Looking for a midrange, quiet graphics card

To answer your first question, Gigabyte makes a real nice passively-cooled (no fan) Geforce 6600GT with DVI out. There may be other passively cooled 6600GTs out there, too.

As far as your second question though, I don't think you'd notice the difference between DVI and VGA out, personally. If you're going to get that monitor, try it with the vga inputs first, I'm sure you'll be satisfied.

Gigabyte also makes the passive X800 and X800XL. However only the X800 would avoid increasing the temperature of the case less than a GF6600GT, the XL gets dang hot.

Personally if heat is a concern and quiet, not silence is desired, I'd recommend the HIS X800/X800GTO which is quieter than the average PSU fan, and ejects the hot air out of the case.

As for the second question I agree the VGA is good enough for most situations and most users. I'd just recommend he be sure he's got a quality cable cause it'll make more of a difference at short length with the VGA and a long length with the DVI.

[quote="TheGreatGrapeApeAs for the second question I agree the VGA is good enough for most situations and most users. I'd just recommend he be sure he's got a quality cable cause it'll make more of a difference at short length with the VGA and a long length with the DVI.[/quote]

when i switched from VGA to dvi with my 17"tft, i had to change some setting in the screen as the initial pic was awful (i think it looked like 16bit colour rendering, or worse), 30 seconds of fiddling to rectify (colour temps etc)

Usually that's because the DVI is sending setting information from your drivfers to the monitor, whereas the DB15 is a 'dumb connector' which just send the video signal no control info.

VGA definitetly requires tweaking to ensure your settings are the way you like them, but that's the same as buying a new TV you don't just hook it up and leave it at default if you care about picture quality. DVI simply ensures that everything is set to baseline.