Need a Quiet Display Card For Watching/Editing DVDs

[Strike_Team]

I'm about to build a new PC. I want a PCIe display card that's quiet (preferrably no fan), has at least 128MB RAM, and is such that it will not hold back the quality of DVD movies on a 19 or 21" screen, and is also suitable for video editing. What's the best choice?

 

[drummerdude]

what 's your budget?

 

[cleeve]

Best cards for DVD playback are Ati's AVIVO cards.

A good, cheap X1300 will do the trick, just make sure it has the component video outputs if you want those, or at least S-Video if that's what you're using.

 

[Strike_Team]

what 's your budget?

I'll spend up to around 100 GB pounds, which is around 195 US Dollars at the current exchange rate. British shoppers in the US currently get a lot for their money due to the exchange rate, so my upper limit is probably less than 195 USD.

 

[pmr]

well, get a fanless one

beware of ntsc/pal craps and s-video out, my brother didn´t manage to put a 7600gs working with an apple 20" and a regular crt tv. Crappy image on the tv.
Are you capturing or just editing from "borrowed" dvds?

 

[redwing]

Since you dont plan on heavy gaming, a fanless 7600GS or x1600 based card should do for you.

If you opt for a beefier 7600GT/7900GS (or the ATI equivalent), you can always invest 25-30$ into a zalman vf700 cooler - they are literally unaudible in their silent mode.

p.s. If you can't find a decently priced passively cooled card, there is software that allows you to modify the fan speeds of most modern video cards (read : the last 2 generations of DX9 cards from either manufacturer). If you're not doing any serious 3d gaming, you can set the fan speed to a low value (30-40% in all modes) which will result in fairly quiet operation. Just dont forget to change that if you plan on gaming at some point.

 

[Il_palazzo]

Personally I would go with a ATI card but If for some reason you need a Nvidia card this MSI card would be your best bet, it is the only 7600gt I know of that supports VIVO. It has a fan but it is easily replaceable by silent/quite 3ed party cooler.
Zalman VGA coolers are likely the most readably available and are very quite at low speed.
HIS makes a passively cooled x1650XT you could also look into.

 

[utaka95]

I have done video editing, tons of dvd conversions and it really doesn't require much video power. ANY new card with 128 megs of ram on it will suffice. If you want hardware dvd encoding I believe the lowest model to choose is the X1600 for Ati, and I'm not sure with Nvidia (probably 7600 or higher). I would look at Gigabytes line of fanless cards, I have their 7600GT and it works great, and sells for about $150 USD.

 

[MacDuff]

I'm about to build a new PC. I want a PCIe display card that's quiet (preferrably no fan), has at least 128MB RAM, and is such that it will not hold back the quality of DVD movies on a 19 or 21" screen, and is also suitable for video editing. What's the best choice?

It's probably worth mentioning that video cards aren't used by the video editing process (apart from viewing the end result) - the CPU handles any necessary encoding/transformations

 

[pmr]

I'm about to build a new PC. I want a PCIe display card that's quiet (preferrably no fan), has at least 128MB RAM, and is such that it will not hold back the quality of DVD movies on a 19 or 21" screen, and is also suitable for video editing. What's the best choice?

It's probably worth mentioning that video cards aren't used by the video editing process (apart from viewing the end result) - the CPU handles any necessary encoding/transformations

not totally true premiere pro has some gpu fx support

 

[MacDuff]

It's probably worth mentioning that video cards aren't used by the video editing process (apart from viewing the end result) - the CPU handles any necessary encoding/transformations

not totally true premiere pro has some gpu fx support

Really? Well, today's not totally wasted - I learnt something new. Cheers

 

[cleeve]

FYI, If you aren't gaming with that machine an X1600 or 7600 will do absolutely nothing for you over a cheap X1300.

And if you plan to watch DVDs, stay away from Geforces. In order for them to detect 3:2 pulldown you have to buy a separate decoder from Nvidia.

The Radeons have better pulldown detection and it comes free with their cards... as long as your DVD player supports hardware acceleration it'll work.