What's a "Passive" Graphics card?

[Daffy D]

So am thinking of treating my aging PC to a upgrade graphics card, nothing fancy just something cheap.

 

Looking through the possibilities on the JIB website I see a couple of cards that might fit but as always things get complicated 

 

Two almost identical cards one is "GEFORCE GT 710 PASSIVE 2GB 2GB DDR3 64-bit" and one is not. What is the difference between "Passive" and not "Passive" 

 

https://www.jib.co.th/web/product/readProduct/20813/51/VGA--การ์ดแสดงผล--GALAX-GEFORCE-GT-710-PASSIVE-2GB---2GB-DDR3-64-BIT

 

https://www.jib.co.th/web/product/readProduct/30487/51/VGA--การ์ดแสดงผล--ASUS-GT710-2GD5-SL-BRK

 

I have an ASUS P8Z77-V LX Motherboard with Nvidia GeForce GT420 I'm assuming either of these would fit as a upgrade.

 

Thanks  

[Oldie]

Normally it is the cooling. Passive means no fans and noise. 

[Eindhoven]

For what reason do you upgrade? Is there something you cannot do currently? Do you have an SSD as the Boot drive?

GT 710 is such a minimum upgrade, that it's hardly worth the bother.

 

RX 550 https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/radeon-rx-550 or GT 1030 at @ 2000 baht, would be more like a step up.

HEVC encoding/decoding could be a boon if you download media for watching.

[Daffy D]

2 hours ago, Oldie said:

Normally it is the cooling. Passive means no fans and noise. 

I'm sure you're right,  but looking at the profile of both cards seems neither of them have a fan, just big badass heat sinks  

[Daffy D]

1 hour ago, Eindhoven said:

For what reason do you upgrade? Is there something you cannot do currently? Do you have an SSD as the Boot drive?

GT 710 is such a minimum upgrade, that it's hardly worth the bother.

I realize it's not much of an upgrade, but this is more of sort of retail therapy for me than actually needing an upgrade.   

 

Yes I have a SSD but don't do any gaming, just mainly download movies 

[JaiMaai]

32 minutes ago, Daffy D said:

I'm sure you're right,  but looking at the profile of both cards seems neither of them have a fan, just big badass heat sinks  

They are both passive even though only one is explicitly described as such.

27 minutes ago, Daffy D said:

I realize it's not much of an upgrade, but this is more of sort of retail therapy for me than actually needing an upgrade.   

 

Yes I have a SSD but don't do any gaming, just mainly download movies 

Between the two, the Asus would appear to be the slightly better option as it has GDDR5 RAM while the Galax has DDR3.  However, as already pointed out, it's probably not even worth it,  What CPU do you have?  What's your budget?  This will help people suggest a good match on top of those already suggested.

[Oldie]

52 minutes ago, Daffy D said:

I'm sure you're right,  but looking at the profile of both cards seems neither of them have a fan, just big badass heat sinks  

I have been using a passive graphic card for years. But don't expect to play games that require high frame rates. If you don't have a fan at such cards that means less noise and less dust. They are good for internet and not too challenging videos and perhaps older games. If you want to connect them to a TV then check that they can handle the resolution of your TV like 4K.

[Daffy D]

36 minutes ago, JaiMaai said:

Between the two, the Asus would appear to be the slightly better option as it has GDDR5 RAM while the Galax has DDR3.  However, as already pointed out, it's probably not even worth it,  What CPU do you have?  What's your budget?  This will help people suggest a good match on top of those already suggested.

I'm guessing that the GDDR5 and DDR3 are are the RAM on the cards. My system has DDR3 would that matter?

 

My CPU is Intel Core i5 3450 @3.10GHz but I don't really want to spend money on upgrading that.

 

Just spent a bunch of money on a new PC for the kids, now they have better spec than me and just feel a little left behind  

 

Thought new graphics would make me feel better without costing too much. 

 

[JaiMaai]

Your main system DDR3 and the memory are separate things.

 

There is a possible upgrade path for your CPU to an i7-3770 or i7-3770k. You would gain a faster CPU and the ability to overclock with the K.  Youl'd also get hyperthreading which some apps use to improve performance.  Whether or not this is important to you depends on your use case.  On Lazada, the chips appear to be going for 2-3000 baht.  (Still don't kknow what your budget is...)

 

I still agree with Eindhoven that there's not really any point in going for a GT 710.

 

Maybe something such as a GTX 750 ti  would be an option for slightly more than the GT 710?

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/msi-geforce-gtx-750-ti-2gb-twin-frozr-gaming-oc-i258032599-s397760851.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.14.783f1d8aemNyG4&search=1

[Eindhoven]

15 hours ago, Daffy D said:

I realize it's not much of an upgrade, but this is more of sort of retail therapy for me than actually needing an upgrade.   

 

Yes I have a SSD but don't do any gaming, just mainly download movies 

 

Understood, which is why I suggest that if you are going to do it, obtain one that can actually make a difference.

You won't note a difference with the GT 710. But you will with an RX 550, because of it's H.265 encode/decode capability. That may be something that you may actually need on-going. The GTX 750i in JaiMaai's post does not have the same capability.

 

You can check the performance of your current set-up with the files here: http://jell.yfish.us

Click on Show only 10-bit and then download and play the files in sequence, to see how you can go.

You can use VLC Player; https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html to play or stream the files.

Let us know how far you get.

 

 

[fdsa]

Nvidia *10 series are the weakest cards out there, just a little bit more powerful than the embedded video in the CPU. Do not buy cards ending in 10,15,20, etc, prefer card models ending in 50-60-70-80.