best vga for $125
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There have been threads and many positive comments on this forum about the surprisingly low power consumption of the ATI Radeon 9600 series (vanilla, Pro and XT), which leads to lower noise.
Based on that, you might consider this Powercolor 9600 Pro 128 Mb:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 219&depa=1
There are other brands and examples of the 9600 Pro for less, some even with passive cooling, but all the others seem to have the slower memory chips (rectangular instead of square). I learned to avoid models with SE, LE, EZ, or Lite designators. Apparently that signifies memory that is slower then ATI's reference design.
I 've been using on of these Powercolor cards for about a month (no games yet), and the little fan has gotten noisy yet, but I'm considering what low-noise cooler I will use eventually.
Based on that, you might consider this Powercolor 9600 Pro 128 Mb:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 219&depa=1
There are other brands and examples of the 9600 Pro for less, some even with passive cooling, but all the others seem to have the slower memory chips (rectangular instead of square). I learned to avoid models with SE, LE, EZ, or Lite designators. Apparently that signifies memory that is slower then ATI's reference design.
I 've been using on of these Powercolor cards for about a month (no games yet), and the little fan has gotten noisy yet, but I'm considering what low-noise cooler I will use eventually.
i'm looking at the same price range, however with a pci-express motherboard. the best option i've found (keep in mind i'm still an overclocker at heart) is a 128mb 128-bit geforce 6200, attempting to unlock the 4 latent pipelines and overclocking the core/memory. from 300/550 4-pipeline spec speeds, many people have reported reaching 550/650 8-pipeline overclocks with stock cooling, which gives speeds much higher than a stock 6600 and approaching a 6600 gt. this would also be around radeon 9800 or x700 speeds which would cost you around $170.
the tradeoff is heat generation - an 8-pipeline oc'ed 6200 would draw around 40 watts, which is going to require some degree of cooling. however 4-pipeline 300/550 speeds could draw as little as 20 watts, but i haven't seen any real tests except here, and another review i can't track down.
there's supposed to be an agp version of the 6200 quite soon now.
the tradeoff is heat generation - an 8-pipeline oc'ed 6200 would draw around 40 watts, which is going to require some degree of cooling. however 4-pipeline 300/550 speeds could draw as little as 20 watts, but i haven't seen any real tests except here, and another review i can't track down.
there's supposed to be an agp version of the 6200 quite soon now.
Here's the link to the thread "Radeon 9600: ultimate SilentPC video card?" that I was too lazy/tired to find last night:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... sc&start=0
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... sc&start=0