Cool, quiet card for non-gaming PC

They make noise, too.

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jimbo7707
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Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:14 pm
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Cool, quiet card for non-gaming PC

Post by jimbo7707 » Sat Jan 05, 2008 8:54 pm

Hi all,

Well, it is time for me to put together another system after about 4 years with the current P4 setup. I have tentatively decided on most of the components but am a little overwhelmed in trying to pick a video card and was wondering if you could offer some suggestions.

The system is a home desktop that will used a lot but not stressed most of the time, just net surfing etc. but I am getting more into photo editing (Photoshop CS3, Nikon Capture NX) and find my current system lacking and somewhat slow in these apps. No gaming or home theater. Currently I'm running a Matrox P650 passively cooled AGP card which seems to work fine and is silent. I would like a video card that will perform well in photo editing and would like the option of running dual monitors in the future. I'd would prefer a card that is passively cooled and with fairly low power consumption. I'm guessing I don't need a very high end card for my intended use.

Here is what I have come up with so far. I'm trying to get a reasonably high performance system while keeping the power, heat and noise to a minimum.

Win XP Pro SP2
Antec P182 Case
Corsair 520HX power supply
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P motherboard
C2D E6750 processor
Scythe Ninja cooler w/ Nexus 120mm
4GB DDR 2 Ram

400 GB SATA & 160 PATA Samsung drives (existing)
NEC 2070NX Monitor (existing)

Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

Jim
Last edited by jimbo7707 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dutchmm
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:06 am

Perhaps you can find something cheaper, but I am using ....

Post by Dutchmm » Sat Jan 05, 2008 9:16 pm

MSI NX8600GT-T2D256EZ, 256 MB

This is passively cooled, which no doubt adds somewhat to the temps inside the case (although I run a linux sensing app which NEVER reports the card temperature over 50 centigrade), but makes no noise at all in the frequency ranges I can hear. You don't say where you are, but in Europe they cost less than €100.

My work profile and system is similar to yours, except that I also run folding@home, so my machine is overclocked to 3.2Ghz.

HTH

Mike[/b]

jimbo7707
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Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:14 pm
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post by jimbo7707 » Sat Jan 05, 2008 9:35 pm

Thanks Dutchmm. The MSI card looks like something that would work for me and has dual DVI (I forgot that in my post), is cheap and newegg carries them so I just add it to my cart :)

seraphyn
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Post by seraphyn » Sun Jan 06, 2008 6:25 am

I second the 8600GT suggestion, a very nice silent card and cheap to boot. It'll get everything done you want it to do for a long time.

Blue_Sky
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Location: Kingston, ON, Canada

Post by Blue_Sky » Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:35 am

A passive 8600GT sounds like it will fit the bill. Asus and gigabyte make passive 8600GTs in addition to MSI.

My 8600GT provides surprisingly high framerates when gaming at 1280x1024.

porkchop
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Location: Australia

Post by porkchop » Sun Jan 06, 2008 2:23 pm

how about a cheaper card?

if you're not going to game, an 8600gt seems overkill.

how about an ati card: a 2400xt or pro(i think it has at least one dual dvi) or a 2600pro, they're cheaper and consume less power- finding a passive card should be easy.

just my two cents :wink:

jimbo7707
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Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post by jimbo7707 » Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:13 pm

Thanks porkchop. It looks like the MSI NX8600GT-T2D256EZ, 256 MB is the second cheapest (w/ $20 rebate) card Newegg carries that is fanless and has dual DVI. It is even cheaper than the ATI cards. I can't see to find power consumption specs anywhere to compare the two though I imagine neither would be too bad since they are both passively cooled.

porkchop
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Post by porkchop » Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:57 am

fair enough.

i live in Australia and my 2600pro cost me 69aud, whereas the cheapest 8600gt i could find costs 110aud :evil:

one of the reasons i recommend the ati cards is that i was able to use atitool to manually underclock my card (-no undervolting options so far), which dropped my temps by a handy 6C. (-thats not to say the nvidia card won't do the same)

viewtopic.php?t=44420 - see this for the ati cards power consumption, 2600pro 11/26w idle/load.
nvidia rates the 8600gt at 43w- not sure if thats max, avg or min though- i am however, sure that it will draw quite a bit more at idle and load.

jimbo7707
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Post by jimbo7707 » Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:22 am

Thanks for the link porkchop. I'll check it out tonight at home. I hadn't considered the video card power consumption/heat dissipation much I guess because all the cards I've ever owned drew next to nothing and were all cooled with a heat sink at most. But, as with everything else it appears they a have advanced to the stage where they are major sources of heat/power consumption.

vortex222
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Post by vortex222 » Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:40 pm

my second machine uses a 7300GS low profile, and i find it a very competent card for any 2d and multimedia application. Its also very efficient and consumes much less power then any dx10 card. The low profile however are not dual monitor capable, the higher profile cards are.

