Should You Use a “Fanless” Video Card?
Have you ever heard of a “fanless” graphics card? It’s a relatively new option that you might want to consider. Fanless means that the card has a heat sink but no fan. Some people also call it passive cooling.
My Experience with a Fanless Card on Windows 7
I tried using a fanless card with an nVidia chipset, 512MB of video memory, and 16 stream processors. According to the Windows Experience Index, my PC was rated 4.3, which is slightly above average. It was decent, not too slow but not super fast either.
I had no issues playing DVDs or watching videos online. However, when it came to Windows Aero and gaming, things weren’t so great.
Playing a game like Half-Life 2 at the lowest graphics settings with everything turned off, the frames would drop after less than 10 minutes of gameplay.
Windows Aero would sometimes stutter when displaying applications, and dragging windows across my dual-monitor setup caused stuttering and pausing.
I eventually had enough and switched back to a card with a fan. I wanted a budget card that could handle average video settings and stop the Windows Aero stuttering.
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The card I switched to solved those problems. Now I can play Half-Life 2 on widescreen settings with some decent in-game video options, and Windows Aero doesn’t stutter anymore.
However, my new Windows Experience Index rating is 3.6. The drop was mainly in the “graphics capabilities” report, but my overall video performance has actually improved.
As I mentioned earlier, the Windows Experience Index isn’t always accurate. I never considered it to be the ultimate measure of performance, and my experience confirms that it’s mostly nonsense.
Should You Use a Fanless Video Card?
Although I had some negative experiences with fanless cards, they do have two major advantages that shouldn’t be ignored:
1. 100% silent
2. Unlikely to break
A fanless card is completely silent because it doesn’t have any moving parts.
Furthermore, a fanless card is less likely to break since there’s nothing on it that can break. Most graphics card failures happen because of the fan, and when the fan dies, you usually have to replace the entire card.
When deciding whether to use a fanless card, it’s more about the specific application than the video performance you need.
Examples of When Fanless Cards Are Useful
Unfriendly computing environments:
If your PC will be in a dirty environment like a woodshop or garage, it will quickly get filled with dust, and anything with a fan is more likely to fail. In this case, a fanless card is definitely a better choice since it eliminates one potential problem.
Entertainment center PC:
If you’re using a computer in your entertainment center to watch movies, you want it to be silent. A fanless card can handle DVD playback and video files without any issues, making it a perfect fit for this setup.
Retrofitting for long-term use:
If you have an older computer that needs a little more power and you want to avoid having to replace the video hardware, a fanless card is a great option. The cheapest fanless cards cost around $25 and can extend the life of your computer.
One last thing to note is that the Windows Aero troubles I experienced with a fanless card only apply to Windows Vista and 7. If you were using a fanless card on Windows XP, you wouldn’t have encountered any of those issues since Aero is exclusive to Vista and 7.
