Gave up on those bulky cards long, long time ago. besides, they never deliver the claimed specs with the number of monitors I run. I mean real monitors, not the 1080 toys
1080p monitors are toys nowadays, if you say so. It doesn't matter at all how "bulky" they are because we are talking about desktop computers - fans will be silent and the size makes no difference. These new ones support 4 monitors on 4k easily. "Long time ago" the cards were very different from these newer ones (this and previous gen nVidia).
I don't get those whole fan noise issues. All new cards are very silent unless you run a massive 3d game. Even a radio or talking in the background is way louder.
Back in 2008, the 8800 GT was a very loud card because it was all about performance and they didn't focus on heat/power consumption at all. That card sounded like your PC was going to lift off. I'm impressed with what nVidia has done recently, even with fans at full speed with this Zotac card, it's almost silent...the standard CPU fan is many times louder.
Agree, though even today a heavy duty 3D gpu such as the Gtx 980ti gets pretty noisy when I use it for AI training or the occasional game. It is definitely audible and louder than the cpu fan. But that certainly does not apply to normal everyday use during trading, development, and related work. I really like to thank you to point out the 1050 card. It indeed is capable of powering 4 displays and has a pretty low price point. I am a happy camper with my nvs card but the 1050 looks very recommendable (the Gigabyte version) .
I purchased a nvidia quadro k420 for $29 bucks. Specs say it's able to run 4 monitors at 3160x2160 but all i need is 2x 4k monitors. I looked at nvs 810 for about $600+ on ebay. The savings will be used to purchase 2 4k monitors.
I do not know about you, but I have bought my Radeon 6950 in like 2012 and it is still somewhat good in all I do except Vulkan API games and it supports even 6 monitors if needed. I have ASUS brand with additional cooling features, but you can go for something like GTX 650 if it still present, it's somewhat analogue, for today it's like GTX 1050.