebo effect :)

The 9600 with 16 cores, 128bit ddr2 memory, you're probably looking at something like 50-75% max settings @ 1280x720; 25fps city, 80fps max. These numbers are generally based off of the results I get from my card, being somewhat similar. You might find different results, idk, but I wouldnt expect max settings :p

Acutally I'm currently playing at 1920*1200 and it worked pretty nice until lately. I have played WoW for quite some time with my old setup usually having 60 fps and have done some frapsing with 30 fps too. Also currently in Aion I play at 1920*1200 pseudo windowed mode, without AA and bloom, shadows and water set to minimum, everything else maxed with ~25-45 FPS. Which is not great, but it's okay for this old machine.

I haven't had any hardware issue with my silent Asus by now. Nothing like lags or something else. It obviously get's warmer than a GPU with a fan, but having a good airflow in your case this shouldn't be a problem at all. But I'll have a look at those GPUs presented by JanKo, they seem to be some pretty good silent GPUs at first glance.

Originally Posted by softpain

I bought an ati 4870 512mb last year and I was worry about the noise but i was pleasantly supprise how silent it is..

Something that might be silent for someone might be noisy for others. Right now the noisiest part in my machine is the HDD with a maximum of ~30dB while working (the DVD-Rom is louder if a disc spins, but I usually don't use it beside from installing software). :)

----------------------

Yet another question in terms of a needed power supply. If I understand correctly the i7 needs 130W, most of the GPU also state an amount of W they need, but what about the other parts? Also how much does OC'ing influece the needed power? (I will probably only raise the speed of the memory clock, but it will be good to know)

[Kaiyoko-Desu]

I just noticed you stated your resolution, 1920x1200. I'm going to be real honest with you - I don't think a passive solution will be 100% ideal and with running newer games, it will place a large amount of strain on the GPU trying to remain cool while working. I mean yeah, 48xx's and GTX 2xx can be loud but there are aftermarket solution to get it quieter. Look at Arctic Cooling - they do have a silent solution (for 8800GT's, 4850's/4870's) but also a very quiet solution for GTX-series and the 4890.

Do some research - if anything, check out SPCR's website - the main silent-making experts.

PSU: If done right, a i7 build should not require more than a 650 watt PSU, 750watt if you plan to do some OC work.

[GrimFox]

as a note a phase change system effectively operates in every known heatpipe, there are something you can do to increase the HP's potential and make it work better but it's not a phase change on the order of the big 300+ systems that sit in a box next to your PC.