Yet Annother DX10 Vid Card Thread

Hello all, I’m finally giving up on HTPCnews (or did it give up on me?) and fully embracing MR.

My first issue: its time for a new vid card.  Football season and MLB playoffs are coming fast, and my 6150 just doesn’t cut it for HD.  I’ve been a NVidia man for a while now, but I’ll listen to ATI recommendations (NVidia just feels more comfortable to me).  Here are my priorities:

1) Silent Cooling
2) Best ATSC/QAM HD Processing possible (please no more HD stutters!)
3) Future HD Disk capable
4) Single Slot Solution (I really hate to lose slots on a mATX board, more on this later)
5) Some gaming capability, mainly console emulators including PS1 and N64

Here are the cards that I am considering:

A)  [url=http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814127287]MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256EZ[/url]
[b]The Good:[/b]  Fanless, 8600GTS Should be all the power I need for HD, and some gaming, Heatpipe design with radiator on back of card does not obstruct other expansion slots and puts radiator in the line of fire of the 120s in my fusion case.  If it fits this it [i]THE[/i] card.
[b]The Bad:[/b]  Price just went up to $158, ouch, I told the finance that I was spending around $125.  Does it fit?  As you can see from the following pictures I don’t have much room between the PCI express slot and the SI-128 CPU Cooler.  I measured the space at about 3/4 of an inch.  Does anybody know how big the radiator on the back of this card is? I cannot find any dimensions anywhere.  Lets say its close, real close, is there any harm if the VGA heatsink touches the CPU heatsink? 

B)  [url=http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814127298]MSI RX2600XT-T2D512EZ[/url]  Same as above except ATI style, and a bit cheaper too.

C)  [url=http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150238]XFX PVT84JU1D4[/url]
[b]The Good:[/b] Fanless, does not take up adjacent slot.
[b]The Bad:[/b]  8600GT, good enough but I think I would prefer the 8600GTS especially at the same price or even less.  This card has both vertical and horizontal space issues.  I haven’t measured the roof clearance on the Fusion, but it cannot be much.  As far as clearing the SI-128, the card’s radiator has fins that run vertical so perhaps the two could overlap a bit (again I am wondering if there is any issue with the two heatsinks touching).

D)  [url=http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814125070]GIGABYTE GV-NX86T256H[/url]
[b]The Good:[/b] This card looks like a decent candidate, it appears to only take up one slot, and is fanless, and it is in my expected price range.
[b]The Bad:[/b]  Again only an 8600GT and I am concerned about vertical clearance, also, the heatsink is on the “normal” side of the card and will not be in the main airflow region of the Antec Fusion.

E)  [url=http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814125075]GIGABYTE GV-RX26T256H[/url] Same as above, but ATI, cheapest of the bunch.

So, does anybody have any experience with any of these cards?  Just how big are they?  Will they fit in a Fusion? 

Am I going to have to suck it up and sacrifice that PCIe 1x slot that I really don’t have any current plans for, even though I really hate to limit future flexibility especially with new PCIe devices coming out all the time? (Just so you know what kind of guy I am, I love the Fusion case, but sometimes wake up at night thinking about how I will never be able to fit a full ATX Mobo in it.)

Are there any compelling ATI v. NVidia arguments?  So far all that I have seen is that NVidia can be better but is limited by current drivers (using XP-MCE).  Is this still true?

Is HDMI audio anything to worry about considering that I have a 5.1 speaker set, a 5.1 receiver,  no HD Disk player, and it is unlikely that I will upgrade all three of these things any time soon?

Thanks All.