Passive [Graphics] Cards (plus maybe 3 screen outputs?)

Aloz · Post by **Aloz** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 11:30 am

I bought an asus ATI 5770 and its super loud, It is being returned. It is also way over speced for what I need so saving money while downgrading will be a bonus.

I am so disappointed by this cards noise I am only going to interested in passive retail cards.

Is there anywhere that maintains a performance + cost comparison recent list of only passive cards that is easy to digest?

Or in your opinion what are some of the best value passive cards around?

Also something else I was seriously disappointed with on this ati 5770 card while there is 3 video outputs only 2 of them can be used at once...

Is it too much to ask to find a passive card that will drive 3 monitors for purely desktop work? This is not a deal breaker but nice to have the option to upgrade to a 3rd screen later.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 11:31 pm

If you really want passive plus three monitors then you probably ought to look at one of the specialist cards from Matrox. For example the Matrox M9138, which has three mini Displayport outputs. I would expect that gaming would be out with this card, and like most Matrox products it is relatively expensive and can be hard to find.

Parappaman · Post by **Parappaman** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 11:33 pm

The 5770 can use 3 monitors at once, but one of them must be connected on Displayport. Anyway, if you want something silent, get a 5770 Vapor-X, if you feel you don't need that power then there's the 5750 Vapor-X which is just as quiet but a bit cheaper. Get the 1GB version if you need 3 monitors. If you absolutely want passive cards (and there's no reason to go for one instead of the Vapor-X), currently the most powerful ones are some 5750, if you can step down further there is the Sapphire Ultimate 5670.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:38 am

Silent points you to the 5750 Power Color (green or not just so long as it is fanless). See http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powe ... een/1.html

Quiet points you to the 5770 Hawk by MSI. See http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/ ... WK/29.html for a noise comparison

Cheaper points you to the 5670 go green by Power Color (Model AX5670 1GBD5-NS3H)

Aloz · Post by **Aloz** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 3:02 am

Thank you for all of the input so far.

I am not sure why 3 displays is so hard when dual screens has been common place for many years. Why the need for a Â£60 displayport adaptor or a Â£300 Matrox card

I may just buy a cheap pci card to drive the 3rd screen when the time comes.

What about last gens cards? Any recomendations from those?

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 5:33 pm

It's not hard, it's just more expensive to put in a clock for the third analog screen and most new LCD monitors support displayport so it becomes a non issue for those who get new monitors.

colin2 · Post by **colin2** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 9:50 am

I have a similar question, so maybe I can tag along here.

I want to run 3 or 4 monitors, 1200x1600 pixels. No gaming. I'm doing word-processing, spreadsheets, that kind of thing.

goals: (1) the least possible heat inside the PC (2) quiet

This seems to lead me to business-oriented cards like the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 450 (similar to the Matrox card mentioned above). Intended for my kind of use, passive, claimed maximum power consumption of 35 watts. Of course, expensive.

Am I overlooking cheaper low-power alternatives?

Bonus question: do motherboards these days recognize when you're using a graphics card, and turn their own graphics capacities off? Or to put it better: if I build around a graphics card like this, what kind of cpu plus mobo should I be looking at to keep total power draw as low as possible? I'm an AMD fanboy, but I could switch... (No video or photo editing, just boring office productivity apps.)