I have a 5800NU at well over ultra speeds in the rig I am on at work right now. I'll give you my impression on this card having had it repace a 9700pro that I ripped a ramsink off.
The 5800 can be loud. When the fan hits high gear during intese 3d gaming(and boot up) it has that turbine scream to it. You do get somewhat used to it although my boss will ask me what the hell that noise is if I have to reboot a few times in a row because I am installing updates or whatever.
The speed - This card is fairly fast. That is as long as you dont use AA or AF or force it to do DX 9. It is as fast or faster in DX 8 with no filtering than my 9700pro was. Enable these or force it into dx 9 and be prepared to crawl. That said, it is much faster than the Ti 4200 I had a while back.
IQ - If you like things pretty this isnt for you. The IQ is not good compared to the 9700 plain and simple. Even with AA on it still isnt good. It is OK in my eyes as far as playing goes, but I love the crispness of my 6800GT at home when I see it.
Overall for $75 its a great card and makes for an excellent backup. It OC's like crazy. I have mine at 530/1125 now on stock cooling up from 400/800. Playing HL2 isnt as bad as people would make out. The graphics on HL2 with the dx8 path are pretty good, and asside from jaggies I am very pleased with the playability. I get 30-60FPS at 1024x768 2xAA 4xAF. (I think thats the settings) If you want to see some hard numbers I can run some tests with fraps.
I would get it. Where is it on sale for $75? I may want to build another cheaper rig for work.
