My PowerColor Radeon X1950 with its supposedly ultra-silent Arctic Cooling cooler was beginning to make annoying noises. Seems like the cooler’s bearing is broken after just 14 months of usage. I tried cleaning it out, squeezing some oil where I suspect the noises to be coming from (no idea if this is a good idea :/), but it didn’t change anything.
So before I have to take another forced break from my work, I decided to upgrade to a new graphics card. Currently, the second generation GeForce 8800 GTS based on nVidia’s G92 chip is fresh in stores. The overclocked versions some manufacturers are offering are faster than the original GeForce 8800 GTX, so nVidia is not allowing production of any further overclocked G92 cards starting at the end of february.
This has caused a tremendous demand for these overclocked graphics cards. But I’m in luck: I got one of the last Asus G92 TOP cards. Those are the highest overclocked G92 graphics cards on the market *happy*