i know i want a HD4850 and im getting mine next month. but i hear about how hot it runs and i know really hot gpu= sadness for me. so what do you guys think about this one? its a dual slot cooler. also how much cooler do you think it will run?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161243

thanks for any thoughts, the system its going in has:

E8400 Core 2 Duo @ 3.0GHz
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Mobo PCI-E 2.0 Slot
2GB Ram @ 800MHz
and it will be replacing a 512MB 9800GT

so let me know what you guys think, i know i need more ram im buying the card and more ram together.

personally I would from personal experience get a 3rd party solution to get the temps down. Also I can't really see a huge benefit to moving to a 4850 from a 9800GT. You'll gain some performance, but not really enough to make the outlay worthwhile (Just my opinion here). I upgraded from an X1950XTX to a 4870, and that was worth it, but TBH you really do need to see a massive jump in performance to justify an upgrade.

im selling the 9800GT to a friend. so thats why im going for the 4850.

ahh. that explains it

I'm running a 4870, and I dropped an Arctic Cooling Accellero(SP) onto it. After my initial screw-up it is now running at a solid 32*C at idle, and tops out in the mid-50's after a serious hammering. It's also near-silent even with the AC Turbo fans on it.

well hopefully the dual slot HD4850 will run cooler w/o having a 3rd party cooler installed. i wont buy a single slot gpu ever again. they run way to hot for my preferences. so i stick to dual slots. there arent that many dual slot HD4850's surprisingly.

The cards can handle the heat, the main point is to exhaust the GPU heat out of your case. In turn, that keeps everything cooler...your CPU, GPU, RAM, MOBO...bla bla bla. The rear exhaust IMO is the best design for a GPU 3rd party or not.

^+1

I agree that rear-exhaust is the most sound idea. It has it's drawbacks though. OEM rear-exhaust cooling is adequate at best, and it gets worse with multi-gpu setups because of the proximity of the cards to each other and the location of air intake.

I'm running a 3870x2 and a 3870 on my system. All have ZEROTherm cooling which is much better than the stock rear-exhaust setup (plus the fans sped up on their own!). My NB and SB temps have gone up though, and I had to use a 120mm fan to exhaust air out the lower front of my case or else temps would climb into no-mans land.

It would be nice to see a 3rd party rear-exhaust setup that isn't as noisy and more efficient than the OEM solutions.