The first shipment of 8800GT have gain a good reputation of its nice 3D performance and price. But the cooler is the worst stock cooler ever: noisy, and can’t even handle the heat in auto mode. One month later, NVIDIA finally hands out their new stock cooler. The new one also have a slim body but the fan goes larger. The original one is 65*10mm, the new one is 75*10mm(diameter*height).

http://en.expreview.com/?p=78

So in other words, they fixed the fan problem with a bigger fan but didn't bother to change the overly low auto-speed presets issue....