dvd performance between rage 128 pro and radeon 7000

[staalburger]

Hi

I've got a choice between two video cards. The heaviest tasks they will be doing is dvd playback. Games won't be played at all. I've got the Gigabyte Maya AG32s which features the rage128 chipset and also the Gigabyte Radeon 7000 Pro, Maya av64s-t. My question is, will the rage128pro-based card ensure sufficient and smooth dvd playback on a 1.2 celeron on an 815ep-based board or would you recommend the radeon. At the moment I've got a 500 celeron with an s3 trio3d card on a via apollo pro slot1 chipset and the dvd is awfull. Hopefully the above-mentioned upgrade will solve it.

Thanks

 

[ChefJoe]

You might also want to consider DVD playback issues due to software. I know that powerDVD XP seems to chew on CPU a whole lot more than my previous version.

 

[Superwormy]

The Rage 128 will work fine.

 

[MasterHoss]

<< The Rage 128 will work fine. >>

uisng 1.2GHz Celeron w/ 256+MB RAM ... no problems

 

[Rand]

The Rage 128 wll be easily more then adequate to play back DVD with ease. ATi's always had fantastic DVD hardware support. The Radeon will be slightly better in DVD playback but not sinificantly so as the vast majrity of the DVD features in the Radeon core were merely borrowed from what alredy existed in the Rage 128.
ATi's DVD playback on almost any of their modern cards is fantastic, and the Rage 128 core definitely shares that trait.

 

[ChefJoe]

Rage128 chipset was actually the industry standard for DVD playback via a CPU when it came out and for a while after that. No worries.

 

[Auric]

Reiterate Rage128 Pro with Rage Theater is very good and the Radeon is slightly better.

PowerDVD 4 XP is excellent and fully utilizes ATI hardware decoding and if you notice higher CPU usage compared to version 3 it prolly means you have one of the new color profile features enabled or some other new feature not previously available. Hard to imagine this to be more than the reduction from addition of iDCT though (previous versions only supported MC).

 

[bluemax]

I doubt you'll see ANY difference in DVD performance between the two. They're both excellent.
All in all, I'd still go with the Radeon 7000 even if it's an SDR card. The dual-monitor capability is nice to have.

 

[BFG10K]

If it's a choice between the two cards I'd get the Radeon 7000. I'm pretty sure that the Radeon core has slightly better DVD playback than the Rage128 core does.

 

[StormRider]

For DVD playback, I think the two are about equal. They both do IDCT and motion compensation for smooth performance and low cpu utilization in DVD playback. The Radeon might have some slightly better quality features for DVD playback but I can't really see any difference between my AIW 128 (Rage 128) and AIW Radeon. They both look and play great.

The AIW 128 is on my 533 Mhz (overclocked to some frequency I forget at the moment -- 700 Mhz?) Celeron system and it plays all my DVDs flawlessly.

 

[InsaneMorphius]

Agree with stormrider on this one

 

[bluemax]

Everyone keeps saying the Radeon DVD is better... I thought it stayed exactly the same. Which is fine - it's aweseome.
I seem to recall an Anandtech article on which cards had the best DVD performance. Now that I think of it, I think there might have been some slight improvement over the 128... lemme' see if I can find the article and if the Rage128 was even in there.

Needless to say, go for the Radeon 7000 regardless - it WILL be the best. Period. Dual monitor or GOOD TV out support to boot!

 

[staalburger]

Hi

I thank you all for the info and I made up my mind. I'll have to go with the 128 pro since I forgot to mention that I'm on a budget and in South Africa the price for the 7000 radeon is double that of the 128pro-based card. Thanks for the help again.

 

[bluemax]

Well, no worries. Your DVD performance will be just fine.
And so will be the 2D quality of your desktop display!