DVD playback question

wyvrn

Lifer
Feb 15, 2000
10,074
0
0
I am building this system for a friend:

Shuttle AK-11
Duron 1Ghz
256 MB PC133
Cyberdrive 12 DVD
WD 20GB
Radeon 32 DDR
Windows XP Home

And have the choice of 2 video cards for DVD playback:

AOPEN GeFORCE2 MX-200 32MB AGP VGA W/SDR MEMORY VGA CARD

or

ATI RADEON 7000 32MB AGP

I know ATI has great hardware DVD support on their video cards. How much a difference would it make in DVD playback to use the Geforce MX instead? Would I have to pay extra for DVD software since I don't think the Geforce comes with any?

Other infos:

this guy is not a gamer, DVD is what he wants
he is not a super computer techno geek and we have a price limit on the system
the Geforce card is about 30% cheaper and neither have TV out (which he does not care anyway)

Thanks :)
 

eplebnista

Lifer
Dec 3, 2001
24,123
36
91


<< ATI RADEON 7000 32MB AGP >>



IMO, the Radeon is by far the superior card in terms of its 2d & DVD playback quality in comparison to the MX200 and well worth the extra 30%.

My $.02,
eplebnista
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
33
81
Radeon 7500 + SB Audigy + PowerDVD 4DTS = Desktop DVD heaven!!!

Go for the Radeon!

(I should add that my Sony 19" monitor and Boston BA4800 speakers don't hurt either, but I also had these peripherals matched with an SB Live! and Dxr3 DVD decoder card, and my new setup blows the old one out of the water!)

 

XWolfsraider

Member
Oct 8, 2001
164
0
0
Easy, the radeon has the better picture quality.

I tried g-force mx 400 64 mb vs the rage 128 32 mb and radeon a.i.o. wonder 32 mb ,on two systems p-4 1.5 256 rdram and p-3 866 512
sdram and i prefer ati over g-force mx400 64 as the mx400 had tearing and green dots/blocks on both systems,both had nice picture quality although i liked ati quality much more.

alsoin games the mx400 strugled to play any detailed games without freezing or tearing go with ati is my recomendation or move up to g-force pro.


 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
54
91
The Radeon 7000 is not very fast for gaming/3d; might consider the 7200 or 7500 if you can find a good price.
A 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 (or 3000) has good I.Q., if you can still find one