Hello.

Sorry for my poor english. Here is my problem:
I am looking for silent graphic card, but I only have like 50-70 $ to spend on this. So I think something around 9600gt or radeon 3850 would be good.
I would of course get passive gigabyte 9600gt, or accelero s1, but I have very limited space in my CPU casing. Whole card with cooling have to be maximum 2 slots high. Thats why I am most likely looking for active cooled card. 1 slot high card + 120 mm fan above it would be good option too.
My prioritare is to make card noiseless only in 2D mode. I dont bother noise when I am playing games. So I think that medium-silent card with proper fan control would be suitable in this situation.
Now I have Asus 8800GS which just dont control fan speed, its always 100%, which is terrible for me.

Rest of my PC is:
Athlon 64 x2 2.7 GHz
2 GB DDR2 memory
Fortron GLN 400W

Can you advice me something in this situation?

How about a Radeon HD 6570 with passive cooling? Here is a link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161374
It has slightly more stream processors than the 3850 you mentioned, and twice the memory. Price is about $70 USD.

Or,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871
I'm sort of familiar with this one, it is based on the ATI/AMD Redwood GPU chip. I have a certified Workstation video card, FirePro V4800, which is based on the souped-up and modified Redwood XT chip. It is surprisingly fast for such an inexpensive professional video card. In testing it can keep up about 95% with a much more expensive V5800 which has twice the number of stream processors. It is also very quiet. For your uses, the card are essentially identical, and the performance should be the same or better with the HD 5670 for you. Look up some reviews of the HD 5670, they are probably quite good. The reviews of the professional FirePro V4800 are superb.

By the way, if you look at and think about buying a HD 5670, be careful: they are not all the same, some come with GDDR3 memory, and some with GDDR5. The GDDR5 memory is much faster than the GDDR3, but much more expensive, so you will get less of it in your price range.

You can certainly get a good, powerful, and quiet card in your price range. Just look around and do a lot of research on it. Study all of the manufacturer's data, read lots of reviews, ask friends (on-line friends too), etc.

Start to show your region: how can we advice for a price/performance ratio, without knowing your local prices?

I didnt thought about that, you are right.
I'm from Poland and apparently here prices are little higher.
Used 9600gt/HD3850 costs about 130 zł, which is about 45 USD.

Radeon 6570 which N7SC mentioned costs about 90 USD (300 zł) here, so its a little too much for me. Can you suggest something about 50 USD (on amercian market).

Thank you for help and any further advices.

For this summ I think you can't get anything comparable to your old card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121439
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161380
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150571

I think that Luca is right about your noisy card being more powerful than anything you can replace it with in your price range. However, there is more than one way to skin the cat, says an old saying. Or there is more than one way to quiet your computer. Read on:

All of the ASUS 8800 cards that I have seen doing searches today have a 2-pin connector for their fans. Does yours? If it does, and if you are happy with the graphics performance of your 8800, and if you have the knowledge, then you can simply control the fan speed yourself. And it can cost almost nothing, not even $50 US if you want.

Here is a link to the Zalman Fan Mate controller, it is only 5.95 USD, and may do the job for you. Note that the little controller part goes wherever you can fit it inside the computer. You do not have access to it from the front panel.
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/984/bus-08/Zalman_FAN_MATE_2_Variable_Speed_Fan_Controller_FanMate-2.html?tl=g47c17

If you would like to be able to control the fan on your 8800 from the front panel, and if you have a 5.25" bay available to stick the controller in, then there are several possibilities in your price range. And almost all of them can control more than one fan, so you can have control over the other fans in your system too.
Examples:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8346/bus-173/Scythe_Kaze_Master_Ace_525_4_Channel_Fan_Controller_Temp_Display_-_Black_KM02-BK.html?tl=g47c17s286

If you have a lot of fans to control. http://www.frozencpu.com/products/13401/bus-263/Scythe_Kaze_Q-12_525_Bay_12_Channel_Fan_Controller_-_Silver_KQ02-SL.html?tl=g47c17s286

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/6135/bus-108/Zalman_ZM-MFC1_Plus_Multi_Fan_Controller_-_Silver.html?tl=g47c17s286

If you would like to add card reading/and additional USB 2.0 and SATA connectors http://www.frozencpu.com/products/13876/bus-274/Akasa_525_Bay_All-In-One_Fan_Controller_Card_Reader_Multi_Port_Panel_-_Black_AK-ALL01-BK.html?tl=g47c17s286

Here is a link to the fan controllers at Frozen CPU, this is all of them, 5.25" bay, 3.5" bay, etc.:http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g47/c17/list/p1/Fan_Accessories-Fan_Controllers.html

Note that you may need a cable to adapt your 2-pin fan to the 3-pin connectors on the controllers. But if the fan's connector fits the right way, you won't. You may also need some kind of extension so that the fan cable can reach the controller, some don't come with cables. To get answers to these questions, and even more info, you can contact the guys at Frozen CPU. I have found them to be reliable, honest and knowledgeable. Contact info is lower left side of any page. If you email them, use the email for order and website support.

