Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

They make noise, too.

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catalinr
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Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by catalinr » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:04 pm

So we're moving to 4K monitors at the office and the old cards just aren't up to snuff.

Turns out you need DisplayPort 1.2 to drive 4K@60Hz. While we had dual-link DVIs to drive 1440p displays.

But I can't seem to find a video card with:
- DisplayPort output
- 4K max res
- fanless (or very quiet fan)
- non-gamer priced (in the tens, not hundreds Range)

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Fire-Flare
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Location: Seattle

Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by Fire-Flare » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:39 pm

There are fanless USB 3.0 to Displayport adapters available for under $70, but I'm not seeing which revision they support.

Perhaps you could try one and see if it works at 60KHz?


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

CA_Steve
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:15 pm

DP1.2 + fanless + cheap = zero I think. There are workstation cards which aren't cheap. There are gaming cards which will be cheaper...but none currently fanless. A couple of potential desktop gaming cards would be the RX 460 or the soon to be stocked GTX 1050. The former will be cheaper, the latter will use less power/may run quieter - but that's a gaming perspective - don't know your apps and whether they will stress the GPU. Don't get the cheapest versions though as the slightly higher priced SKUs will have passive fans for 2D and light 3D use.

I don't recommend messing around with USB to DP. Haven't seen any positive reviews for supporting 2160p, yet.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:22 am

catalinr wrote:Any suggestions? Thanks!

Radeon R7 360 should be among the cheapest ones which you may effectively pair with an AC S3.
Alternatively a second hand/refurbished FirePro W4100 2GB, still with an AC S3.

Both options should cost some money more than one hundred bucks.

Luke M
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by Luke M » Sun Oct 30, 2016 7:06 pm

Not counting obsolete cards, there's nothing cheaper than the AMD 460 or Nvidia 1050. It would be nice if they made a cheap 64-bit card for upgraders, considering that people are keeping their PCs longer due to the slow progress in CPU speed etc.

catalinr
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by catalinr » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:22 pm

:( not good.

What if we accept quiet (not silent) cards and increase the budget, any recommendations?

An Asus STRIX is around $150 and silent in 2D mode (fan off). The chip is older though, 750Ti.

Other options? This is a weird situation, there must be a solution!

Thanks!

CA_Steve
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Nov 02, 2016 7:16 pm

As mentioned, the RX 460 and GTX 1050 are possibilities. For grins, here's pcpartpicker's look at the two models.
Newegg is running a rebate on the Gigabyte Windforce RX 460. So, $90 after MIR, or $120 w/o rebate. The windforce does have a passive fan for 2D and light 3D loads and 1 displayport output. I don't like that it doesn't have a PEG power connector...but again I don't know what your applications are and if they will drive the gfx cards like a game. Otherwise, reviews look good - viewtopic.php?f=19&t=69366.

For $130, there's a bunch of un-reviewed but likely decent GTX 1050's.

Or, spinning this thing on it's head, what if it's just time to replace the CPU/mobo and get something modern with displayport on it and avoid the discrete gfx?

catalinr
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by catalinr » Wed Nov 09, 2016 1:22 pm

Our apps don't touch the GPU at all and the mobo+cpu are pretty highend and recent so not really looking to change.

We're going with the Gigabyte Windforce 460 for now which is the cheapest available around here. Maybe thing will change after 1050 has more availability.

Thanks for your help!

CA_Steve
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Re: Silent 4K office (not gaming) card?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Nov 09, 2016 2:23 pm

Enjoy!

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