I have a 9600xt 256mb with very noisy standard fan which I wish to replace.
What would be the 'best buy' for a new cooler? (On a budget)

Whats a budget?

Zalman VF-900 is GREAT, which is beaten by the "TideWater" (hard to find in the UK - plus are quite expensive) - although a VF-700 (From Zalman) is the best bet budget wise.

The 9600xt is pretty easy to cool. Any zalman (vf700 / vf900) should be overkill, even with the fan at minimum speed. They should be available. Alternatively you might find a HP80 (zalman) which is passive, also good enough considering the limited heat production of your card..

Zalman is not the king of silent products btw. Engineering wise they are ok but the fans they use are certainly not the best. Of course they are well available and they do a decent job, but they don't lead the pack in any of the silent aspects. With a Seasonic S12 psu you get more silence than Zalman.. With a Scythe Ninja you beat all Zalmans for cpu cooling.. etc etc.

But a 9600xt is easy to cool and unless you really go on a silence frenzy any zalman will do..

Quote from Jakg :

Whats a budget?

LOL
To things in perspective I have a Compaq Presario 6263ea Northwood skt 478 P4 2.6mzh 512mb pc2100 ddr sdram 9600xt(rv360?) oh and a 220v psu .
So don’t really want to spend anything! Maybe £40 - £50 inc.a CPU cooler and case fan as these are noisy too when I unplug the gfx fan.I have been overclocking the 9600xt a bit

looking at the zalman site ,the FV900 installation guide says 96 series except 9600xt.And there are some incompatible 9600xt cards for the FV700 , but I am unsure exactly which manufacturer I have (2nd hand eBay purchase)

Water cooling a little too expensive for me

Arctic cooling any good ?

yeah artic cooling is decent enough, very cheap and generally much much less noisy than standard stuff. Their fans aren't always great but it should be a good step up


Edit: The model for the 9600xt seems to run at a constant fan speed of 1500rpm. For your card thats too much.. If its too loud you can easily undervolt the fan to 5 or 7 volt.. (if you need help don't hessitate to shout)

i think the fan is mullered ,as it is very very noisy .Usually unplug the fan from the card when not gaming and underclock
Im sure the budget could stretch to a zalman etc.
How can i find out the manufacturer of my card to check compatiblity .
Tried typing in the numbers from the stickers on the card to no avail.

I haven't mentioned the cheapest option: get some left over 80mm fan, mount it so that it blows air over the graphics heatsink.. then disconnect the fan on the gfx card