fanless graphics card?

Spanik · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 1065 Location: Belgium

A month or so ago my old Dell Ultrasharp 27" started to have troubles: vertical colored/black lines that went way after 15 minutes and then sometimes having to power cycle a few times to get it working. It was more than 10 years old so I replaced it with an Iiyama 27". Nice monitor, no complaints. But it has a limited input selection (HDMI, DP, usb-c) and a higher resolution 2560x1440 than the Dell.

Now my (also old) MSI GT 610 only has HDMI or DVI and when using HDMI is limited to 1920x1080. Not a big issue as everything is clear and lisible. But using the full resolution would be nice.

Next I ran into some issue with Gentoo that after all pointed to issues in the video department. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1173252.html All pointing to nouveau and older nvidia cards.

So I think it is time for a new graphics card. And just like the previous ones I'd like it to be a fanless one. Which seem not very common these days. I looked what a couple of shop closeby had on offer and found only a couple. All 3 Nvidia (GT710, GT730 and GT1030) and that all look to be older generation cards. All others are very games oriented with more fans on them than in the rest of the pc... Searching online turns up "Palit" as a brand but I had never heard of them before this search. Or would one of those gaming cards be ok? I don't play games, most demanding video I do is watching a movie or a couple of YT clips. A bit of GIMP and Darktable. So maybe those fans won't even turn? So far I always have been well served with Nvidia and nouveau so I continued with it and have no idea what AMD is now serving up.

Someone having experience with very quiet graphic cards?
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2025 11:33 am Post subject:

Spanik,

Most graphics cards with fans have thermostatically controlled fans.
e.g. my Radeon RX 6700 turns the fans off completely when its not doing a lot.

I didn't need one of those as i rarely do any 3D but I need 4k resolution and reviews of lower spec/cost cards suggested that they struggled at 4k.

Read the fine print. Even if you can't get fanless, using the GPU so the fans never run may be the next best thing.
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Zucca · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2025 12:14 pm Post subject:

My last fanless GPU was AMD R7 250E. It's pretty old by now. It worked ok. Later I used it as my server GPU.
The problem with fanless designs is that they still do need some airflow.
I was bitten by this fact when I toyed around my desktop and water cooled CPU, GPU and motherboard chipset. With only one big fan pushing air in, my CPU VRMs overheated and made my CPU slower than when it was air cooled.

So, along the lines Neddy said: I'd just pick a decently powerful current GPU that has good support from Linux and which doesn't run the fans when on low load/temperature.
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psycho · Guru Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 553 Location: New Zealand

The GT710 you mention is indeed an old card, so it doesn't work with the latest Nvidia drivers... but it works fine with the appropriate legacy driver. I just got it for the low power draw and tiny size (for a half height desktop box)... the silence was a bonus. Obviously you need a proper card with active cooling for any seriously demanding GPU tasks, but this little thing is still much more powerful than its tired old host's built in (skylake) graphics. I do wish they'd release a modern equivalent as it would probably be ten times faster, but I don't recall any problems with it... some brief disappointment when I realised I would have to install legacy drivers (I wasn't expecting that for a card still being sold by big retailers), but since then it's been fine.

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2025 10:01 am Post subject:

Fanless 710/730/1030 are still sold. Most of those work well with the nouveau driver or use the nvidia legacy branch.
Or somehing like the amd rx550/560, while most have a single fan, for general console use or very light gaming, if the fans spin they won't be loud.
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Spanik · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 1065 Location: Belgium

Yes, the GT710 is ok for me, but it doesn't support the resolution of the new monitor. So I have to replace it anyway and then I can just as well do an upgrade.

I have downloaded a few manuals of cards (RTX3060/4060 type) as they are rather low powered models. But I'll first have to check if I have the needed power connectors available. Then check how to use that nvidia firmware blob.
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Zucca · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2025 5:31 pm Post subject:

IIRC RTX models lower than *070 don't have that much of hardware video encoding capabilities than *070 and above. So if you need hardware video encoding support re-check the specs.
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Spanik · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 1065 Location: Belgium

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3511 Location: Canada

Had to go with GT730 a bit over half a year ago when was in similar situation. It certainly supports 2560x1600 of my 30 inch Ultrasharp. Have to use 470.x family of drivers

psycho · Guru Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 553 Location: New Zealand

I'm viewing this on a 4k display (3840x2160) powered by the little 710 right now. Apparently this card can only do 24Hz with 4k, but xrandr claims 60Hz. On the other hand I can easily see distinct rectangles when I drag a window around the desktop (with plenty of overlap, so I don't usually notice them, but now that I look for them it's definitely far from smooth), so maybe xrandr (and the GUI tool in XFCE and so on) is lying.

It does struggle with 4k streaming (YouTube selects full HD by default which works fine, but bumping it up to 4k makes it very choppy), and it's possible this card is the reason, although if I download the 4k clip and play it locally, mpv has no problem, playing it back without stuttering. By contrast mplayer warns "Your system is too SLOW to play this!" and confirms its own pessimistic claim by stuttering badly... so I think it could be a mixture of weak hardware plus software/driver issues wrecking 4k in YouTube.

Anyway, it's definitely at the bottom end of 4k cards, and arguably doesn't deserve to be called a 4k-capable card at all... but in practice it can (just barely) do it: the desktop (under XFCE, at least) is usable at 4k (and perfectly fast/smooth at 1920x1080 of course). I'm not recommending it, it's a puny little card and I haven't looked into alternatives, but it is silent and (around here at least) one of the cheapest graphics cards you can buy off the shelf, so it ticked my boxes, and might for some others who can live without fast 4k video.

pietinger · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2025 2:59 am Post subject:

I want to add something because of this comment:

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3511 Location: Canada