Awash with graphics cards

For the last few months I've been had a XFX 9600GSO overclocked graphics card which replaced my Sapphire HD3850. It gives a better performance and the £64 price was really good. My only worry was that the card specified a 500W PSU, but my DELL Inspiron 530 was only rated at 300W. However it has been working well. The recommended twin 12V rail cables had only one of them plugged into a single 12V power output of the DELL.

The best of all was that this XFX card had a thermostatically controlled fan which went from completely silent on boot up to a quiet hum on the 3D PKR web site game to a slightly louder hum when playing Far Cry 2 at full screen. As the computer is up on the table next to me this was acceptable and indeed having used and sold XFX graphics cards before, it has always been a good, reliable brand.

So why in a moment of madness did I buy an Asus HD4670 graphics card? I'd read reviews that they offered the best 'bang for the buck' in the lower midrange market. It didn't need extra power and was for sale for again only £64. What a mistake to make! It started off noisy even though it had a larger fan which wasn't thermostatically controlled. Admittedly it didn't increase in volume when running Far Cry 2, but the graphics performance was noticeably poorer.

I even tried a Sapphire Radeon HD3650 that I'd 'liberated' from a DELL system that I'd sold last week. Even worse! It gave really poor performance and still made quite a bit of noise that was more of a whine. Probably acceptable in a large system case under your desk and you weren't interested in the best quality graphics display, but not for me. So that one is also added to the cupboard along with the nVidia 8600GTS and the ATi Radeon X800 cards.

Anyone want to buy a PCI-X graphics card? I'm sticking with what I've got.