AHHH! Pissed

Sorry guys had to rant somewhere, and had a question. Ok, so I find out about the price drop on the 9800gtx to $200. I measure my case lengthwise to make sure all 10" would fit, and turns out there's 11" of space in my HP case (which is surprising) So I go to Fry's, armed with $250 and a smile, and I look around and there's a BFG 9800gtx for $170 with a rebate!!! So I buy it, come home, and open up my dandy case. Lo and behold, there were SATA cables sticking up about 8" into the massive 9800gtx DUAL slot cooler...which I forgot about. Ah crap. So I ended up returning it

Enough with the rant, so does anyone else have a suggestion for a video card? I am most likely going to buy the 4850, as its peformance and price are similar to the 9800gtx, but just wanted to make sure there weren't gonna be any updated cards or anything...I waited 2 months for this, I can wait a bit longer.

Well, unfortunately.. most high end gaming cards are going to be very long, similar to how long 9800GTX's are. So your options for a high end card are limited in those regards, and in a case that small.. I think it would be a bad environment for the card (E.G not a lot of space for airflow, really cramped, really hot).

You'd be better off keeping the card, and dumping 50-80$ in a nice mid tower for cheap like these; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119077

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119152

Pretty cheap with good airflow, the second one has much better airflow. Naturally full towers provide more room and better airflow, but also cost more, and are very huge.

Just my 2 cents on it though, hope you get something figured out.

PS: There wasn't a way you could have re-routed the cables to work around the huge cooler? I mean if the physical connectors on the motherboard were interfering, like sticking out into the cooler so the cables couldn't even bypass then I understand, but cable management could have been a fix.

EDIT: And I'm assuming you have a pre-built, and might not know how to change parts from one case to another, but since you know how to change graphics cards I figured this isn't a long shot off, if you do know how - I can recommend doing that, if you don't, well.. it isn't too late to learn.

rahja and i took a good look at the HD4870 online today.... it's alright, but not completely mindblowing like the HD4850. its performance is roughly equivalent to the GTX260. it should be available on the 25th, and should sell in the $299 range.

the thing to take note of is that both the HD4850 and HD4870 run REALLY hot. make sure your case is properly ventilated, or else these things will turn your computer into block heaters.

oh, and make sure your powersupply is up to the task.

In particular the 4870 that reaches 100C (212F) at load. Pardon me, but... I didn't realize that graphics cards doubled as stove tops now.

@ Brianna: I'd do that if it could...except my parents don't want me to for some reason...if I could I'd have a non prebuilt computer right now...I know how to build computers, I've taken apart mine several times. ty for the advice tho. and yeah, the physical connectors where they plug right into the mobo is right under the area where the 9800gtx should have been.

@ Moriz: Thanks for the additional info, it saved me the time of looking it up myself, even though I'll probably do it my self later So I'll go with the 4850. Is there anyway to increase the fanspeed on the 4850 yet, or none available? I think I'll just wait for a company to release a 4850 that doesn't conform with AMD specs. My PSU will be up to the task for sure, 650w 69 amps 12v.

HOLY SNOT!!!!! 100C!!!!!! That's really hot. Not getting that.

Ahh, I see. The woes of not having your own computer I suppose? I see the problem though. It is most likely that the motherboard in that computer wasn't designed for big graphics cards, so when they built it this was not a consideration, you will notice most high end boards are catered for big parts and gaming layouts.

Oh well, that power supply would definitely be good enough. If you wait, AMD might address the heat problems with the new cards and fix it so that ones with good thermal paste ship out.

That's what I'm hoping. I can wait, so it's fine. My 8600gt that came with the HP will be going to my brother, who has integrated graphics, the poor soul. lol.

something off topic, AM2+ processors are backwards compatible to AM2 sockets, correct? I'm thinking of buying an AMD Phenom 9850 from my friend for my bro and replace his HP-issued x2 4000

Oh I see. 8600GT's are decent but moving up to an 8800GT or higher is a huge huge step-up.

Umm I'm not too sure about the backwards compatibility thing, most likely yes as far as the chip and socket goes, but whether the motherboard/motherboard's BIOS will support it is another thing, could require a BIOS flash or something of that nature. I am not too knowledgeable in this though.. so don't shoot me if I'm wrong about something.

Perhaps go read the manual to make sure?

AM2+ proccessors won't work on a AM2 mobo as far as i know.

They will function, but only with Hypertransport 2.0, not 3.0, which will hit on performance. Alas, still an upgrade.

apparently the HD4870 runs at 84C, at least according to tech report. still on the high end of the spectrum, but definately not that hot.

perhaps the review rahja and i read earlier made a mistake, or they had a bad card or something.

...compared to a volcano.

the cheaper solution? Buy right angled sata connectors. or a sata controler card. the cables are cheap and the card should also work by moving the connectors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812123191

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812123173

or:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815124020
(with this option it is ill advised to hook up more than 2 hd as it will be limited by the pci bus speed.)

Excellent, flying monkey posts A+ solution. *tosses zamial a scooby snack*

Wow, so people living in the arctic get double the value.

LOL. Well, according to some new tests, it gets to 85C load. That is still SCORCHING!

Ah crap, I should've though of this myself...grrrrrrrr. Score one for me. It's too late though, i returned it, and my mom will be somewhat angry if I ask to go again, which might take away that $100 she was giving me. I need to get a car. The rebate is over with tho, so now I'll go EVGA 9800gtx if I can.

You must have been reading Tom's Hardware or something like that. Here are some temps as reported by HardOCP.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==

It's not really all that out of line with other video cards when under load. Still, Hotter than I would like. I ran across this site (translated from Spanish) with pictures of a dis-assembled 4850 which may help to answer some questions: http://translate.google.com/translat...F8&sl=es&tl=en

There is another site where after running all the usual bench marks replaced the stock cooler with a mid range cooler, the temps drop to an idle of 35c idle and 43 under load! I just can't find it in a reasonable time. If I find it I will edit this post with a link to it.