This would be , a general talk so to speak , not a response to anybody here, nor the review author.
I don't think high noise is a big factor for a minus sign , calling the card bad just by the noise and therefore the lower score.
People always seem to expect perfect stuff, but normal logic tells you that at that performance there's surely much heat , and having to have a quieter card with 85C is just not reasonable , first , I am not some fancy reviewer but this is just a standard here, it's not better if it's quieter for everyone , it's just that people are not used to such noise (read> mainstream people) and that the importance of temperatures is far greater than your spoiled ears. As a matter of fact , people who are not used to the noise , isn't it obvious , they're surely not long in the PC and gaming market or been working with it ... I don't know but I hate to see many people around other review sties on the web making this stupid noise buzz such a pain in the butt problem, They need to get used to it.
The biggest mistake is , why is review done with !DEFAULT? sethings , where the manual fan speed is not set , the automatic temp-speed will always not be enough to assure needs of every customer.
I do know there are people who find noise so bad, thus the reviews are pointing out towards this, but again , I don't see those people real PC gamers , maybe something more like weekend players , if they would actually know anything about CONFIGURING.
What is for certain , this noise buzz exploded a few years ago , when a lot of 12-16 year "wannabe gamer" newbies started using PCs in the 21 century. Spoiled children from today can afford a PC very early than I was able. Althought , I don't actually know what caused this noise boom , I am not amused by it definately.
A stupid one would not buy the card for JUST the noise. Noise is something least important in the industry and I don't know who the heck bring this EXCUSE up. Just to call a card bad?
This review , is well , much better than guru3d , and does , to me have very objective approach which is excelent , those noise remarks are okay , minor , a minus sign indeed , I'll comment on that an a few others , the noise mention is fairly reasonable and there seem to be a big deal in the review , the noise buzz and wprrying is far more heavy elsewhere(that's actually what is above about).
Cool , as I said , that minus points(cons) the card received , are well and truly fixable from instant you set your OWN config , but , have to say , I have never seen a review done just that , to explain just this , never mentioned, nor anything similar.
The point is , that cards receive bad points from a lot of SMALL and fixable problems these days, that's just how I feel , for the explanation I will use this review as an example.
So , in this case , we have:
* Not the best price/performance !
* Tends to be noisy under load #
* Not much overclocking potential on our sample !
* Long card, might not fit all cases #
* DirectX 11 won't be relevant for quite a while !
* No support for CUDA / PhysX #
! > are facts, those this are real and are very reasonable, yes DX 11 won't be so important for a while(but the green side was hit anyway
) , also the "not best price/preformance" is also correct , basics define that you can't give a minus cause of price, better just costs more and it will not be vice versa. The other is also reasonable.
While the # marked are , to me somewhat unnecessary bad points, first of all , CUDA and Physx is Nvidia only , so I think this was , maybe written before it became nvidia-only stuff...
Long Card that might not fit in all cases , that is true and it will not fit into MANY cases afaik , however there is still a way , HECK not a mainstream one(that's the point) , just re-position your HDD higher ,then chop , cut , saw , whatever that part of HDD cage away so the card would fit ; You think I would buy a card , and at home would notice it doesn't fit, return it lol , and wait again, you're kidding , I would definitely make sure about everything blocking Her way. If you are more than mainstream , then you need to know how to improvise.
Noisy at load, yeah it is , it must be , but again , there is a so called ADVANCED way to force the fan to spin how you like , either faster , or slower , you should achieve maximum cooling and blowing your ears(sarcasm) , or maximum quietness deluxe and risk your hardware blowing up(not joke this time)
Hmh , will not blow anything , but what is the definitive fact , that when it's hotter it will always perform less and so is the lifetime. Basics , card won't last as long if being always around 70-80C.
Now ask your self, why would the card have to be warmer, why would they have to satisfy newbies while the hardware would not withstand the circumstances. 85C is a very high temp. I never get beyond 65. and the fan on the HD4870 is only at 35%-40% , crysis for example , I don't even hear the fan while playing , so that busts the "noise problem" right from the first place. The fan on the 5870 would just be even faster ,and it is , thus even louder. What did everybody expect?
Even basics of physics define this ,
More Performance > More power needed
More Power > More Heat
More Heat > More cooling needed
More cooling needed > More noise if Air cooling used
The more noise > those who are noobs , cry , while the gamers play the game.
Well anyways , I explained a whole lot on a small problem hah, but for the sake of it, it's just my opinion ; small like a mouse , but irritating as an elephant.
See if it really does gel together well.
