Time to do some upgrades on my early 2008 mac pro. I am thinking of retiring my 8800gt video card and getting the 5870 from apple. I am happy without the amount of noise put out by the 8800 for regular desktop use. I don't care so much if the card fan ramps up a little under heavy use. Is the ATI 5870 just as quiet under normal conditions as the 8800?
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nvidia 8800 noisier than an ATI 5870 for mac pro
- Thread starter kudukudu
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My 5870 is the quietest card I've ever used that has a fan on it. Both in office and gaming use. That includes ATI 9800 Pro, Nvidia 8800GTS (Dual Slot), GTX280, 9800GX2. The rest of the cards I owned were all passive cooled in PCI form at least.
I concur. I'd say that I don't hear it at all even after a heavy gaming session. The 8800 under the same treatment is loud as hell. Pretty happy with my upgrade.
ATI 2600
I don't find my 8800 GT to be all too noisy (in fact, I hardly ever hear it), but then again, it's actually a dual-slot EVGA 8800 GTS PC card flashed with the Apple 8800 GT firmware. Over a year ago, the Rominator actually gave me firmware to run the card as a GTS (higher core/memory clocks), but it was never stable in games when flashed that way, so I reverted back.