My video card

[JeffCos]

I'm not a gamer, that's what my PS3 is for. I do however do a considerable amount of video encoding. I looked at the reviews, but all of them cover cards that are way beyond my budget. I'm looking to spend $150 at the most. This computer is 5 years old and will be replaced in about a year. Anyone have any experience dealing with cards that are within this budget and are either single VGA, Dual VGA or VGA & S-Video? Oops, forgot one thing. This card has to be super silent being as this computer is in a bedroom.

Thanks

 

[JeffCos]

how about this one?

 

[mrzed]

Do you need a new card? If the old one is just noisy, but fine otherwise, you can probably just clean out the fan, perhaps even unplug/replace it.

Many lower-powered cards do fine with the fan unplugged, especially running in 2d.

 

[JeffCos]

ok so say i unplug the fan, how will i know if it can't take it? Will it give me an error or will i just not have video anymore? OH btw, the card is a Geforce 4 Ti4200 64mb. I think it's about 5 years old.

 

[mrzed]

What kind of card is it? Makes a huge difference - low output cards should be fine, but there is no hard rule, some chips just run hotter than others.

Most likely negative result would be artefacts (not drawing things properly). Could also reduce lifespan of card, but not likely to be a problem in this case.

Often people will unplug the fan and then point a slow 80mm fan at the card (using some home brew setup) you could try that too.

 

[JeffCos]

it's a 5 year old geforce4 ti4200 64mb

 

[thecoolnessrune]

editing video doesn't take a powerful video card. I take it your running AGP? Get one of those MX4000 from your nearest B&M stores. It'll be passive.

 

[JeffCos]

do you think that's equivalent to my current card?

 

[AVP]

Not sure about other companies, but my old xfx 6600gt came with a dvi to vga adapter. So, even if they are dvi there are ways to connect to a vga monitor.
Also newegg has two pretty good cards that are AGP and fanless. An all-in-wonder 9600 and also a 7600gs which blows your card out of the water in terms of performance. They are $116 and $126 respectively.

Both have S-video vga and dvi. And the all-in-wonder also has composite out.

 

[mrzed]

Your current card is too hot to just remove the fan. General rule of thumb - the more high end a card was when new, the harder it will be to cool. Of course newer high end cards will always be the hottest.

I would have two recommendadtions:

1. Just get a radeon 9550 card. They're cheap as dirt, but equivalent to a 9600pro in 3d performance, putting them not far less than your 4200, and probably better in some games (not that games apparently matter here). That chip was the best of its generation in performance/watt, meaning it runs cool. Most are passive, but make sure. Of course there are other cards that would be similar, but I like these for the above reason. Get 128Mb, it may help.

Whatever you get, if you are spending more than $40-50, you are throwing it away if you are not doing gaming or 3d rendering/CAD.

2. Passify your old card. If you were junking it anyhow, there's nothing to lose. You may have an old heatsink from a P3 or similar lying around, if not, you can probably get one free at a local shop. Aliminium cuts easily with a cheap metal blade (hacksaw, I've seen those at dollar stores for less than $5 if you're not the sort that has tools around. Cut the corners off the heatsink to clear the components on the card. Put thermal paste in the centre of the GPU, and a tiny dab of super glue on each corner, then hold it together for long enough for the glue to set.

I did the above on my 8500 and ran it passive for years with no problem. AFAIK, the guy I sold it to is still playing CS on it to this day.

 

[JeffCos]

Wow mrzed, great suggestions, thanks. I actually did disconnect the fan after you first suggested it so it's been running for about 2 and a half hours with no fan and it hasn't even gotten hot enough yet to trigger my case fans; although I haven't been doing anything with it. I guess i'll have to go pick up a new vid card. I basically only watch some movies and downloaded shows on here and encode some videos for work so no CAD or games.