Which brand(s) for GPU? Low noise

varis

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Nov 9, 2010
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Is there a guide somewhere to the different lines from the different vendors? I think for every chip generation you basically get the same designs/lines from the manufacturers, with similar design goals one iteration to the next.

I think there was also a list of the GPU manufacturer tiers? (Quality of components and whatnot.) The search at least doesn't find it.

Have my eyes maybe on Vega... Low noise is priority, since everything else will be pretty quiet indeed, low price is good, I guess quality in general is useful to have so that could be the third...

My old Radeon card is of the Windforce series from Gigabyte, 2010 vintage. It was pretty much the quietest design available at the time with double fans. Fairly happy with it - it does still make some noise when the fans rev up.
 
There are models with passive cooling, you can't get quieter than that. Of course, there are compromises for the silence. Not every performance level of card will have a passive model. The passively cooled models generally cost more, since they know if you want a card like that you'll pay. And last but not least, they are usually clocked a bit slower than the other versions of the same card. Lower clocks=lower heat.