Low power and low heat graphics card

ATI 5450 - cheap, low power, low heat, and should have zero problems at all fulfilling your needs.

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lol when I saw this thread, I was going to suggest Matrox cards, oh well =/

and now that someone beat me to answer his question i can play along with 5450 as well to avoid a heated debate.

Thank you all kindly for the excellent recommendation.

I would appreciate any recommendations for a motherboard that can accommodate two or three of these cards and a CPU that has low electricity consumption and low heat emission.

As with the cards, low power consumption is more important than processing speed, because I will not be running resource intensive apps, but they do have to run 24/7.

Thanks

Cheapest 4x PCI-E slot board on the egg :
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681...

Biostar is generally a decent product, with occassional complaints on quality, but usually from the enthusiast crowd. With your type of low demand usage, it should be fine, but an upgrade to a better brand (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI for example) might be up your alley, for a few bucks more and perhaps a bit more peace of mind.

Here is the 890FX search page from Newegg.com, as long as the Mobo has 4 x PCI-E x16 slots (even if they only run at 4x, would suit your needs, x16 is more for gamers) If you can get away with only needing 2 slots for 2 cards, then there are even cheaper options that will do what you need. For example, a Gigabyte 785g 2x PCI-E slots x16/x4, for example, would be less half the price, but still a solid reliable product than can run 2 cards in the formation you are persuing.

AMD Athlon II 95w Quad core:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681...

Your requirements wouldn't stress out the CPU enough to cause heat issues. Assuming you keep it clean, even with the stock cooler it will be a cool running quadcore, and its only 95w. There was a 65w Phenom II quadcore (910e) but couldn't find it on the egg, and it would probably perform lower, and cost much more than the athlon without a huge edge in power consumption or heat production.

Hell, you might even be able to get away with using a 65w dual core Athlon II, but there may not be as snappy and impressive as a quad when you have all those screens running.