Finding one Passive cooled can take abit of looking around as they are usally not mentioned to be that way.

The 7200LE are also even more efficient and i find there 2d performance very good, they are also cheap to boot. However the ATI 2400 or 8600GT options mentioned earlyer are also very solid, and it shouldn't be an issue in that p182.

porkchop
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Location: Australia

Post by porkchop » Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:13 am

Thanks Dutchmm. The MSI card looks like something that would work for me and has dual DVI (I forgot that in my post), is cheap and newegg carries them
seems he wants 2 dvi ports- which unfortunately limits him to at least an 8600gt or a 2600pro :(
Intel IGP – 53.5W
HD 2400 – 61W
Nvidia 7300 – 64W
from here viewtopic.php?t=44420
shows that the ati has been working hard on reducing power- though it must be said that it varies card to card.

nyc_paramedic
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Nvidia Quadro NVS 285

Post by nyc_paramedic » Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:17 am

My vote is for a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285. Max power consumption is 18 watts. Has dual DVI or VGA, depending on the cable that comes with your card. and 128MB ram.

I picked one up on eBay for $12 USD; has been working very well with my Debian Box. This card is PCIe. Runs Google earth at 1600x1200 just fine. 2D is also very fast. It's a low profile (can be found with both standard and low profile brackets) card that is passively cooled.

yaler
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Re: Nvidia Quadro NVS 285

Post by yaler » Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:12 am

nyc_paramedic wrote:My vote is for a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285. Max power consumption is 18 watts. Has dual DVI or VGA, depending on the cable that comes with your card. and 128MB ram.

I picked one up on eBay for $12 USD; has been working very well with my Debian Box. This card is PCIe. Runs Google earth at 1600x1200 just fine. 2D is also very fast. It's a low profile (can be found with both standard and low profile brackets) card that is passively cooled.
I guess it's primarily a card for 2D, but how well does it do 3D? Would compiz fusion work nicely?

Yoda117
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Post by Yoda117 » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:20 am

On the ATI side of the fence, the HIS 2600XT with iSilence III has been working great for studio applications as a DAW.

I've also used it with good results for Photoshop, AVID and Premiere and some stuff using ToonBoom. It's not a gaming card, but for the type of work I've referred to here it's been very nicely reviewed and my experiences with it confirm the high marks it got in that regard.

MrQuiet
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Post by MrQuiet » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:35 pm

AMD/ATI announced HD3400/3600 GPU:s just a few days ago. They are basically improved 2400/2600 on 55 nm technology with a more efficient DVI-accelerator.

If you fancy 2400/2600 (and can waite) it might be a good idea to waite a few weeks for the new ones to appear. Because they are not more expensive to produce the prices might be about equal.

2400/3400 is just fine for 2D, but 2600/3600 is noticeable faster in 3D.

djkest
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Post by djkest » Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:20 am

the cheapest / lowest power solution is integrated graphics. If you don't game, they should be fine.

dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:31 am

djkest wrote:the cheapest / lowest power solution is integrated graphics. If you don't game, they should be fine.
If the integrated graphics are for a modern DDR2 motherboard with a non Intel GPU I would agree.

Any Intel GPU is horrendous both from hardware and driver support of DirectX. Any ATI/AMD/Nvidia integrated GPU that is on an older non DDR2 motherboard would be a good candidate for wanting to add in a $30 PCIe card for users that notice a slowdown or issues with certain programs.

Unfortunately there is a $10-20 premium for PCI and AGP cards that will go in systems that won't take a PCIe x16 card. For those users it might be worth holding out on integrated graphics if you can't ebay up something cheap like nyc_paramedic suggested. Probably worth noting

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 can be found for PCI and is listed as 12W passive and uses the Geforce4 chip known as NV18GL. That is a DX 8 part so it won't be fast on Vista (but then who wants Vista?)

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285 is PCIe x1 or x16 and is listed as 13W on the x1 and 16W on the x16 and uses the same chip as a GeForce 6200. DX 9 part which would be fine for most users.

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 290 is PCIe x1 or x16 and is listed as 21W using the same chip as the GeForce 8500. DX10 part here.

I've never used one but they might be worth a shot if you saw one cheap.

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