Fanless graphics card

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coolspidey

78 posts

Master Geek

#61992 27-May-2010 09:55

Hi all,

Not sure where else to post this, but gaming forum sounds like the most relevant forum :)

A friend of mine wants a good and recent graphics card for playing games (he's thinking Left 4 Dead 2 and Bad Company 2 amongst other games). But he said he wants a fanless one because he doesn't want any noise.

I personally thought that for gaming, it's better to run a graphics card with a fan on it to cool it down and it doesn't generate that much noise anyway. But anyway, does anybody know a decent graphics card that's able to play most current games at reasonable settings (medium to high) where it doesn't have a fan (and not too expensive)?

I don't think he cares too much whether it's Nvidia or Radeon...

Thanks in advance!

rscole86

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#335394 27-May-2010 10:06

I was looking for the 9800GT fanless cards. But none of the decent shops stocked them. Best I would was getting one in the from the UK.

In the end I gave up, and just bought a cheap card with a fan.

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coolspidey

78 posts

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#335398 27-May-2010 10:15

I guess these days you can't really find graphics cards that don't have fans can you?

vexxxboy

4229 posts

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#335408 27-May-2010 10:46

i bought a fanless Palit 9500 gt 512mb last December for just over $100 and it gets to 55c after game play and i can play most games on medium settings and get a ok frame rate (40), the only problem i found was that to fit the cooling block on the card it is big and takes up 2 slots, so i had to loose my network card to install it.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB-Palit-9500GT-PCI-E-20-%28x16%29-800MHz-GDDR2-GPU-550MHz-32-Cores-HDTV-D-Sub-DL-DVI-I

bought mine in NZ

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gehenna

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#335418 27-May-2010 10:59

I've always used fanless cards for my media centres and never had any problems. Also played a bit of HL2 etc on the same boxes and the performance never wavered. I don't have a problem with fanless cards at all.

redjet

299 posts

Ultimate Geek

#335449 27-May-2010 12:13

LFD2 and BFBC2 are very CPU and GPU intensive games and at higher resolutions and I dare say that the fanless cards would work but at lower quality settings. So basically it's a trade off between noise and performance and TBH the noise isn't that bad from cards like the Raedon 9850.

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Nimma

98 posts

Master Geek

#335452 27-May-2010 12:17

I'm really keen on super quiet HTPCs and would recommend a card decent heatsink and fan - many of the Sapphire dual slot radeon cards use an arctic cooling model with a large fan that is very quiet. Just make sure your friend avoids the single slot cards with small fans like the plague. Alternatively budget for An arcticc cooling accelero or similar heatsink fan which you can retrofit to a card

coolspidey

78 posts

Master Geek

#335544 27-May-2010 15:44

Awesome, thanks all for the replies :)

Linuxluver

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#335549 27-May-2010 15:56

coolspidey: I guess these days you can't really find graphics cards that don't have fans can you?

I got a fanless MSI card with an NVidia GeForce 210 chipset at PB Tech in Wairau Valley on Porana Rd.

The heat sink on it is HUGE.....like Optimus Prime.

I went fanless because the fancy card before it with a fan burned itself out when the fan failed (after just 4 months)...in a very minutes melting it all over the card and the mobo. The smell was horrific.

The card I got is more than good enough.

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GBristow

178 posts

Master Geek

#335556 27-May-2010 16:07

I don't think a fanless GPU would cut it for Bad Company 2. I'm using a GTX260 which generates a lot of heat and its usage maxes out quite often with medium settings and no AA. There are a lot of games he could play on a fanless GPU, but he's need to pick them carefully.

HiJinx

253 posts

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Geekstore

#335560 27-May-2010 16:28

rscole86: I was looking for the 9800GT fanless cards. But none of the decent shops stocked them. Best I would was getting one in the from the UK.

In the end I gave up, and just bought a cheap card with a fan.

We stock 9800GT fanless graphics cards: http://www.geekstore.co.nz/index.php?route=product/product&keyword=9800&category_id=0&product_id=334

Shaun Fisher - www.geekstore.co.nz

E: shaun[at]geekstore[dot]co[dot]nz
P: 0800894508 F: 0800897451

meesham

973 posts

Ultimate Geek

#335734 28-May-2010 10:49

I ended up getting a Sapphire HD4550 from Ascent for my HTPC, it works very nicely for playing back FreeviewHD - and a friend of mine with the same card plays most of the latest games on it, you just need to turn down the quality settings a bit.

deepred

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#335860 28-May-2010 17:12

For high-performance gaming, passive-cooled video cards aren't a goer, from past experience. These days, fanless video cards are mostly designed for home theatre systems rather than gaming.

An aftermarket water block system would be pricey, but probably the best of a bad lot.

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richms

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#335900 28-May-2010 19:00

no fan on the card needs decent case airflow to actually cool, may as well just get a decent sized quiet cooler for the card rather than a fanless one and worry about getting air over it.

Richard rich.ms