Graphics Card - silent fanless passive / dual screen / $200 range

[danzeronine]

Building a new work / gaming pc and need a graphics card.

Absolute requirements are:
must be capable of dual screen
must be silent (will be 90% work machine and cannot tolerate any fan noise)
must be around the $200 mark so no quadro's/workstation cards

So far, the best i can seem to find is this...radeon hd 7750

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121655

Anyone know of anything better out there?

 

[coffeecoffee]

Building a new work / gaming pc and need a graphics card.

Absolute requirements are:
must be capable of dual screen
must be silent (will be 90% work machine and cannot tolerate any fan noise)
must be around the $200 mark so no quadro's/workstation cards

So far, the best i can seem to find is this...radeon hd 7750

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121655

Anyone know of anything better out there?

Hello danzeronine,

The only issue w/ a silent/passively cooled GPU is that it risks overheating [especially for gaming]. You will need really good airflow to keep it cooled. What case do you have and what games do you plan to play???

Warmest Regards,

Coffee~

 

[danzeronine]

The only issue w/ a silent/passively cooled GPU is that it risks overheating [especially for gaming]. You will need really good airflow to keep it cooled. What case do you have and what games do you plan to play???

Existing coolermaster full size tower with good quality case fan in the back and lots of circulation around the tower.

Looking to play some FPS games - flashpoint, counterstrike, BF3 - probably all on medium settings.

 

[coffeecoffee]

Looking to play some FPS games - flashpoint, counterstrike, BF3 - probably all on medium settings.

Hello Danzeronine,

Unfortunately, that 7750 does not have the computing power to run BF3 on all medium settings. Assuming it does, your going to stress the card way too much considering it's passively cooled. Sorry to disappoint but I don't think it's realistic. If your worried about fan noise, you should considering getting a GPU w/ this type of cooler.

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT8YcQth3jGTFZFbnN8bh_FGQc7EEM7OUIWaelkiu3qiz1NjHejiQ

This is a very well designed cooler. Although it has only one fan, it's able to make up for it by exhausting hot air and some noise directly out the back of the case. Thus not recycling heat within the case that some dual-faned coolers do.

What are the specs on your PSU? (Brand, wattage, amps on the 12volt rail).

Warmest Regards,

Coffee~

 

[jaguarskx]

Currently the Radeon HD 7750 is the best performing passively cooled graphics card available on the market. So if passive is the limitation, then you picked the right card. There was a passively cooled Radeon HD 7770 demoed, but that card was massive. Well... more long than massive actually so it will not fit in every case. However, it was never released. Click link below for more info...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sapphire-radeon-gpu-7770-heatsink,15927.html


Anywaste... based on the following review the Radeon HD 7750 should be able to play Battlefield 3 with medium quality settings with good average frame rates.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7770-and-7750-Cape-Verde-GPU-Review/Battlefield-3-Radeon-HD-775

 

[coffeecoffee]

Anywaste... based on the following review the Radeon HD 7750 should be able to play Battlefield 3 with medium quality settings with good average frame rates.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7770-and-7750-Cape-Verde-GPU-Review/Battlefield-3-Radeon-HD-775

While it seems the 7750 is able to run Battle Field 3.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/535

The benchmark is using an air cooled version of the 7750. I doubt the passively cool version will be anywhere near those temperatures; a cause for concern if you ask me.

Warmest Regards,

Coffee~

 

[jaguarskx]

While it seems the 7750 is able to run Battle Field 3.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/535

The benchmark is using an air cooled version of the 7750. I doubt the passively cool version will be anywhere near those temperatures; a cause for concern if you ask me.

Warmest Regards,

Coffee~

The specs for both the passively cooled Radeon HD 7750 which the OP has provided the link for and a reference Radeon HD 7750 as used in the review I linked to have the same Clock Speed of 800MHz and the same 1125MHz memory clock speed. The number of stream processor is naturally also the same; 512. The passively cooled Radeon HD 7750 will run a bit warmer than an actively cooled Radeon HD 7750 so good case airflow is a must.

The specs of the Radeon HD 7750 reviewed can be verified in the following link.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7770-and-7750-Cape-Verde-GPU-Review/Radeon-HD-7770-and-HD-7750-

 

[danzeronine]

Thanks for all the replies.

The 'passive' requirement is a must because most of the time this machine will be used for photoshop/illustrator and i always work in silence or with light music in the background. Have been building quiet pcs for 15yrs now and it might sound petty but i'm so used to it now that i can't go back to fan noise.

The PSU will either be the antec EA-380D green (which is pretty much silent), or my v.old zalman ZM360B-APS. Both are probably discontinued but they are working fine.

I have seen the 7750 running BF3 on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkQvQQPlSqM

Not buttery smooth fps, but i am still playing counterstrike 1.6 so anything will be a step up in visuals.

The rest of the machine will be quite powerful compared to what i'm used to - 250gb SSD for boot partition, 32gb DDR3 1600 (seems overkill but my photoshop files can be 2gb and take an age to process because the history states eat up so much ram), and i5-3570 3.8mhz processor. The graphics card will probably be the lowest spec part of the machine, but that's just the way it is.

 

[danzeronine]

Anywaste... based on the following review the Radeon HD 7750 should be able to play Battlefield 3 with medium quality settings with good average frame rates.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7770-and-7750-Cape-Verde-GPU-Review/Battlefield-3-Radeon-HD-775

Thanks for the input. Weird coincidence that you link the pcper review - i just started listening to their podcast the other day!