Is there a fanless PCIe dual head card out there?

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:59 am

Does anyone know if such a beast exists? There's the new PCIe
Millenium, for 2-d graphics with dual monitor support, which is cool but it has a 27 dBA fan.

roo · Post by **roo** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:43 pm

PNY NVS 280

http://www.pny.com/products/quadro/nvs/280NvsPciEx.asp

I have the AGP version. It's got a weird kind of cabling, it's a DMS-59 cable (59pin) which outputs to 2 connections, either vga or dvi.

and best of all, no fan!

seltrus · Post by **seltrus** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:53 pm

A dual DVI nVidia 6600/6600GT or an ATI X800XL should do the trick. Both are PCI-E native and work well with a Zalman ZM80D. For the non-warranty voiders, Gigabyte makes fanless versions of both cards for a small premium but you will have to forgo dual DVI because they didn't choose to implement it.

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:01 pm

Pretty much every mainstream card manufactured for the PCI-e bus is dual-head nowadays...it just depends on the connections you want. Some are 1xDVI, 1xVGA while others are 2xDVI. As seltrus said, some of the most-liked passive cards around here are from Gigabyte, and as he said they are both of the split format variety. Of course, you could always just get a VGA/DVI adapter if the card you want doesn't have 2 DVIs....I can't remember what information the pins carry that you lose in the conversion, but I think it's not important for most people.

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:59 pm

I don't know much about graphics cards, but was under the impression
that the PCIe ones mentioned were single head, and that they only played the same exact same thing on two monitors, without being able to vary
the displays independantly of one another as in a true dual head
monitor, and that otherwise they would state dual head in the specs.
In this case the two monitor function would be redundant. The Gigabyte cards state "dual view" but it might be misleading. I could be completely wrong about this and will study up on it more carefully. Is there anyone out there who has tried any of these in this context, or knows more about it?

The NVIDIA Quadro 280 nvs PCIe version is fanless and is promoted by
the company as a card that "delivers next-generation multi-monitor
capabilities..." and "multy-display technology offers a robust set of features", but it does not state in any unambiguous terms what those features are, and does not claim to be dual head. Their non PCIe
version of the card clearly states dual head in it's specs.

The only PCIe card I've seen that states dual head in it's specs is
the Matrox Millenium, which unfortuanately isn't fanless.

Techno Pride · Post by **Techno Pride** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:04 pm

you can display different stuff on each monitor with any recent video card.

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:51 am

Then you have tried every single one. Please give us an example of
just one PCIe fanless video card which you have used yourself, with two monitors, in which you could divide your display of application windows between both monitors, and in which your mouse moved from one monitor to the other as if they were one wide screened monitor. Otherwise, what is your belief based on.

luggage · Post by **luggage** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:50 am

Apart from using a PCIe slot instead of AGP there is really no difference in modern cards using ATI or nVidia shipsets, concerning slot and dual head.

The terms used for dual head by the companys are the same no matter how they connect (AGP/PCIe)

And after having used dual head cards from 2000 till now from Matrox, nVidia and ATI I can say that any card from them with dual connectors (crt or dvi) supports dual monitors in the way you want them to.

I dont have to specifically test a fanless PCIe card myself to know this is true.

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:10 am

"I dont have to specifically test a fanless PCIe card myself to know this is true."

Give me a break.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:00 am

Hmm.... When I had read the thread title, I had assumed you meant you were looking for a passive dual DVI PCI-E card, which are few and far between.

Since you want a card that can do dual displays, but not necessarily dual DVI, the word you're looking for is Twinview. It's nVidia's flavor of DualHead (which I think may be a Matrox proprietary term). If you're interested in an ATI solution, the word to look up is Hydravision.

I cannot recommend anything to you since I haven't used PCI-E yet, but Matrox helped to start the dual-vga-on-a-single-card craze back in 1999, and nVidia and ATI have done their best to catch up since then.

Artagra · Post by **Artagra** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:36 am

Give me a break.

Dude, chill out.

