Originally posted by: Matmi
If at least I could determine which exact card I want... I know I need 2 DVI ports and I thought I did not want a fan (since I'm not going to push the card to its limits (no games), a heatsink should be good enough) but you said it may create heat issues, which is not good either...
I wonder why some companies manufacture card with no fan, if it creates heat problems ?
The reference-model 7600GS, with the big black heatsink, runs very hot, but still stays inside the maximum allowed by NVidia.
Here are some temperatures from a MSI 7600GS that uses the passive reference heatsink. No wonder MSI decided to release another 7600GS model with a fan (the one I suggested previously)
If you want to buy a passive heatsink model now, you can get this one, because it is one of the few 7600GS with Dual-DVI. For your usage, it won't run as hot, because without using its 3-D abilities, required for gaming, the core and memory won't work very hard and will produce less heat. But it will always run hotter than the fanned model.
There are passively cooled 7600GS with better designed heatsinks, from Asus and Gigabyte, which have much better thermal performance than the reference model. But these cards don't have Dual-DVI, only one DVI plus analog VGA.
Also, the XFX 7300GT w Dual-DVI I have suggested above has fewer pipelines and is clocked slower than the 7600GS, yet it has the same reference cooler. So this card certainly runs cooler that the 7600GS. (Not available on Directron, though)
From what I have read, I expect that before the end of September, NVidia will release an updated 7650 series, as they have recently announced a GeForce 7950GT card to supercede the 7900GT. No way to know, for now, the details of the 7650 series, and if/when the 7600 models will be discontinued. However, it is certain that the changes will translate into improvements to the price/performance ratio.
So if you have decided to wait, you will probably be able to see what the new GeForce 7650 models have to offer.