The reference cooler ATI equipped their Radeon X1800 XT and Radeon X1900 XT/XTX with is effective, there's no doubting that. Cools the chip well, actively cools the memory; job is indeed a good'un, as they say. Shame it's the sonic equivalent of a punch in the face, then. Almost 100% of the criticism of ATI's latest high-end Radeons revolves around the cooler, such is its Bernard Manning-esque levels of obnoxiousness. You can't really fault performance, image quality is class-leading and having one (or two) in your PC means you're a discerning purchaser of potent pixel pushers. But (unless you're as deaf as a post) I bet you don't like the cooler.



Link: Hexus