If you want to come in here and start causing, at least do some research. All nVidia 6x00 series GPU's and all ATI Xx00 GPU's support dual display. Now, not all PCB's have it implemented, but as was wisely stated earlier, any display with dual connectors (ie one DVI and one VGA, or two DVI, or two VGA) that is based on either of these GPU series's will support dual displays, with mixed output (ie one primary, one secondary monitor). Hence, you can look at an X300, X600, X700, X800 or X850, or a 6200, 6600 or 6800 based card that has dual outputs. Hence, what he said is true - any modern ATI or nVidia PCI-E card with dual connectors will support dual displays.

Artag

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 6:06 pm

O.K. I'm sorry, I need to chill out. I have been researching it, but
find it confusing. In any case, it seems that the NVIDIA Quadro NVS PCIe is a passively cooled card, designed especially for 2D workstation use, with support for two DVI moniters in either horizontal span, dual view or clone view modes. Seems that it is not "dual head" but uses a different means to achieve the same thing. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this info.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 2:20 am

Hello:

Here's a dual-DVI 6600, 256MB card with passive cooling (for just $135 shipped):

I have used the XFX 6600GT card with a Zalman VF700 Al/Cu, and it was very cool and very quiet.

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:24 am

That's a very slick combination, and high power for being passive.
How do find it's dual monitor function?

Webfire · Post by **Webfire** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:30 am

There is also a passive X700 from Powercolor with dual dvi.

It should be avaiable now for 145€, at least that's what I read.

cmh · Post by **cmh** » Tue May 10, 2005 4:29 am

If that Powercolor is the same as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131304, it's got a fan on the back.

alglove · Post by **alglove** » Tue May 10, 2005 4:53 am

If all you are looking for an entry-level passively cooled PCI-E card, you can find a lot in the Radeon X300 and X300SE series. The easiest thing to so would probably be to go to Newegg's website and take a look at the video cards they have for sale, filtered by PCI-Ex16. You will see pictures of all their items. Even if you do not live in the US, the pictures are quite helpful.

As for dual-display capabilities, they do have integrated dual display controllers. The drivers allow you to choose between having the screens by identical copies of each other (which you do not want) and independent desktop areas, even with different resolutions (which is what you do want). I have tried this myself with an older Radeon 9800XT (VGA monitor and TV side-by-side), and I can confirm that it works quite well.

As the others say, cards from NVIDIA, Matrox, etc., can also do the same thing.

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Wed May 11, 2005 9:56 pm

Well, I ended up getting a Matrox Millenium PCIe, since I need a card
for high quality 2-D graphics that wouldn't use a lot of system resources,
and I placed a Schooner heat sink on it, to replace it's fan. They are not really designed for one another, but fit well enough, luckily. The Schooner is a massive group of 2 heatsinks that surround the card and 1 that sticks outside of the case. It looks big enough to cool anything.

Ephemeron · Post by **Ephemeron** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:30 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hello:

Here's a dual-DVI 6600, 256MB card with passive cooling (for just $135 shipped):

I have used the XFX 6600GT card with a Zalman VF700 Al/Cu, and it was very cool and very quiet.

I believe newegg no longer sells this product.

PositiveSpin · Post by **PositiveSpin** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:00 pm

Aracu wrote:Well, I ended up getting a Matrox Millenium PCIe, since I need a card
for high quality 2-D graphics that wouldn't use a lot of system resources,
and I placed a Schooner heat sink on it, to replace it's fan. They are not really designed for one another, but fit well enough, luckily. The Schooner is a massive group of 2 heatsinks that surround the card and 1 that sticks outside of the case. It looks big enough to cool anything.

Which Matrox card is that? There's more than one Matrox Millennium PCIe card, including some Parhelias and P650, at least.