You will need software to monitor the temperature of your 8800 if you choose a controller that does not have a temperature readout and thermal probes. Such software should be readily available free, I think.

Also, if you browse the whole list of fan controllers at FrozenCPU, I suggest that you stay away from the ones with the touch screens. A touch screen that works well and is reliable simply can not be made in these price ranges.

If you have any more questions, please post them and we'll be glad to do what we can to help.

An afterthought: If you control the fan speed on your 8800 to get it quiet in 2D operation, and fan noise doesn't bother you when gaming, be sure to turn up the fan to 100% when you are gaming so you don't fry the 8800.

And you probably can mount or place the Fan Mate outside the case. It may not be as pretty as the more expensive 5.25" bay controllers, and it only controls one fan, but all the money that you save will look very nice sitting in your bank account.

Thank you for such deep look into my problem.
I am familiar with electronics and fan controllers. I can make similar thing or buy even cheaper in Poland, but I thought that different card would be more convinient to use - just set fan speed on auto, or set fan speed depending on temperature of the core.
I try to avoid manual fan control, becouse my card is already quite hot: above 60°C in stress and circa 45°C in iddle (with fan always on 100%!), and I am worrying that even if I have fan going on for example 30%, then temperature would rise rapidly. Not to mention accidental overheating. Also I have red somewhere that 8800GS dont have 2D mode so its fully loaded even in iddle and thats why fan is set to 100%. I dont know if its true, but minor difference in stress and iddle temperatures might confirm this.

Probably I wil replace fan with something quieter, change thermal past on the cooling, and try to figure out good corelation of temperature and fan speed for 2D and 3D performance.

Also I wonder if GeForce 9600GSO made by Asus has auto fan control depending on temperature? With some luck I could exchange my card for this one with cost of like 10-15 USD.

Once again, thanks for such extensieve replies, its very helpful.

The 8800GS is a 100W card: I would try the Arctic Cooling Accelero (with a SlipStream strapped on it, if in case).

I would have gladly used accelero s1 at the very start (since used one cost 10 USD), if only I had have enaugh room for it in my PC. Whole card with cooling has to be maximum 2 slots tight.

Personally I am discouraged: you have no quiet parts, you have no (enough) spare money, you have no room available, you don't want to slow down your fan on your hot (?) card, you won't rather a good rheobus, but eventually you want all well automated...

...here we say: "non si fanno le nozze coi fichi secchi", but in english I think you can say: "you are trying to work it out on a shoestring".

However, have a good luck!

Well, you are probably right.

My goal was to buy quieter, maybe a little cooler and automated card, with similiar power to my current card. Since its impossible in satisfying price, I will try to stay with current card and maybe switch or slow fan.

Since I don't know the conversion between your currency and the Euro, I can only guess what this gadget costs, and that it may be within your budget. If you can subtract the 19% VAT, that is, and without shipping (29,99 Eur):

http://shop.aquacomputer.de/product_info.php?products_id=2673 This unit is controlled and monitored by software, and here is a link to a page with a screen shot of the software (click on the screen shot for a bigger image):

http://www.aquacomputer.de/newsreader/items/aquasuite-2012-und-firmwareupdate-fuer-aquaero-5.html

As far as I know it is the only fan controller that allows you to shape the entire curve of fan speed vs. temperature. All others simply have one or two points where you can specify an increase to some higher voltage or rpm. And for your use, you would not need any other accessories, except possibly a cable to run from the 2-pin cable on the 8800 to the 3-pin cable on the controller. You can make that easily for very little money.

If you have a sudden windfall of money, you can always buy the fancy version of the above controller. The fancy version comes with a very sophisticated face plate that fits in a 5.25" bay. But you would need to have a BIG sudden windfall of money! It is nice, though, good fantasy material to dream about:

http://shop.aquacomputer.de/product_info.php?products_id=2667

Here is a link to a video of the fancy version in operation. There is no sound, but you will get the idea. You will also probably be drooling over it, like I am (my computer is water cooled, so that would be perfect for me - when my windfall comes in ):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjlC58W3v3Q

Whatever you do, please let us know how it worked. Everyone here would love to hear of another way to quiet down or silence a computer or noisy graphics card. No matter what you choose to do, you will have more knowledge of video cards and temp control, and that knowledge will help you out someday when you upgrade everything in your computer. If you are going to change the graphics card, there are reviews of quite graphics cards on Silent PC Review, I think.

Have fun.