Any guides out there for PCI Express VGA bottom-feeders?

[irrationalJohn]

I suppose this thread will die a quick death, but, heck, it's still worth a try. The subject is something which anyone who posts here probably has absolutely no interest in: finding a, uh, "best" lowest cost PCIe video card.

And by "low cost" I am not talking about a card for just under a $100. I'm thinking $20-$30 tops so it's probably a used video card from eBay.

I've currently got an AGP system with a 128MB 64-bit FX5200. (I've already been told that it sucks. What a shock! :roll: ) In the near future I expect to upgrade to a PCIe motherboard and so I'll need to get either
(1) a motherboard with integrated video.
(2) a very low-end PCIe video card.

So .... what to choose? I just need basic video, preferably passively cooled. However, being human, I also want to get the most for my money. If I'm given the choice between a POS card and a card that's a real POS, I'd like to know enough to go with the card that's merely a POS.

I have no idea how to rank the various video sources out there. I'm trying to hunt down info to inform my choice. But so far all the guides and reviews are, not surprisingly, targeted at the other end of the performance spectrum from where I'm looking. About the only thing I've got to go on at the moment is the rough "rule of thumb" that even the worst video card probably performs better than any integrated video solution.

Sooooo ... does anyone have any other pointers or advice for a VGA bottom-feeder? Frankly, I can't believe I'm the only one out there in this situation. The dearth of info is probably because the others are just too embarrassed to talk about it.

-john

 

[happy medium]

The cheapest pci-e cards go for 40.00 to 50.00..$$$ I know of. Thats the Nvidia 6200 pci-e and the x300 ATi . Looks like your going for the Real Piece of sh!t!!

edit: what kind of motherboard you need Amd or intel? Heres a good integrated board with the geforce 6150 integrated graphics biult in.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131570

 

[beggerking]

tomshardware has videocard interactive comparison guide.

 

[happy medium]

If you can save 10 more dollars ths is a good card

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ATI-X800-256MB-...01QQcategoryZ40158QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Captante]

If gaming isn't important, I'd say go with one of the Nvidia 6150 chipset motherboards because the integrated video is decent plus you get a very good performing mb in case you feel the need to upgrade later... the Asus suggested by happy medium above is a good choice if you have DDR1 memory you want to re-use, otherwise you would be better off going with this AM2 model & DDR2 instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131014

 

[Bryf50]

Keep checking ebay. If you keep looking you can get a good deal. I recently got a 6600 for 30$ shipped.

 

[hans007]

if you dont care about 3d speed.

just buy a g965 board or 945g board for intel , or a 6150 or radeon xpress 200 board for amd.

free video card, and for normal tasks you cant tell the difference at all.

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Bryf50
Keep checking ebay. If you keep looking you can get a good deal. I recently got a 6600 for 30$ shipped.

Are there any rough "rule of thumb" type rankings to be made? What really confuses me about all this is trying to get a handle on things like:

- Is a 6600 better than an X300? An X550? How does an X300 compare to an X550?
- If it's "better", then how is it better? What makes one video card more desirable than another? (Is it a difference I might care about?)
- When were new video processors introduced into a model line and when did they just change the model number to make it look like something happened.

While I can't realistically expect anyone to spend the time trying to answer questions as general as these, I figured it couldn't hurt to ask and see what sort of response I might get. Often a lot can be learned just from partial answers even when a general answer is impossible.

-john

 

[Piuc2020]

Well at your price range it seems all you want is a card for regular desktop use, you want a card with as many features you can get, not speed, an AVIVO accelerated X1300 card might be good but those are around 50-60$, hmm try Ebay.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: happy medium
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ATI-X800-256MB-...01QQcategoryZ40158QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

As usual, be careful on eBay...
Someone's getting the wrong video card
That's for an AGP X800 Pro, but the picture is for a 1MB PCI Cirrus Logic video card.

zjohnr, what are you upgrading to? What platform & CPU? What is your intended use? For non-gaming (and maybe non-Vista Aero) just about anything will work, including integrated video. If you're going for new platform but super low budget, you can get a $40 socket AM2 Sempron and $50 socket AM2 Geforce6100 motherboard. It has decent (for IGP) video. Can even do some gaming on it at lower resolutions/quality settings.

For PCI-E video card, doesn't matter what you get. I have a Radeon X300 in my notebook (discrete Mobility model with 128MB, not IGP) and I have a Geforce 6200TC (TurboCache cheapie) and they can both play games. I've played WoW and Wolfenstein Enemy Territory on them both and they do just fine. Can't turn on all eye candy but they work fine.

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Zap zjohnr, what are you upgrading to? What platform & CPU? What is your intended use?

