I am buying a new video card for my desktop and I am going with Nvidia, but I need help deciding which model to get that is powerful enough, and at the same time is both quiet and relatively low on the heat output.

I used to own a Nvidia 6800 GT which for the last 3 years in Linux, but unfortunately it was a noisy and very hot video card. I would like something quiet and cool.

I do not play many video games besides World of Warcraft through Wine/Cedega, so I figure 128MB or higher will suit me just fine. Can anyone give me advice about the model to get?

Lower end cards (they work, if you don't play too new games) like nVidia GeForce 8500 GT are usually silent and not too hot, but indeed not very powerful. I think the things go hand in hand - more power means more heat and more heat means more powerful cooling, which in turn usually means active cooling, which means a lot of noise.

There are reviews available all over the web about every single nVidia card ever made, and most of them take into account the heat and noise produced by the card under stress. I suggest you pick up your price range -- how much you are going to spend on the card at maximum -- and then see how many cards fit in, read their reviews and decide based on that. Very probably you are going to get either a silent, cool and unpowerful card or a hotrod that makes you want to wear ear-protect-o-ware.

You also could package in a case that is designed for noise reduction, which would help, or if the fan noise really bothers you, then you could investigate water cooling.

I normally pick some of the fastest passively cooled cards around, then stick a large/low rpm fan on top.
Pretty quiet, but not exactly cost effective.

Whats also nice in this solution is that the fan is really easy to replace when it starts to get noisy (which tends to happen eventually).

hi.
i have a NVidia 7300 GS (512 MB by sharing) video driver.
its so fast and cool in Linux and you can play many video games on it and more of the new games run on it (in medium mode)
it can support world of warcraft graphic in high mode.

i think its good for you my friend...