Ouch! That's about the same as a T-Bird 1.4GHz, which IIRC was about the hottest-running Athlon produced.

Well, the R300 chip is only about 110 million transistors. At a 0.15 micron process... so it is bound to use some power.

As far as the overall problem, how well ventalated is your system. Many people run 9700/9800 cards in Shuttle systems (myself included), but I would have to say the Shuttle case is better ventalated for the 9700 then most normal tower cases. Shuttle cases manage to pull hot air out of the case quite well, as the dust pattern on the inside of mine near the 9700 can attest to.