Quote Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
I should have said significant sorry, not large.

I've tried ATI reference coolers enough times - every generation from X1900 xtx to 5770. My reference 5770s were louder and hotter than my MSI GTX 460s, considering that I heavily OC my graphics cards. My current GTX 460s are completely silent when clocked to 900 Mhz - no reference cooler, whether ATI or Nvidia ever has been silent at max OC with acceptable temperatures for me.

The ATI reference coolers may be fine at stock speeds, but once you try to overclock them to their max, they either sound like hairdryers to keep acceptable temperatures, or the temperatures run far too high with them running silent.

What I find even less impressive about the 6900s is how insignificantly better they are than the previous 5800 range.



I play at 1920x1200, 1 Gb is plenty fine for that. You should never compare video cards by the amount of memory on them. 2 Gb isnt going to become a standard requirement for games for a very long time yet, and when it is you will be able to buy £150 cards with that much ram.
Jee, maybe because the stock coolers were designed with the TDP of a typical board in mind? Don't you think it's a bit unreasonable to expect them to accommodate OC'ing? Do you expect intel's stock cooler to do the same for the nehalem series?