Quietest, coolest Dual Link DVI card

[Fun Guy]

I am building a new power machine around the Dell 3" monitor, which requires a dual-link DVI card to support its 2560 x 1600 resolution.

I've noticed that most dual link cards are pretty expensive, and the reviews on the Egg say they run loud and hot. I am not really into gaming but will be doing video editing on this machine, so I don't need the power that a lot of these cards offer.

Does anyone have any experience or can anyone recommend a card that is cool, quiet, and fairly cheap?

 

[Narse]

This seems like a good choice to me based on your needs.

8600 GT

 

[Fun Guy]

I've always liked Matrox and ATI for 2D work. Is NVidia just as good as ATI for 2D now?

 

[hans007]

you could probably just get a passively cooled 8400gs or 8500gt. or a 7300le or something like that.

 

[darkshadow1]

if you wanted to stick with ATI, you could go for a passively cooled 2400/2600 series card - a number of them came out recently...they'd be comparable to the 8500/8600 nvidia cards overall for non-gaming tasks.

 

[Fun Guy]

Thanks - anyone else?

 

[hans007]

i actually think the 7300le might be the better idea if you choose nvidia. the 8400gs apparently runs hot since it has a lot of transistors (all the HD decode stuff) so if you dont acre about h.264 decoding then its probably better to get the 7300le since it seems to run cooler.

 

[ninja098]

With DVI the 2D quality will be the same for any manufacturer. It's only an issue with VGA because of low quality DACs that some cards have.

 

[Fun Guy]

Thanks guys, I appreciate your comments. Please keep the input coming.

 

[Wicked Akuba]

I think MSI 2600XT with passive cooling is one of the best choises

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
I am building a new power machine around the Dell 3" monitor

Please tell me that it's really a 30" monitor.... ah, res of 2560 x 1600 gives it away

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
I've always liked Matrox and ATI for 2D work. Is NVidia just as good as ATI for 2D now?

It's and irrelevant issue on a digital connection.

If you really want quiet, get a passively cooled card.

 

[Fun Guy]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
I've always liked Matrox and ATI for 2D work. Is NVidia just as good as ATI for 2D now?

It's and irrelevant issue on a digital connection.

If you really want quiet, get a passively cooled card.

Any suggestions?

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: Fun Guy

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
I've always liked Matrox and ATI for 2D work. Is NVidia just as good as ATI for 2D now?

It's and irrelevant issue on a digital connection.

If you really want quiet, get a passively cooled card.

Any suggestions?

Sure.

If you're not gaming, the first / cheapest hit ought to be fine provided you have enough system RAM for video editing (be sure not to let the video card steal any memory).