I have the Matrox Millennium P650 PCIe, which has a piddling little 40mm HSF on it. I'm going to try replacing it with a largeish passive NorthBridge cooler - should be more than sufficient. The AGP P650 is already passively cooled, and it has quite a small heatsink - as I understand it, the P650 chip is essentially the same on AGP / PCIe / PCI, except that the PCIe version comes with 128Mb, instead of 64Mb. All three versions (I have all three) come with dual DVI.

rei · Post by **rei** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 10:34 pm

looks like the fanless list needs to be revamped, there's been a lot released lately.

power-color x700 passive vivo:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzcy

looks like the low-end choices are very nice, 6600 non gt or x700 non pro. the 6600 handily trouces the x700 but some people may want:

-dual dvi
-vivo

in their agp. this x700 appears to be a nice little card.

i'd put this in a low end silent-ati-xpress200 based matx setup.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:27 am

Ephemeron wrote:I believe newegg no longer sells this product.

I just bought one last week from them and installed it this weekend. They're definitely still selling these.

-Ed

Aracu · Post by **Aracu** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:34 pm

[quote="PositiveSpin"][quote="Aracu"]Well, I ended up getting a Matrox Millenium PCIe, since I need a card
for high quality 2-D graphics that wouldn't use a lot of system resources,
and I placed a Schooner heat sink on it, to replace it's fan. They are not really designed for one another, but fit well enough, luckily. The Schooner is a massive group of 2 heatsinks that surround the card and 1 that sticks outside of the case. It looks big enough to cool anything.[/quote]

Which Matrox card is that? There's more than one Matrox Millennium PCIe card, including some Parhelias and P650, at least.

I have the Matrox Millennium P650 PCIe, which has a piddling little 40mm HSF on it. I'm going to try replacing it with a largeish passive NorthBridge cooler - should be more than sufficient. The AGP P650 is already passively cooled, and it has quite a small heatsink - as I understand it, the P650 chip is essentially the same on AGP / PCIe / PCI, except that the PCIe version comes with 128Mb, instead of 64Mb. All three versions (I have all three) come with dual DVI.[/quote]

It's the same card as yours. The fan has to be removed, it's so noisy.
It works well with the Schooner heatsink and so far has stayed under
35 degrees C. The Schooner does not fit it exactly, which makes it
even more difficult to install, requiring some improvisation and lots
of patience (your choice of heatsink might be better). In any case, the
Millenium P650 PCIe doesn't seem to be a gig heat generater.

PositiveSpin · Post by **PositiveSpin** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:22 pm

Green Shoes wrote:Pretty much every mainstream card manufactured for the PCI-e bus is dual-head nowadays...it just depends on the connections you want. Some are 1xDVI, 1xVGA while others are 2xDVI. As seltrus said, some of the most-liked passive cards around here are from Gigabyte, and as he said they are both of the split format variety. Of course, you could always just get a VGA/DVI adapter if the card you want doesn't have 2 DVIs....I can't remember what information the pins carry that you lose in the conversion, but I think it's not important for most people.

I think you have a slight misunderstanding here. Most DVI connectors carry VGA signals as well as DVI signals, so a simple adapter can allow a VGA (eg: CRT) connector to be attached. The reverse is NOT true. Attaching a DVI device (eg: LCD panel) to a VGA connection is NOT do-able using a simple adapter. The 15 pin VGA connector outputs analogue video only. To convert this to digital requires some complex active electronics.

In short, NO, you cannot convert a VGA+DVI card to 2xDVI with an adapter. You can convert a VGA+DVI (or 2xDVI, for that matter) to 2xVGA using an adapter.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:05 pm

Edward Ng wrote:
Ephemeron wrote:I believe newegg no longer sells this product.
I just bought one last week from them and installed it this weekend. They're definitely still selling these.

-Ed

Okay, my bad; I just checked again and it is no longer available at NewEgg.

