Originally posted by: craftech
What about the complaints about the noisy fan?
Can anyone confirm this?
John
Well, good anv valid point, John. But from what I've heard from mine and from others who have the card.........this is what I've found:
The fan on the reference designed card, the built by ATI design and its fan/heatsink, is noticeable under load. But that gpu cooler is nothing like the cooler on this MSI card. This cooler looks more like it was derived from a Zalman VF-700 series....don't know if it is or not, but it sure does resemble it, after a fashion. So, I'd be inclined to give the installed cooler a chance and see how it performed as far as acoustics.
I, on the other hand, bought a BBATI version of the 1950 and replaced the gpu cooler in around a week....under load it sounded like a leaf blower next to me....but the ATI cooler's design is very different than this one on the MSI. Maybe MSI figured it out lke some other card resellers did, too. Gigabyte comes to mind as they used the Zalman VF-700 as their choice for gpu coolers on their 1950 Pro cards....and they charge for it, too.
Another alternative is the Arctic Cooling Acclelro X2 VGA cooler. Heard it's just silent and quite effective. So, even if the stock cooler is loud, you can replace it for around $20....buth the VF-700 and the Accelero X2 can be found for that price quite easily.
So, why not buy the Sapphire version or the HIS with the neat cooler it has or the Asus? Well...again, from what I've read and heard on other forums and in here, there are some valid reasons to go with the MSI and not some other brands.
I've been told that Sapphire charges teh customer a per incident fee to RMA a defective card....flat out charges yuo, no matter if the card was DOA or whatever. Charging me just to fix a problem that Sapphire created is unacceptable. HIS has had its share of complaints about not quite following the reference design and memory problems. I'd trust Asus, ATI, and MSI.
Two are motherboard manufacturers and have huge experience with pcb.....and their customer service is reputed to be a bit better than either HIS or Sapphire. ATI is the designer of the card.....and I've used quite a lot of ATI product over the years, and have had very little if any problems when I've bought video cards from the MB makers or ATI. I just don't trust Sapphire or HIS. Just my bias here.
Disclaimer:
Please understand I'm not trying to "sell" this card.....I don't work for this store or any store. I just found a great deal on a video card that is said to be the best bang-for-the-buck out there at a terrific price. Wish when I'd bought mine it had been this price!