I recently unplugged the power from the fan on my Elsa GeForce2 card, waiting for it to audibly sizzle, but nothing happened. I aimed my Papst 12cm fan at it first at 5v and now at 12v. I initially underclocked the GPU and memory a bit with Powerstrip, but later I just let it run at default speed. It has been going for two days now without any visual glitches, although the chip and heatsink are hot enough to fry eggs.
Based on the numbers from tecchannel.de, I just ordered a fanless GF4 MX440 card. Along with the G450/550 Matrox cards it scored a cool 8 watts in 2D mode (and only 20 in 3D). Those are the kinds of numbers I like to see. I don't see the point of burning like 30 watts while just web surfing or posting to a web site. I am planning to purchase a G450 (for its low power and superior analog/TV outputs) as well in the near future.
It appears that I am either going to have to swap out the video card in my main rig to play a newer game, or just have a dedicated game machine complete with a newer GPU/heating unit and maybe water cooling.
cooler running cards
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