And by fanless, do you mean with no cooling attached at all other than a small heatsink or are you allowing cards with massive heatpipes attached like this one?

http://www.acousticpc.com/sapphire_ultimate_h … video_card.html

Well, the heatsink can be somewhat elaborate, provided that you can still insert a PCI card into the adjacent PCI slot. With that requirement, it would be difficult for the heatsink to be elaborate at all. I'm looking for a stock-like heatsink, similar to that found on the eVGA GeForce 6200.

in my opinion you shouldn't separate 3d from 2d, as from 2000 and after everything was doing both decently

agp 8x/4x
ati 3450
nvidia 7600GS
nvidia 6600 non-GT

agp 4x/2x
ati 9200 non-SE (supports 2x/4x/8x)
geforce 6200 non-LE (supports 2x/4x/8x)
geforce 4 mx (supports 2x/4x/8x)

pci
ati 9200 non-SE
geforce 6200 non-LE
geforce 4 mx

depending on your needs, money and temp tolerance i would consider one of the above.

With that requirement, it would be difficult for the heatsink to be elaborate at all.

...but is there a limitation for what can go above or beside the card? (Not suggesting any particular piece of hardware here... links are for illustration only.) There were quite a few passive coolers with those types of designs, and a lot were 'single slot' compatible.

Definitely not the eVGA GeforceFX 5200.

Just try to standardize things a little, a 6200 should be good enough for almost all things vintage and light use on the modern side. For raw bragging rights then dig up a gt520 or a 9500gt pci then mod for passive cooling. As for agp I still vote for the 6200.

I have two PIII-S 1.4 GHz at home and I see your dilemma. Choosing the right card for dual Tualatin rig is hard and is very much connected to choosing the right mobo. That's the reason why I haven't found one yet.

What do you guys think, would the best silent PCI card be able to beat AGP version?

The Geforce 6 and 7 series have a solder issue, the assembly is not suited to take high temperatures. All my fanless heatpipe examples (about 4) died that way, except the 6200 64-bit, which seems more reliable.
I have a fanless AGP ATI 3450, which gets hot but is reliable, except for the drivers.
About all 128-bit cards I've seen have either a fan or a heatpipe.

My personal fanless favorites are:
-AGP Geforce MX440 128-bit where I replaced the fan with a big heatsink.
-AGP Voodoo 3 2000/3000
In AGP systems that I don't use often I put either a Geforce MX440 64-bit or a Geforce 6200 64-bit.

Limiting the design to single slot width is a major constraint. You will have to look at the low end cards of each generation. I see good suggestions from everybody.

Ermm....for a PCI-based solution, how about :

Matrox Millenium II G200 8MB PCI?

he says he needs 64mb+

sepultribe wrote:

in my opinion you shouldn't separate 3d from 2d, as from 2000 and after everything was doing both decently […]
Show full quote

in my opinion you shouldn't separate 3d from 2d, as from 2000 and after everything was doing both decently

[...]

pci
ati 9200 non-SE
geforce 6200 non-LE
geforce 4 mx

depending on your needs, money and temp tolerance i would consider one of the above.

9200 is RV280, you'd wanna go for a 9100 which is a full-blown R200.
See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AM … _9xxx.29_series

Thanks for the feedback. Considering cost, availability, and benchmarks, it seems the GeForce MX 440, 128-bit (non-SE) is a good option for the AGP system. Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell from eBay listings which are the SE and Non-SE versions. Often sellers do not list SE in the title or description, but it can sometimes be uncovered on a part number sticker from the images. On the other hand, cards that specify 128-bit on a label are no brainers.

Does anyone know for certain if a fanless GeForce MX 440 exists with 128-bit memory, 128 MB RAM, and 1 DVI and 1 VGA port?

Does this Dell MX 440 have 128-bit memory? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230835636105 . If it is 128-bit, something like this with 128 MB would be ideal. They seem to be rather common and inexpensive. The small heatsink on this card may be indicitive of 64-bit memory. Also, the missing memory pads seem to imply that a 128 MB version of this might exist.

nforce4max wrote:

Just try to standardize things a little, a 6200 should be good enough for almost all things vintage and light use on the modern side. For raw bragging rights then dig up a gt520 or a 9500gt pci then mod for passive cooling. As for agp I still vote for the 6200.

No Win9x drivers for 9500GT or GT520. GF6 was the end of the road for Win9x support.

NitroX infinity wrote:

sepultribe wrote:

in my opinion you shouldn't separate 3d from 2d, as from 2000 and after everything was doing both decently […]
Show full quote

in my opinion you shouldn't separate 3d from 2d, as from 2000 and after everything was doing both decently

[...]

pci
ati 9200 non-SE
geforce 6200 non-LE
geforce 4 mx

depending on your needs, money and temp tolerance i would consider one of the above.

9200 is RV280, you'd wanna go for a 9100 which is a full-blown R200.
See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AM … _9xxx.29_series

If you need AGP then yeah, 8500/8500LE/9100 is the way to go because they are still pretty easy to get but have you ever tried to source a PCI 9100? I have and it took me over a year of vigilant searching to finally get one. A 9000/9200/9250 is a lot easier to find.

Feipoa are you dissatisfied with the 6200 64bit from practical GUI usage? The benchmark results don't seen that bad to me.

There are some things to note about GUI acceleration. First, it is partially CPU dependent, and W9x is more CPU dependent than XP. Secondly, high resolutions like 1600x1200 are what separate the slower cards (eg G200) from the fastest. ~1024x768 is fast on almost any card post-1998.

I am satisfied with the 6200 64-bit for my current purposes. It is used on my everday dual coppermine 850 .

The intent of the present thread is to look for something marginally (or significantly) better that is also stock passively cooled. In the next year, or maybe two, I figure my dual 850 won't be so website friendly, so I eventually need to set that box aside and use a to-be-built dual Tualatin 1400. I already have the selected motherboards for this project. One is AGP 2x, the other is 4x. So a 4x/8x only card is somewhat less desirable because it would force me to use a VIA-chipsetted Tualatin. The 2x is an Intel board.

If I am going to source another graphics card and the price is suitable, I figured I would find something a little better than a 6200 64-bit for this next build. I also would like to diversify my graphics card collection somewhat. While I'll likely run my own benchmarks later, I'd still like some foresight before buying. A GeForce 440 MX, 128-bit, 128 MB RAM, w/ DVI & VGA seems like it may be better than a 6200 64-bit. And even if the performance is identical, at least I will have diversified my collection. According to GPU-Z, I typically use between 64-90 MB of graphics RAM, so 128 MB of graphics RAM is probably sufficient.

Does anyone know if a stock passively cooled GeForce MX 440, 128-bit, 128 MB, DVI+VGA card exists? DVI + VGA is desirable for reasons dual monitor support, and to a lesser extent, image clarity. I will be using WinXP primarily, but who knows what will happen if website bloating triples overnight.

Just get a cheap Core 2 machine! Very affordable now and easily powers through todays web browsing and even still fine for gaming.

Yeah, I know this is a retro gaming site but for old P3s and the like I'd just keep matching hardware for them. They're nice to use for old apps but for modern usage it's just not worth the hassle.

feipoa wrote:

Does anyone know if a stock passively cooled GeForce MX 440, 128-bit, 128 MB, DVI+VGA card exists? DVI + VGA is desirable for reasons dual monitor support, and to a lesser extent, image clarity. I will be using WinXP primarily, but who knows what will happen if website bloating triples overnight.

Asus V8170 is the only fanless 128-bit one I know of, but it has no DVI. I have the Abit Siluro myself, and fitted a much larger heatsink then asus did.