Lowest spec fanless graphics card????

[outbackyak]

It's a while since I posted here, but I've got a very specific question to ask re graphics cards.

I wish to replace my current Gigabyte 9800GT Silent Cell with another fanless graphics card. I'm not looking to upgrade: I'm looking to downgrade. Specifically I want a fanless card that is totally incapable of playing any recent video game (i.e. any game released in the last 5 years or so).

However it must be able to run two LCD 24 inch monitors at full 1920 X 1080 resolution. I'm not doing any graphics-intensive work with the computer - so long as I can still play a video DVD at full resolution, and my general software and music software (Propellerhead Reason and Record) will display fine on my two monitors that is all I require.

It must be currently available, and compatible with Windows 7 x64 Professional.

Basically I'm looking for the least powerful card possible that will meet the needs I've specified. I'm not concerned too much about power consumption, although lower is obviously better.

I've tried searching and Googling, but it's hard to find reviews of the sort of card I'm looking for, and my motherboard doesn't have onboard graphics.

All help and suggestions gratefully received!

PS: if you are wondering why I'm looking to make such a major downgrade I'll be completely frank with you: I had become terminally addicted to playing Borderlands and the associated DLC's. I don't mean I played a bit too much; I mean that I found it impossible to stop playing it. I have completed the game and DLCs for all 4 characters not just two or three times - I have played each character through the whole damn game dozens of times, both at playthrough one and two. My favourite character I have played through over 60 times. Add on the hundreds and hundreds of hours I have spent killing Crawmerax over and over again and I estimate that in the past 11 months I have spent something like 2500+ hours playing the game!

This is insane. We are talking 18 to 24 hour sessions. Literally if I was not doing something absolutely essential (eat, sleep, work), all I did for 11 months was play Borderlands. Friends - gone; hobbies - gone; social life - gone. Even music production (the reason I built the computer in the first place) - gone.

Fortunately I've stopped now, got rid of the game and I just want to make absolutely sure that something like this never ever happens to me again.

[kiblams]

If you don't have an onboard solution which can do 2 monitors I would get the ATi 5450, it is passively cooled, draws less than 40w at load and supports Eyefinity which will allow a 3rd monitor down the line if you fancy it.

[quest_for_silence]

I want a fanless card that is totally incapable of playing any recent video game (i.e. any game released in the last 5 years or so).

Get a Matrox (it won't be cheap).

[tim851]

Wow. That's a sad story my friend. Glad to hear you've gotten over it!

I think the seriously weakest a$$ graphics card you can currently buy is the Matrox P690. It is essentially a die-shrunk Matrox Parhelia, a card that was considered slow and outdated in 2002! I doubt you can play any game of the post-2004 era, it is not even DirectX 9 compatible.

It is shockingly expensive though. Newegg retails them for $175!!!

[dhanson865]

I'd want the newest generation card to support 64bit drivers well. So I have 2 suggestions

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150402 ATI 4350 fanless. It's as old/slow as I'd consider new enough to have good driver support down the road. It'd be about 1/4 the speed of your 9800GT if you think that is slow enough to stop you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131339 AMD 5450 Go Green a newer card that will be more gaming capable (10% faster than the 4350 but supporting newer tech) but you can use RBE to semi-permanantly nerf it to 2D only modes.

Install the 5450 and latest AMD video drivers
Go into the CCC overclocking section and see what the current GPU and Memory clocks settle to if you leave it idle for a few seconds
Fire up RBE and set the 3D modes to that speed
Flash the BIOS and go back to CCC to make sure the clocks are at the low speed all the time.

If you want to make it harder on yourself to undo it have a friend that is capable do the RBE work. Here are couple of screen shots of a proposed before and after using a 5570. In this case the Video memory is 1/3 speed and the GPU is 1/4 speed. Should be a severe enough nerf to kill 3D gaming considering this level of card isn't meant to be a killer gamer at normal clocks.

It also has the plus of not flashing or blacking out the screen as you enter a 3D program as the idle clock and 3D clock will be the same the screen won't have to reset. The only time it would change clocks is during boot and during DVD playback. Of course you could nerf DVD playback as well if you want.

radeon1.png

radeon2.png

[andymcca]

I second the onboard graphics recommendation. Find the lowest rated Intel/AMD solution which handles 2 monitors. Note: I know many of the AMD solutions will handle 2 monitors, but one must be analog (VGA) signal. Not sure if that affects your decision.
If you can move to the pre-sandybridge Intel solutions, these are down-right god-awful. I don't know about the two monitors, but the chipset included with the Atom (945GSE in my case) cannot even play WoW after changing settings _below_ lowest settings (by hand in config files).

You might even look for cards which lack 3d driver support (ATI+linux? )
Maybe a classic 3dfx card?

Another possible option: Run everything as a virtual machine on Linux. Install windows as a virtual machine and it will not have access to the video card in any meaningful capacity.

[kuzzia]

A fanless radeon 5450. You can even use a third monitor, granted that it's connected via DisplayPort.
Full of features, low power consumption, dirt-cheap, comparable to Sandy Bridge INTEGRATED graphics.

good luck trying to play games with that card!

[Cryoburner]

A fanless radeon 5450. You can even use a third monitor, granted that it's connected via DisplayPort.
Full of features, low power consumption, dirt-cheap, comparable to Sandy Bridge INTEGRATED graphics.

good luck trying to play games with that card! : )

You could play lots of older games with an HD 5450. A lot of games from five or six years ago should run quite well, as well as many more recent ones with their resolution and graphics settings reduced. I previously had an X1600 Pro, which has roughly the same power as an HD 5450, and was able run L4D just fine, and that game came out less than two and a half years ago. Even the L4D2 demo was quite playable on that card. Most other recent games aren't as optimized as Valve's Source engine though, and Borderlands probably wouldn't run too well, but it's certainly capable of running many other games. If you want something "totally incapable" of playing games from the last five years, you'd probably be looking at something that's no longer properly supported either. Downgrading your graphics card seems like it could be something of a losing battle, unless you're only worried about borderlands. : P

It might be best to just stick with what you have, and try to avoid installing any potentially addictive games. Or just get rid of your computer and replace it with an accordion. There aren't too many games for the accordion. : 3

[Gohan]

An 8400 GS is probably the slowest card you can still buy new. Some of them have DVI and HDMI so with a convertor should work with your setup. I personal wouldn't go with the HD 5450 as i had one and it's quite surprising how many games it will play with medium / low details.

[andymcca]

I'm kind of curious what you are going to buy. Any updates?