Best fanless card for 60 or under?

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 12:16 pm

Title says it all. I was thinking of this 9500 GT

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814187034

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:00 pm

Best for what? There's gaming, video playback, power consumption, etc.

That card has a memory of 1GB btw, utterly useless for that kind of card. Just a marketing ploy to make the card seem less crappy, while adding to the price a bit most of the time. My gut feeling says it's not the best card no matter what you're looking for.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:12 pm

Well, I guess a little bit of gaming, just Age of Empires, but I just downloaded the 10 day trial of WoW and it is pretty fun, I might get into PC gaming a bit, but noting really heavy. I have a 22" Acer widescreen LCD arriving soon...just saying I mean I'm sure my onboard GeForce 6150SE can do the 1920 x 1080 or whatever it is fine. Video playback, sure a little bit, I was hoping maybe to get a dual monitor setup running...I more or less just have a little bit of money, and (in my eyes) have a decent PC except for the graphics card, so I kind of wanted an upgrade in the graphics region of my system just because I can.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:26 pm

You can't go wrong with a 4670 if you're willing to go up to 80$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102816

Otherwise a 4650 at 70$, but the extra 10$ for the 4670 is worth it imho.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131135

At below 60$ it's kind of hard.. I don't know much about the passive cards at that price.

A 3450.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814129110

Or a 9500GT.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814187035

I would save up a bit and get the best card for the money, which isn't always the cheapest card.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:49 pm

Well what are my options for a card with a fan? I mean, how loud are the fans?

This card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130394

Is cheaper than my original card and performs better...but I'm concerned about the fans...how loud are they?

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:50 pm

That 8600GTS has a tiny 40-50mm fan on it. I doubt it will be quiet. It may not be extremely loud, but it will definitely be noticeable. Not recommended.

I would definitely say get the 4670. It gives some amazing performance for the price. And that passive version is very nicely priced! I know it's out of your budget, but I would urge you to stretch your budget.

Woolley · Post by **Woolley** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:54 pm

I agree. The 4670 is a terrific card which will give you more future-proofing than most cheaper ones. And it is a good fanless card.

Tom's Hardware does a monthly round-up of the best value for money gamiing cards. The 4670 is on the list this month:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gef ... 218-2.html

Note that they are assessing the cards for gaming performance, so their recommendations won't help those who don't need gaming capability.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:54 pm

There's also HD4550, if you're not willing to shell out a little bit more for HD4650/HD4670 (which are definitely worth it for performance vs. size/power-consumption/temps/$). I think that would be a better option than something comparable by Nvidia or something older like the 3450.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 6:35 pm

Say I go with the fanless 4670, what type of game perfomance am I going to get with this?

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:07 pm

Have a look through this.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:01 pm

Well I'm about to pull the trigger on this Sapphire fanless 4670. Are we all (or the majority) in agreement this is the best buy? I want to make the right choice.

rei · Post by **rei** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:28 am

i like my sapphire ddr4 4670 with arctic cooling cooler.

mumford · Post by **mumford** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 12:21 pm

rei wrote:i like my sapphire ddr4 4670 with arctic cooling cooler.

Which one? S1?

rei · Post by **rei** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 10:27 pm

viewtopic.php?t=50039&postdays=0&postor ... &start=330

renthx's post near the bottom. i am going to find out today if the new fan rattling i hear that's just developed is the cpu or gpu.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:05 am

Well my 4670 came in yesterday and I love it. WoW settings all at max and I'm raking in anywhere from 20-40fps mostly hovering at 30 but will dip to 20 sometimes and will go up to 40 other times. Couldn't love it more. I'll do some fooling around with the ATI Overdrive but for now it's great. (also, there is a fan connector under the heatsink...wtf?)

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:48 am

WoW is probably limited by your CPU, I hear it's pretty CPU intensive.

The fan connector is there probably because the PCB is a standard design.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:07 am

Here's my CPU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103255

Haven't overclocked it yet though...any suggestions on a target clock speed?

Fungi · Post by **Fungi** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:46 am

That's probably not the bottleneck... What size is your display at? You may have to drop some settings (not familiar with WoW to know what they are) to get optimal performance without losing too much good looks.