Advice please

[BarryS]

There's an ATI Radeon in my son's machine, it is a couple of years old now, is not really very good and the fan is making quite a racket, so I have an excuse to replace the card. (yes I know could replace the fan, but where's the fun in that?)

Does anyone have any recommendations for a decent fanless, or at least low noise, card (no I'm not going to get into water cooling yet)?

The card is used for mainly 2D but it would be nice if his Lego Island games looked good too, and I'm not goint to let him have my g400max unless you can recommend a good card that will beat it for about £100

Barry

[Wombat]

Sapphire makes a fanless 9600 and stuff.

[Jammrock]

Sapphire's stuff is just their regular card with a Zalman heatpipe video card cooler. So you could buy an OEM 9600 Pro (or whatever) and just slap on a zalman ... or just find a Sapphire Ultimate Edition video card.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/code_list.asp?code=013

http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9600-xt-ult.asp

Jammrock

[TnT]

Or you can get an Artic Cooler VGA Silencer and Radeon. On low it cools better than the stock HSF and is super quiet.

http://svc.com/vga-rev3.html

[BarryS]

Many thanks for those suggestions chaps, at £134 here, the xt is a little more than I'd like to pay, so I'll look into the regular Radeon with Zalman/Arctic Cooler options

[Liquid Snake]

Actually, Sapphire has multiple fanless cards. The 9600XT has an "Ultimate Edition" that uses the Zalman heatpipe, but the 9600 (non-Pro) is fanless with a standard heatsink. The 9600 is slower of course, but if you're going to use it for mainly 2D stuff, that shouldn't be a problem. I think it's around $100.

[Kurt]

@Jammrock: the good thing about the Ultimate card is warranty. You keep it. If you're to put a Zalman heatpipe on a card, you have to void your warranty. I don't think the price difference is such that it would be worth it.

[rugger]

Meh .... just throw a 9200SE or geforce mx440se card in it.

Virtually free, fanless cards that will play old, undemanding 3d games perfectly fine.