Thanks again for all input.
 
And windows settings - thinking performance vs visual features?
1920x1080 and 32bit colorspace?

 
I think I just turned off transparent stuff, which only annoys me anyway - the rest as default.
This is an extra load as I recall - making underlying windows also repaint all the time.

I'm using an NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti and you don't really get much noise from it. My mic is also somewhat far from the computer though. Also helps if you have a cardioid mic so that it won't pic up stuff in the background. 

Really, it's mostly 3D stuff and video transcoding that taxes a card. General application display is negligible and has been for years. Translucency FX might count but you'd not actually use those WHILE recording or editing. And you mentioned turning them off anyway. Nevertheless, CPU and GPU power have very little interaction within Sonar.

Radeon R7 (I forget exactly which, 7750 I think). Mine's a fanless card so is dead silent. Can handle quite a bit of gaming without temperature issues, never mind Sonar. I did try the Intel graphics in the cpu to see what it's capable of but Windows screen redraws were painfully slow as was graphics rendering in Sonar. Photoshop... well, forget it.
 
As well as fanless options many cards allow you to manipulate the card's BIOS using third party editors. My previous DAW had a "low noise" card that sounded like a vacuum cleaner. I had a look in it's BIOS and found it was set to never run the fan at less than 75% speed and ramped to 100% over 50 degrees C below the card's rated thermal maximum which meant even Sonar and Windows would ramp up the fan. I adjusted the fan/temperature curve while monitoring the card temperatures and in the end set it so the fan was off until needed then ramped rapidly as temperature approached the maximum. The result was it was silent under "normal" use and ramped adequately to keep things in order when needed.

ViRiX Dreamcore
I'm using an NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti and you don't really get much noise from it. My mic is also somewhat far from the computer though. Also helps if you have a cardioid mic so that it won't pic up stuff in the background. 

Thanks for suggestions I'll look into it.

My new DAW from StudioCat uses a GTX-960 and it is very quiet. But as others have pointed out, using a DAW will typically require very little from the GPU so I will be surprised if any semi-recent graphics card will need to spin up its fan.
 
It's been a while since I did 3D stuff, but IIRC, even 2D drawing these days are handled by the 3D rendering hardware. IOW, the OS will pass along a 2D surface as 2 polygons creating one rectangle. Remember, GPUs are designed to handle a gazillion polygons at the same time, so 2 polygons are a walk in the park.

Sanderxpander
Really, it's mostly 3D stuff and video transcoding that taxes a card. General application display is negligible and has been for years. Translucency FX might count but you'd not actually use those WHILE recording or editing. And you mentioned turning them off anyway. Nevertheless, CPU and GPU power have very little interaction within Sonar.

You may be right about that.
It's just when I ran Sonar 4 on XP many years ago - just opening a popup menu created pops in audio.
Turning off, if it was shadow on popup menues - it went away.
So acceleration stuff mattered at the time - and such things were included in PC optmizations for audio.
But that was 10 years ago.
 
I haven't had this gui issue for a while. Looking if online being partial reason for something interfering, went through windows updates=off, Acrobat=off, Flash=off.
I know my current router/4G modem send some stuff in intervals - will see if I can turn things off like UPnP, ICSM messages(or what they were called).
 
So it could be some other interference outside Sonar that do stuff - that made me look for graphics update of card.

tlw
Radeon R7 (I forget exactly which, 7750 I think). Mine's a fanless card so is dead silent. Can handle quite a bit of gaming without temperature issues, never mind Sonar. I did try the Intel graphics in the cpu to see what it's capable of but Windows screen redraws were painfully slow as was graphics rendering in Sonar. Photoshop... well, forget it.
 
As well as fanless options many cards allow you to manipulate the card's BIOS using third party editors. My previous DAW had a "low noise" card that sounded like a vacuum cleaner. I had a look in it's BIOS and found it was set to never run the fan at less than 75% speed and ramped to 100% over 50 degrees C below the card's rated thermal maximum which meant even Sonar and Windows would ramp up the fan. I adjusted the fan/temperature curve while monitoring the card temperatures and in the end set it so the fan was off until needed then ramped rapidly as temperature approached the maximum. The result was it was silent under "normal" use and ramped adequately to keep things in order when needed.

Will check your suggestion, thanks.
I looked with some software shipped with a magazine some years ago now, and there were plenty things I never saw before. So that is to be considered, even if you are afraid overheating things and get real issues because of that.

SilkTone
My new DAW from StudioCat uses a GTX-960 and it is very quiet. But as others have pointed out, using a DAW will typically require very little from the GPU so I will be surprised if any semi-recent graphics card will need to spin up its fan.
 
It's been a while since I did 3D stuff, but IIRC, even 2D drawing these days are handled by the 3D rendering hardware. IOW, the OS will pass along a 2D surface as 2 polygons creating one rectangle. Remember, GPUs are designed to handle a gazillion polygons at the same time, so 2 polygons are a walk in the park.

Seems like a hotshot card that one, but will look at it.
I don't remember right now if Sonar got it, but remember I preferred in Cubase to have now bar in middle and let entire screen scroll all the time. Maybe that put some more load on GPU, don't know. It would be lot's of pixels to move all the time as audio is running.
 
I get a feeling I just scratched the surface in Sonar Artist yet. But will look for such features of scrolling track view - not so fond of current switching page - prefer if staying on right side and scroll so eyes can follow as it goes, and not break my neck turning left.

lfm
Thanks guys - good to hear 210 is not completely ruled out.
 
I ran into some gui issues the other day, and the thought came up that maybe card is not fit for the task.
 
I have this "half freeze" thread, and audio was running fine all the time, though gui changed every 3-5s or so. So seems that bakers got that right, nothing more important than audio - not even a crackle.
 
Would be nice if card is not to blame, since it makes no noise at all. Just computer power supply and hdd subtle spinning that is audible at all.
 
Any input welcome...

2 things, first, the part I've made bold is a classic example of what happens when you press the Pause key to conserve cpu power - are you sure this isn't the case here?
 
Secondly, I've been running dual monitors since 2007 and have only ever used passive gpu cards in that time. No noise whatsoever (and zero graphics problems).