(General reply, not directed at TGGA. Too lazy to find the original poster)
ATI drivers are just plain horrible.
Oh boy, going back to the day when ATi drivers were nothing but hell... my last memory of having to deal with thta mess of badly coded pap was back in 99, when I used to work as a repair tech in Software Warehouse (Brits of 25 years or older might remember that).
Nowadays, I guess they've sorted it all out more, and havent got as many issues. But back then, it DID affect my choice of card, and I went the Geforce route. Up until now, I've never touched an ATi card, and I dont know if I will in the future. SLI is nice, and the nForce4 boards are pretty sweet.
I would have preffered it if AMD had bought nVidia, but hey, like anything we do on these forums actually does anything useful in the wide world of CPU's and GPU's.
Going back to the heat issue. If your case is adequatly ventilated, it should make much of a difference, as the airflow will be enough to disperse the heat produced by the GFX card/s anyway. If not, consider an intake on the side panel.
And as for noise? If you think its too loud, change the HSF, or use watercooling. Noise and Heat are lame arguments these days, when there are so many better aftermarket addons you can use to cancel out these disadvantages.
No doubt I'm going to get a few posts along the lines of "WTF?!?!?!!!" or "STFU noob/fanboi/lamer/whatever". Just try and be original if you have to flame, and dont make one-line posts proclaiming something, without actually explaining WHY you think that.
Right, burbling over. Back to the regularly scheduled crap as follows...