Hello,

I tried to read a bit but I'm still confused on which gaming graphic card to get. It has to be silent because I will use my PC to also write music so I need it to be silent. I was looking at the passive HD6850?

Budget is $400 maximum and I will need 2x DVI card.

Thanks all!

Here's some stuff to help narrow the search:
- What's your monitor resolution?
- What games do you want to play?
- Do you want to max out resolution/image quality/fps when gaming or do you want to dial it back if it means a quieter card?
- What's your timeframe? The new gen of HD 7xxx cards are mostly out with the 78XX hitting the shelves in ~10 days and the 6XX Nvidia cards are due sometime in the next month. Waiting a month or so will lead to more possible solutions and some price adjustments.
- music: is it a live mic environment or is it a "I want it quiet so I can listen while composing/editing" deal?

If you want a silent GPU you have 4 options:
1) put your pc in an closed cabinet under your desk -> i am dead serious, there are several desk models that can do this (IKEA) an will solve all your problems (beware of heat though)
2) go liquid, Powercolour has an LCS version of the 7970, that makes it the quietest + fastest GPU around
3) get a decent aftermarket solution (MSI twin frozr etc), remove the fans, strap on 2x 120mm fans (like Nexus) and set them at 7V
4) buy a decent aftermarket solution and flash the bios to a minimum fanspeed of 10%

Personaly I am very happy with nr 3: I have a deadsilent 580GTX.

Remember that the latest stock AMD/ATI 7xxx series are "reasonably" quiet as-is.

This is not a necro effort, it's just that I saw this thread and thought the recommendations were good.. a lot of people struggle most with noise from GPUs. A short resurrection might be handy for those trying to silence GPUs.

I will throw a further option into the mix: Download MSI Afterburner (for nvidia cards) and build a custom fan control curve. It is all done via a graph - you set the fan curve the way you want the fan to behave as temps ramp up.

For example, my GTX580, even at idle was audible. I turned the idle fan speed (i.e. anything but gaming) down from 40% to 30% = silent. I then built a fan-curve that allowed the GPU to run around 20% hotter than standard. For the standard nvidia profile, when the card got to 60c, the fan would ramp up to a low howl. I altered the curve so the fan speed would ramp up gradually to around 47% through to 80c, over 80c it fires up to 50% and if, for any reason, it ever exceeds 90c (it never gets over 83c in relatity) it sends the fan to what I classify as an emergency cooldown at 70% speed... realistically it's just a contingecy so my card doesn't blow up.. I would never actually ever want to hear the fan at 70% while gaming etc.

The upshot of this is:

1. Windows = silent
2. Light/casual gaming = near-silent, barely audible
3. Heavy gaming / high performance gaming = noticable but not intrusive
4. GPU about to go into meltdown = fans scream to warn you.

Hope this helps.

1000

I have the HD6950 with Accelero S1 and 1x120 Scythe GT strapped on. Unfortunately the S1 heatsink is a little weak and i have some BSOD issues that i believe are caused by the GPU. I am thinking of your solution #3 for my next GPU. Would 2 scythe GT 800rpm be equivalent to Nexus? The scythes actually run about 900rpm@12v but i need the fans to be able to handle cooling down a card from a critical temp if need be.

I am hoping that for the next gen AMD will have even cooler 8800 series card. That way i might not even have to change the fans rather i can just settle for aftermarket solution and hopefully the aftermarket solutions have gone up from 92mm fans to 120mm fans.