I decided to upgrade my system to something that was faster but also didn't sound like a vacuum cleaner. I dropped my Athlon 3200 in a cheap box with cheap power supply for an Antec SOLO, Corsair 520, ASRock Dual-VSTA and a Ninja heat sink on a Core 2 Duo. I couldn't be happier. My only problem now is my Radeon 9800 Pro with stock cooler is just too loud. To be honest, it is fast enough for the light gaming I do and one of the reasons I got the Dual-VSTA was to keep it. But it is just too loud. I thought about getting a different cooler for it......maybe the Ati Silencer or something else that people recommend. Something in the 30 dollar range. Then I got to thinking. Although this card works for me, maybe I should put that money towards a newer, quieter PCIe card. I bet I could get 50 bucks for my old card on ebay which means I'd have like 80 bucks to spend on a new one. I snooped around and found these 2 options....
Now I know the GT is more then I want to spend, but everything I read tells me this is a great card for the money. Maybe it would be worth it. Then again, with DX10 boards coming online now, maybe I should get the 7600GS and wait for everyone to dump their current high end cards.
or I could just get a cooler for the Radeon.
One more thing to really mess me up is I was reminded that hybrid boards can be picky about what PCIe boards they will work with. I looked at the ASRock website for supported cards and it doesn't mention either of these two....but I don't know if that means they just never tested them or what.
One thing you absolutely need to consider is air flow. Fanless video cards (even the 7600 GT) get hot. Just something to think about.
Anyways, as far as recommendations go... I wouldn't invest too much money. Budget DX10 cards will be out in a few months and you don't want to be stuck with something you paid too much for. But that's just me...
You are about to answer a thread that has been inactive for more than 6 months. If you still wish to proceed, please ensure that your posting is original and does not duplicate or overlap any prior responses to this thread.