I'm still on the fence about buying Battlefield 3. I know it's going to be a a very solid, well made and overall good game, but BC2 never really hooked me so I think I'm gonna wait to see what it's like before buying it.
The Bad Company games were not direct sequels; they were offshoots of the BF franchise. You might want to try out Battlefield 2. That said, I personally really enjoyed the Bad Company games.
BF games are immense. That and 64 players is what makes them so great. Vietnam wasn’t as big but it was jungle fighting. 2142 can be forgotten. 1942 was one of the greatest games of all time.
There's no vsync in this damn thing, and it's producing 90 to 135 fps. The cards are getting hot as hell, and the noise from this XFX card has been maddening. How do you force vsync? I don't need that crazy amount of fps or the associated heat and noise when my TV's refresh rate is 60 GHz.
Wow, I just can't stand the fan noise anymore. I'd like to take a baseball bat to the jackass who decided it would be best to not allow vsync in this beta. Tearing, flickering, hot GPUs, and lots of fan noise has not enhanced my experience in the least.
If the game is vsync'ed, it's not noisy. I use vsync for all may games, so it has never been an issue. It's only when the fan of the XFX card gets to 60-something percent and up that it makes a lot of racket. If the game was only producing 60 fps, it would be relatively quiet to run. But when it's making up to 135 fps, the XFX card is a hair dryer. The XFX 6950 will probably disappear in 2012 when I have more funds available.
Sell your Cooler Master case and pick up an Antec P193. I have a P180, which is similar, and it's dead silent, even under full load.
The case fans are almost silent. It's the XFX 6950 that is so noisy, but only when the fan gets into the 60% and above range. There are also the issues that the HIS 6950 is faster, cooler, and MUCH quieter. The disparity in heat and noise is substantial. Under load, the HIS card hovers in the 50s to low 60s, whereas the XFX will creep into the 70s and move towards the 80s if I don't adjust the fan speed to keep it cool. This is with the XFX card expelling hot air directly onto the HIS card.
It's the lack of sound proofing in your case that's the problem. Most video cards are noisy under load. I had this exact same setup in a Lian Li case, and it sounded like a jet turbine. I couldn't sleep at night unless I turned off my computer because it was so loud. Dropped it in the P180 and I can't hear anything.
The only part of the computer that is loud is the XFX card. I've played with the fan speeds, and the HIS card is quieter in the 70% to 90% range than the XFX card is at 65%. The XFX card just has a really loud fan when it exceeds 60%.
Is it too late to return the XFX card? I would imagine you could also get most of your money for it back on ebay and buy another HIS.
It's too late to return it, but I don't think I'll actually lose much money out of this. I bought the card XFX itself for about $205 with the rebate. It came with Dirt 3 and STALKER Pripyat. If I sell the card for anywhere close to what I paid for it, I still got a pretty good deal. I'll probably wait until early next year and look for a deal on the HIS 6950, then I'll sell the XFX card. I was curious to try an XFX card because I've heard such good things about them and their awesome warranty, but HIS just shames them for a similar price. XFX half assed the heatsink and fan. I have not been impressed with their work at all. HIS obviously wants my business: XFX puts a scowl on my face: Both retail for $250, and that crappy heatsink and fan from XFX are unacceptable. I looks like the just grabbed some cheap parts out of a bin and threw this card together.
HIS always puts good cooling on their cards. But of course the cheap solution here is to under clock your card. I had to do that to an unstable card that I had.
I may try underclocking for BF3. Seems strange to do that, though. I just want it to quiet down a bit. HIS has to be my favorite card manufacturer. I've heard that their service can be difficult to deal with, but I wouldn't know because the HIS 4850 and 6950 I owned have worked flawlessly. I tortured the 4850 with Crysis, and it never gave me any problems other than simply not having the power to deal with such a beast of a game. I didn't expect to see such a disparity in quality between HIS and a popular brand like XFX. I've seen XFX listed as many people's favorite card manufacturer overall, which shocks me now that I've owned an XFX card. The quality of HIS and EVGA cards seem well above what I've seen of XFX. It's not a bad card, but it seems average compared to my other 6950. I'd rate the XFX card 3/5 and the HIS 5/5.
Not so obvious in my situation. I've invested in a fairly decent 7.1 home surround setup that is worth more than my PC, TV, and consoles combined. I'm not keen on letting my surround system collect dust and use headphones because of a noisy graphics card fan. If either of those things needs to go, it will be the noisy card. http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/vm/index.php?s=vm30