Looking for a decent fanless or low noise GFX card

[sonicb00m]

Does anyone have any recommendations on a fan-less or low noise GFX card that will play HDMI content back? I would it like it to be able to run compiz without any problems too. Sub $200 range.

I have an fx5900 or something but it's a little pushed on the 3d rendering and full HD playback. Works great for the office PC though.

I am not that interested in it's gaming capabilities, only that it's very quiet and good enough to playback full HD.

PCIex interface.

[NoaHall]

Zotec have the "Synergy" editions of cards, which run cooler, and hence quieter.

[collinp]

There are several fanless cards listed here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1295318921&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

[Paqman]

There's loads. I always use fanless cards in my desktop. Apart from the ones sold as fanless out-of-the-box, you can get heatsink kits to replace the fans on other cards from places like Quiet PC (http://www.quietpc.com/).

[sonicb00m]

thanks for the replies but i was looking for something more specific. The fanless cards are usually very low powered in performance and I'm not clued up at all on the millions of chipsets and combinations.

If anyone has some model numbers i can check out through experience i'd be grateful.

I can't find any zotec cards in any of the stores I purchase from or on Ebay.

[sonicb00m]

There's loads. I always use fanless cards in my desktop. Apart from the ones sold as fanless out-of-the-box, you can get heatsink kits to replace the fans on other cards from places like Quiet PC (http://www.quietpc.com/).

That's a cool site for the bookmark!

[cascade9]

@ sonicb00m- if you have a FX5900 currently, you must have a AGP/PCI slot motherboard. No PCIe slot means you have to be careful when buying a new video card, most of the current cards are PCIe. AGP is pretty much dead, so thats out. You will have to get a PCI video card.

It is do-able though. Something like this-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187041

BTW, even though on paper the 8400GS doesnt look much faster than a FX5900, nVidia has VDPAU for hardware decoding video, so it should be much better at playing HD than the FX5900 is. It would be nice to get feature set 'c' but AFAIK, there are no cards that suport that in PCI (or else I would have said get a GT210/GT220)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo


Zotec have the "Synergy" editions of cards, which run cooler, and hence quieter.

All the versions of them I've ever seen have fans, so thats not what the OP is after. No iea where you have got the'run cooler' from.....

[sonicb00m]

I will check it out.

I want to buy a PCIe card, i have the interface, that's not a problem. I think i got the cards mixed up. I have some fanless geforce 200 or something.

[cascade9]

Not many AGP/PCIe motherboards around, you got lucky. In that case...a fanless GT210/220/240 would be my choice.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130541
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500138