Quiet Video Card that can run 2 monitors.

[AC]

Hi. New poster here. But I've been a lurker for some time.

Built a new comp recently with a sonata designer 500 case.

I like it however my vid card is a diamond viper x1650 so it's loud.

I'm wondering if anyone here has any suggestions for a cool and quiet vid card. I'd prefer it to be as low cost as possible as I don't play games on the PC at all.

In terms of colling all I have is the what comes with the case. the 120mm fan.

I looked into the Asus GeForce 8500GT silent, but I read that it gets very hot.

I'm trying to build a budget silent PC, if that is even possible. I think I'm close but I think the vid card is very loud.

Unless you all think it's the antec fan making the loud noise. I think it's the card though.

thanks for all the help in advance.

[proc]

Hi,
I'm writing from a PC with a Geforce 7300LE using two 19" LCD (1280x1024 each). The card is really cheap and is enough for a dual monitor setup provided you don't need two DVI connections.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

I have two passively cooled 7600GS cards in this machine (providing four DVI outputs), with three monitors connected.



There 8600GTS cards that are passively cooled (Gigabyte and Asus) that have two DVI outputs.

[wayner]

You could replace the fan on your existing card.

You could also buy an Asus HD 3450 passive card. It can drive two monitors and it is about $60 at ncix and I believe it should run fairly cool as this new line from ATI is supposed to be pretty low in terms of power consumption.

[~El~Jefe~]

thats a great suggestion

[coylh]

I have a Gigabyte 8600GTS fanless, and you can actually game on it. It's probably overkill to just run an OS, but it's a nice card.

[yefi]

I'm wondering if anyone here has any suggestions for a cool and quiet vid card. I'd prefer it to be as low cost as possible as I don't play games on the PC at all.

Unless you had a specific need for it, you should have gone with a board with an integrated GPU. The AMD G690-780 chipsets offer dual heads and you can pick up one of those board for little more than a low-end graphics card.

Try underclocking the card however, reseating the HS with some better thermal paste and a new, quieter fan (as someone else suggested).

[najames]

yefi has it. I have a Bistar TA690G that runs 2 22" HP monitors great with Linux. One connects to VGA and one to DVI, no video cards needed. Best board I have currently, it just works.

[wayner]

Unless you had a specific need for it, you should have gone with a board with an integrated GPU. The AMD G690-780 chipsets offer dual heads and you can pick up one of those board for little more than a low-end graphics card.

Doesn't this limit you to using AMD CPUs? That may be an issue if you want to use one of the new 45 nm CPUs from Intel.

[Rewdoalb]

Unless you all think it's the antec fan making the loud noise. I think it's the card though.

if you gently put your finger in the middle of the (antec) fan, it'll stop it from spinning. Don't do it for long, just a few seconds, to make sure it's not the main noisemaker. But it's very likely to be your x1650.

Have you thought about downloading ATI Tray tools and manually lowering the fan speed? Sometimes that makes a big difference on ATI cards, just keep an eye on your GPU temps. If it's still too loud, you could buy an accelero S1 heatsink or just buy a new card. (passive 7300LE, 7600GS, 8600GT, or HD 3450)