SPCR

I'm running a pretty archaic, but quiet system - PII 400 with undervolted fans and a Barracuda IV. Trouble is, I need to upgrade my videocard (Dance Dance Revolution wouldn't run on 4 MB of VRAM ) (am I a flamebait yet?

Anyway, I don't really want to add any more fans in my system, so I'm looking at the older adapters, in particular Rage-based ATI all-in-wonders. I've heard, however, that all-in-wonders (and TV tuner-enabled cards in general) run pretty hot, and well, I don't have great cooling in my case. So that's the dilemma...

Could someone comment on the noise/heat management of video cards?..

--l

Unless you really want the TV features of the AIW, Id recommend a Matrox G400/450/550. Great 2D image, and v. cheap, and most importantly fanless!

PS: Not sure what 'Dance Dance Revolution' is? A game? But if your gonna be gaming then maybe look at a Geforce and a fanless Zalman GPU cooler.

PPS: Just checked, and the G450 eTV also appears to be fanless! And features the same features as the AIW!

I'd also look at the geforce2 Ti's. With TV-Out and 64m DDR they're about $50, and plenty powerful to run even the newest 3D games.



Like the vision tek above most of them come with fans attached, but it's pretty simple to replace the stock HSF with something fanlees. The Zalman video cooler works really well, but is alittle pricey:



A cheaper solution would be to attach a good sized passively cooled heatsink to it. An PIII, Celeron or C3 sink would work fine.

I've got a Geforce2 that's being cooled passively by a sink very similar to this one:


That particular heatsink sells for a whopping $1 at allelectronics.com

Dance Dance Revolution is that South Korean invented game that u jump up and down on these pressure sensors on, when u get good at it it looks pretty good, u're pretty much dancing around on the spot

quokked wrote:Dance Dance Revolution is that South Korean invented game that u jump up and down on these pressure sensors on, when u get good at it it looks pretty good, u're pretty much dancing around on the spot

It's actually from Japan...

ooopppps sowwie