Just about all the old ATI cards appear to have fans. I really don’t want a fan because they tend to break or get really noisy, particularly in the rather humid climate where I live. The Matrox cards look like exactly what I want, slow and reliable, but I don’t really trust their Linux support.

After a bit of searching looks like there are still a few vendors stocking generic models with vNidia GeForce 5xxx-6xxx chipsets and no fans. As for the ATI, looks like I can probably get the Radeon 9600 Pro, then try to clock it down so I can unplug the fan. I haven’t had any luck finding too many fanless ATI cards, which is a shame because they will have better Linux support in the long term thanks to their open source drivers.

This is for my home workstation, it’s only got about a year left in it before I seriously consider getting a new one. After that however I intend to use it as a home server. It’s got masses of RAM and other decent components, but like the AGP bus, all now obsolete. I can’t reuse anything other than maybe a couple of it’s SATA hard drives. I’ll probably replace the PSU and fans to quieten it down a little and boost it’s life span, then put CentOS on it just for something different.

Just a cheap video card is all I’m looking for. I’d like something that’s going to last a few years at least. I’m not sure if the motherboard will boot without a video card, I’ll have to check that out. Need to do a little more research. Perhaps I’ll get adventurous and go with the Radeon clocking option.