Most likely I'd get Core 2 Duo, maybe an E6400 if the budget works out. But I won't rule out an AM2 based system at this point. If AMD lowers the prices enough it might make sense to me. But at this point it doesn't and C2D looks like the way to get the most bang for the $$$.

What I'm most likely to use the system for though is just viewing video. Also compression of large files, audio and maybe video encoding/transcoding/editing. I don't game, but I also want to avoid painting myself into a corner by making an extremely bad video choice. I don't want to spend a lot because most likely I'd never use any performance I paid extra for. But I also want to avoid going with the cheapest card when I could have kept more options open in the near future by paying just a bit more.

Not sure when I'll purchase but don't plan to wait longer than 3 months. Keeping one eye on DDR2 prices right now and another on new chipset announcements (as long I'm waiting anyway ...). While I already know I'm never going to get a Nvidia 680i based system, I am curious what the 650i Ultra boards will turn out to be.

Originally posted by: Zap As usual, be careful on eBay...

Yes, I know and I try to do that. Probably everyone who dares to tread the eBay waters has their own personal set of rules for filtering transactions. Some of mine are:

- Try to always have a relatively disinterested 3'rd party involved. I only look at auctions that take PayPal so there should be no argument about when and how much $$$ was exchanged.
- I prefer to buy from someone who actually used the equipment as opposed to "brand new" from some clearing house operation which couldn't care less about what's actually in a box.
- Pay attention to feedback percentages as well as the number of transactions. It ain't much, but it's also about all you've got.
- If possible ask the seller a question and see how they respond. If you have problems getting them to respond pre-sale, how much joy are you likely to get if a transaction goes bad post-sale?

So far I've been lucky and haven't been burned. Hope it stays that way.
-john

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: happy medium
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ATI-X800-256MB-...01QQcategoryZ40158QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

As usual, be careful on eBay...
Someone's getting the wrong video card
That's for an AGP X800 Pro, but the picture is for a 1MB PCI Cirrus Logic video card.

zjohnr, what are you upgrading to? What platform & CPU? What is your intended use? For non-gaming (and maybe non-Vista Aero) just about anything will work, including integrated video. If you're going for new platform but super low budget, you can get a $40 socket AM2 Sempron and $50 socket AM2 Geforce6100 motherboard. It has decent (for IGP) video. Can even do some gaming on it at lower resolutions/quality settings.

For PCI-E video card, doesn't matter what you get. I have a Radeon X300 in my notebook (discrete Mobility model with 128MB, not IGP) and I have a Geforce 6200TC (TurboCache cheapie) and they can both play games. I've played WoW and Wolfenstein Enemy Territory on them both and they do just fine. Can't turn on all eye candy but they work fine.

The card I linked him to is a
x800 pro pci-e! I tried the link and read it. Am I missing something?

Edit: And that card is 4 times faster then anything else on this thread. If he can get it for 40 bucks or so it's an excellent deal

 

[spittledip]

I just got an x800 pcie on Ebay for less than 40 shipped. It was very difficult though.. had to wait and wait and finally was able to snipe a good one. People on Ebay are so dumb- bidding wars going on two days before the auction is over. Anyway, Ebay is probably your best bet as others above are saying.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: zjohnr

Originally posted by: Zap zjohnr, what are you upgrading to? What platform & CPU? What is your intended use?

Most likely I'd get Core 2 Duo, maybe an E6400 if the budget works out. But I won't rule out an AM2 based system at this point...

What I'm most likely to use the system for though is just viewing video. Also compression of large files, audio and maybe video encoding/transcoding/editing. I don't game

Don't game - any video card will suffice. I was thinking onboard because you came across initially as going really low end, but now we know not super low end, just don't want to pay more than you need, right? Go with PCI-E instead of onboard to maximized system performance because onboard will take up system memory and memory bandwidth. As to which PCI-E, my belief is that if you don't do anything that requires 3D hardware, then you don't need anything more than bare basics. 3D hardware usage traditionally meant games, but now includes Vista Aero.

Viewing video - anything.

Compression of large files, audio and maybe video encoding... your CPU choice is good. Remember to get fast hard drives. as when working with large files that may end up your bottleneck.

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Zap
Viewing video - anything.

Many (all? most?) of the video cards seem to have a reference to some sort of hardware support for video decoding. Usually MPEG but I think I've also seen a MP4 hardware decoding support feature mentioned.

Anyone have any thoughts about how much this feature might worth?

-john

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: zjohnr

Originally posted by: Zap
Viewing video - anything.

Many (all? most?) of the video cards seem to have a reference to some sort of hardware support for video decoding. Usually MPEG but I think I've also seen a MP4 hardware decoding support feature mentioned.