Oliver · Post by **Oliver** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:23 pm

PositiveSpin wrote:
Green Shoes wrote:Pretty much every mainstream card manufactured for the PCI-e bus is dual-head nowadays...it just depends on the connections you want. Some are 1xDVI, 1xVGA while others are 2xDVI. As seltrus said, some of the most-liked passive cards around here are from Gigabyte, and as he said they are both of the split format variety. Of course, you could always just get a VGA/DVI adapter if the card you want doesn't have 2 DVIs....I can't remember what information the pins carry that you lose in the conversion, but I think it's not important for most people.
I think you have a slight misunderstanding here. Most DVI connectors carry VGA signals as well as DVI signals, so a simple adapter can allow a VGA (eg: CRT) connector to be attached. The reverse is NOT true. Attaching a DVI device (eg: LCD panel) to a VGA connection is NOT do-able using a simple adapter. The 15 pin VGA connector outputs analogue video only. To convert this to digital requires some complex active electronics.

In short, NO, you cannot convert a VGA+DVI card to 2xDVI with an adapter. You can convert a VGA+DVI (or 2xDVI, for that matter) to 2xVGA using an adapter.

When you connect a vga monitor to a dvi-i outlet on a card utilizing the dvi-i to vga converter, is signal quality lost because the extra link of the converter is in the path? In other words, can you see a disadvantage to doing this conversion. Is the graphic signal damaged slightly to the monitor, or is it undetectable? Has anyone taken their card (1 vga port and 1 dvi-i port type video card) and plugged their vga monitor into the dvi-i outlet via the adapter, then unplugged it and plugged it directly into the vga outlet and compare picture quality? Was it the same? Shouldn't it be the same if the RAMDACS driving each port are the same?

On another note, if you look at say digital photographs, is the best quality monitor better than the best quality lcd for this purpose? What about video editing? Is a monitor better than an lcd panel for viewing the video?

Oliver · Post by **Oliver** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:44 pm

Edward Ng wrote:
Ephemeron wrote:I believe newegg no longer sells this product.
I just bought one last week from them and installed it this weekend. They're definitely still selling these.

-Ed

1)That xfx 6600 dual dvi-i card that you bought, I have some questions.
First and foremost, how crisp and tack sharp is output when you hook up a high quality vga monitor to the card (using the dvi-i to vga adapter of course)? Is the quality the same no matter which dvi-i port you hook it to?
I imagine there should not be a difference in image sharpness whether it is 2-d or 3-d , is that the case?

2)Would you think another card that is of the 6600 gt series would have crisper output? I think all these cards have 400Mhz RAMDACs so, I would not think there would be a difference, unless there was a difference in quality of the RAMDAC itself. What do you think?

3)Would you think the Gigabyte 6600gt passive card would have a crisper output or the same sharpness output to a vga monitor? Has anyone seen the vga output of the gigabyte 660gt passive card?

4)I noticed the gigabyte 6600gt has VIVO. Would that tend to mean that that s-video output that drives a tv might be sharper than the xfx 6600 passive? Or should there be no difference.

5) By the way, if a card has HDTV out , does that also mean it has s-video out as well.

Sorry for all the questions, but I would like a card that lets be plug in a tv so I can judge the video I am editing on the tv, but it needs to send a great signal to the tv to do that, so that is what I want.

Thanks.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 1:57 am

1) No difference in sharpness between 2D and 3D; I haven't tried it myself on this particular card, but on my XFX 6800GT, the image quality is merely okay. I did find, however, that using a higher quality VGA cable helped at the higher resolutions & refresh rates than the stock cable that came with the monitor--don't know if this is the case for all cards, or just that particular 6800GT.

2) The RAMDAC is not what causes the poor image quality; it's the caps used to filter the output to comply with certain FCC regulations in regard to interference. In this regard, different cards yield different quality output, regardless of the RAMDAC or core, unless they're the same card made on the same assembly line from the same exact parts.

3) I don't personally know about this. Never tried one of those cards for myself.

4) I doubt this; if it's better, it's for a different reason than the VIVO feature in particular.

5) Not necessarily.

-Ed

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:29 pm

Thermaltake should have called the "Schooner" the "Anchor" instead, because that seems to be all it's good for, judging by what people have been saying about it here...

Is there a fanless PCIe dual head card out there?

Is there a fanless PCIe dual head card out there?

Which Matrox Millennium PCIe?

Re: Which Matrox Millennium PCIe?

Slight misunderstanding...

Re: Slight misunderstanding...