What is the best passively cooled graphics card?

Hardware Hub GPU
1

Hi,

I am building a new PC and I am looking for creating a silent system, thus I would like to use a passively cooled graphics card, but I am unsure which to choose. I work mostly with programming, and I am an on/off gamer (Strategy, but would like to try out games like The Elder Scrolls : Skyrim). 

What can you suggest ?

Regards,

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

Its a false economy, any heat you dissipate passively will go straight into you case meaning your case fans will have to work harder and produce more noise.

Get a slightly better card than you need so it won't ramp up the fans. 

 

3

Hi Peps1,

thanks for the input, but I am adamant about the passive cooling, so I still need some suggestions.

 

 

4

Well that then begs the question, what's your budget? 

5

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131500&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

found that after a minute of searching. i had no idea they made any respectable cards w/o fans, but you'd still be paying an extra $100

6

you have to mod the video card

http://videocardz.com/33093/his-preps-passive-cooled-radeon-dh-7750-isilence-5

7wRZA.jpg929x850

7

http://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Accelero-Plus-VGA-Cooler/dp/B0063VTXFS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1381879141&sr=8-3&keywords=accelero

you could put this on a 7850 

like this http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-fx785acnl4

8

Overkill? 

GeForce GTX 680

http://www.geek.com/chips/passively-cooled-geforce-gtx-680-uses-20-heatpipes-2-aluminum-heatsinks-1499827/

But, for any of these you will still need huge high quality case fans if you plan on being any quieter than a GPU with a good fan/heatsink combo. 

9

Thank you for the replies/comments. I guess, I have to be more specific, or rather what should I be looking for in a video card (what specs) ? I plan to connect it to a 24" monitor, and I would like to play a game once in a while (I am not particular to ultrahigh quality of the graphics, since it is mostly the game play, I enjoy when gaming).

The thing is : I was looking at buying a CPU with integrated graphics, but I wasn't sure that any of the CPUs could handle a modern game even at low settings. Can they ?

- and then I thought I might go for the next best (IMHO) - a passively cooled graphics card.

But I like the 'overkilled' GTX 680 :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10

An APU and a couple of sticks of good speed RAM will probably do you fine if you're casually gaming, and you wont have to pay a premium for the passive GPU. 

I'm far from an expert on APUs, but sure someone will be along soon to post some benchmarks, so you can get an idea of what frame rates you will get in Skyrim and other games.