Anyone have any thoughts about how much this feature might worth?

-john

Hardware acceleration doenst really matter unless you are downloading 1080P content.

 

[AndrewL]

Originally posted by: zjohnr

Originally posted by: Zap
Viewing video - anything.

Many (all? most?) of the video cards seem to have a reference to some sort of hardware support for video decoding. Usually MPEG but I think I've also seen a MP4 hardware decoding support feature mentioned.

Anyone have any thoughts about how much this feature might worth?

-john

As you probably already know video encoding has alot more to do with your processor and RAM than it does with a vid card.

An x1300xt would be a great choice if you could get one used for around 45-55 bucks.

Honestly if you dont game at all youd be surprised how far newer integrated graphics can get you on the rare occasion you would run something that would need hardware acceleration.

If you absolutely have to have some gfx solution most of the x800 series can be found for cheap used.

 

[hans007]

a 7300 LE on ebay is probably like $40. that has all the latest nvidia HD hardware decoding stuff. probably a good bet.

 

[aka1nas]

The 6150 boards are surprisingly good for being integrated graphics. Not going to be terribly useful for gaming, but you get PCI-E expansion and they pull 2d duties great. In 3d, they outperform a 5200 and fall somewhat short of the 6200. It should also handle Aero Glass fine in Vista for the future. Why spend $30 or so on a POS card when it's practically free (compared to other mobos) on the 6150?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
The 6150 boards are surprisingly good for being integrated graphics. Not going to be terribly useful for gaming, but you get PCI-E expansion and they pull 2d duties great. In 3d, they outperform a 5200 and fall somewhat short of the 6200. It should also handle Aero Glass fine in Vista for the future. Why spend $30 or so on a POS card when it's practically free (compared to other mobos) on the 6150?

I agree, there is no reason to even get a graphics card with a budget that low, 6150 integrated can match or best it for far less money, and leave with a PCI-Express upgrade path at the same time.

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
I agree, there is no reason to even get a graphics card with a budget that low, 6150 integrated can match or best it for far less money, and leave with a PCI-Express upgrade path at the same time.

Integrated video seems targeted primarily to Home Theater builders.

You know of any Core 2 capable socket 775 motherboards out there with 6150 integrated video? (I don't).

On the Intel side I'm thinking that pretty much boils down to the G965 chipset at the moment. Most of those boards are uATX and thus have only 2 PCI slots. Not a few don't have more than 2 DDR2 slots. With all the IDE drives that I have, I am not willing to paint myself into a corner by getting a board with only 2 PCI slots. (At least not until someone offers a reasonable IDE usage option via PCIe .... or something).

So that looks like my choices would be between these two boards:

Intel BOXDG965WHMKR Socket T (LGA 775) Intel G965
GIGABYTE GA-965G-DS3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel G965

They're fine, but neither one particularly makes my socks go up and down, if you know what I mean. So I'll wait and see what a 650i Ultra board looks like. Either way I still see myself pushed towards buying a lower-end video card.

-john

 

[Acanthus]

Youre absolutely right zjohnr, i wasnt aware that nvidia didnt have a 6150 graphics chipset for Intel.

On a side note, Intel Extreme Graphics struggles to render the little spinning earth logo in IE. (not really, but it is in fact terrible, the chip has trouble running the original neverwinter nights on minimum settings)

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
On a side note, Intel Extreme Graphics struggles to render the little spinning earth logo in IE. (not really, but it is in fact terrible, the chip has trouble running the original neverwinter nights on minimum settings)

FWIW, my understanding was that the graphics that came with the G965 was better than Intel Extreme Graphics. The pointless marketing name for it is Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3000.

I seem to remember GMA X3000 getting some enthusiastic reviews along the lines of, "Hey! This doesn't suck nearly as much as that earlier crap!" Supposedly it is "Shader Model 3 compliant" confused: ??) and is supposed to meet the requirements for Vista Aero Premium. (Or so I've read ... and not that I really care about Vista since I don't expect to even think about Vista for at least another year or two or three or four ...)

-john

 

[bluemax]

GMA3000 driver support isn't quite finished yet. It's not much better than earlier..... but it's not totally vile either (unlike SiS onboard video.)

ATI might still have some boards for 775 but I don't think they support C2D, so it look like GMA3000 or bust.

Of course.... if you're used to the 5200, the GMA3000 might allllmost show an improvement in speed. It'll tide you over until you can get better 3D speed from either nVidia's 7600 series, or ATI's x1650 series. (Or higher.) Anything lower isn't worth the money spent on it if you have half-decent video for free on your motherboard.