ATI X300 question

[horatiub]

I have a Asus A7N8X and I'm not sure if the ATI X300 will run on it. I know that this video card is PCI-E and the motherboard that I have it's just PCI. Any thoughts on this?

 

[CheesePoofs]

PCIe cards can not work in a PCI slot. They are two completely different things.

 

[horatiub]

ok, I see. I'm just trying to get a card that would give me some good quality with my 1905fp Dell Monitor. I don't play games and I do some light video encoding. any suggestions?

 

[Pete]

I'm guessing you have an AGP slot. Maybe get a cheap, fanless 9600 or 9600SE?

 

[TStep]

As Pete said or did a little searching on Ebay. I picked up an 8800 FireGL w/ two DVI outs for about $15 shipped for a non-gaming application comp.

 

[horatiub]

ok, so 9600 or 9600SE. any other recommendations?

 

[horatiub]

bump

 

[dguy6789]

If you do not play games, and 2D quality is all you care about, then Matrox makes by far the best.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814106141

It will make reading much easier and colors will just look better in general.

 

[CraigRT]

What videocard are you using now that needs upgrading?

 

[horatiub]

right now I'm using a Geforce 2 MX 400

 

[blckgrffn]

There you go...

That is definitely my reccomendation!

Nat

 

[horatiub]

ok, that board looks good

 

[blckgrffn]

It should more than meet you needs, enjoy

 

[horatiub]

thank you

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
If you do not play games, and 2D quality is all you care about, then Matrox makes by far the best.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814106141

It will make reading much easier and colors will just look better in general.

is all that even required in the age of DVI?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: dguy6789
If you do not play games, and 2D quality is all you care about, then Matrox makes by far the best.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814106141

It will make reading much easier and colors will just look better in general.

is all that even required in the age of DVI?

No*. With DVI, it's a 100% digital connection, so you directly get whatever digital values the video card is outputting.

Also, ATI and NVIDIA's VGA outputs are *generally* pretty good (although some of the cheaper NVIDIA partners have had issues with this on certain models), so you are unlikely to see any dramatic benefits from an overly-expensive Matrox card unless you are running at a very high resolution/refresh, or you are comparing it against some cheapo FX5200 or the like.




*:Yes, there are quality differences in DVI outputs, but they only determine what the maximum usable resolution/refresh is. NVIDIA cards (at least the GF4/GFFX/GF6s) have fairly crappy onboard DVI, which is why they often have problems running above 1600x1200 (and sometimes even at 1600x1200). However, if it works, the signal is as perfect as it can get. So if you want to run a 2405FPW via DVI, use an ATI or Matrox card (or an NVIDIA card that doesn't use the on-chip TMDS transmitter for its DVI outputs). Other than that it doesn't matter.