Getting the 24" Soyo...how is my videocard? - Updated!

[WildViper]

Sup All,

I have decided to take the plunge and get the Soyo like a lot of other people here. I am concerned about 2 things:

1. Is my video card good enough to run at native resolution? I see on ATI's site that it can but at 100Mhz. Not sure if the 100Mhz is a bad thing or what?

2. I do not have DVI on this card. Does it make sense to get that? If so, which would you recommend for under $80.

I am planning to do typical web surfing, some(not much) movie editing and lots of photoshop stuff. I deal with pictures a lot.

I know I should have spent more $ for an IPS panel and so on, but this is what I could afford and get a 24" to boot.

Btw, my computer setup is:

Chaintech VNF3-250 with AMD 64 2800, 1 gig Ram and the Redeon card. I have lots of HD space...3 HDs with almost 900 Gigs I think. Also running XP Pro SP2.

Thanx for any help.

 

[kmmatney]

Your card should be fine, but the native resolution of 1920 x 1200 is probably pushing it for an RGB connection. I've so far only used the DVI connection with my Soyo, so I can't really comment if the RBG will be good enough ot not. Just about any cheap card with DVI will do, and I'd recommend a fanless one. Here are a few examples of the very low end, which should be fine for what you do:

NVidia
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814125071
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814125073

AMD/ATi
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102484
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814161087

The 2 ATi cards are 128-bit memory cards, so should be a little faster. These are all DX9 cards. Some decent, and cheap DX10 cards (64-bit memory) are:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127299
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121084

The lowest priced DirectX 10 video card that is silent and has a 128-bit memory bus I could find at NewEgg is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127297


I would try out your existing card first - it may work out OK on the RGB connector..

 

[Beh]

I don't mean to intrude but most of those cards are PCI-E and the fellow is running AGP. With that in mind I found a few possible upgrades.

Radeon 9600 Pro for $43

Radeon X1650 for $77

Radeon HD 2400 Pro for $63 after $20 mail in rebate

I figured on ATI for you since there could be less issues upgrading and retaining your windows installation.

 

[Makaveli]

I would look at a AGP X1950Pro, but even that card you won't be able to game at 1920x1200! It might not be wise to go with a 24` monitor while still on AGP if you care about gaming anyways. If its just gonna be windows stuff then its fine.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Makaveli
I would look at a AGP X1950Pro, but even that card you won't be able to game at 1920x1200! It might not be wise to go with a 24` monitor while still on AGP if you care about gaming anyways. If its just gonna be windows stuff then its fine.

I don't think he games.

 

[clickynext]

Obviously as stated you won't be able to play games at all (except maybe pong, but I wouldn't be surprised if even that lags).

Just yesterday I got the dell 2007wfp which is 1680x1050, and I got a used video card with DVI too because my old card didn't have it. I actually found that there was almost no difference between VGA and DVI. It seems there's the smallest bit of extra contrast with the DVI, but even that might just be my imagination.

So you can try with your VGA first to see if it's okay, and then if not, you can hop on craigslist or ebay and grab a used card with DVI like the 9600Pro that Beh mentioned for really cheap.

 

[WildViper]

wow, thanx a lot everyone. Really appreciate actual recommendations that I can go checkout. Like most of you have mentioned here, i am going to wait and test out how my card does. Let's hope it is ok.

I also do not game at all. THose days are gone for me(getting older) unfortunately.

Anyways, about the DVI vs VGA, I am surprised to hear that from you clickynext. I was under the impression that if you want really good and accurate color, you should have DVI connection. Seems to me like it is not THAT big of a deal???

Can anyone else offer their thoughts on this? I will start googling too.

Also, I will post how my results turn out with 24" and current card.

Thanx

 

[Beh]

It really depends on the individual monitor. Some are better at handling VGA and some aren't. I've had some first hand experience with this. I tried an older 19" fullscreen BenQ over analog and it was an absolute travesty. A newer 19" widescreen Samsung however was almost indiscernible from DVI. I've noticed that DVI is usually sharper than VGA and since LCDs are natively digital there are many things that don't require adjustment like screen position and so on. Basically, less overall tweaking.

Hope it works out for you.

edit: A friend of mine also noticed the image quality difference on his 22" Westinghouse. I would think that a Samsung or a Dell Ultrasharp might be better at it than lesser brands.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

It's possible that your card might not support 1920x1200. My brother's old Ti4200 couldn't run my monitor at 1680x1050 when I first wanted to try it out. It's possible that you might need to buy a slightly newer one (it wouldn't cost more than $50 though).

 

[clickynext]

Yeah, I think I remember the nVidia cards of that generation not supporting high res widescreen. 9600 definitely does, though, so hopefully 9000 can too? I'm pretty sure 9000 is advertised at a very high max res.

 

[WildViper]

Oh No...another problem now.

I just heard my dad complain about how small the text is on his current monitor(old 17" big box one). His rez is 1024x768. I just realized that the new 24" monitor has a higher rez and the text will get even smaller!

How can I solve this? In the past, increasing the text size in xp pro has not worked well.

Since I heard that most lcds won't look good at small rez than they are recommending..I think I am stuck.

 

[clickynext]

1024x768 on a 17" monitor means huge text!!! I think you'd even have a hard time finding a monitor that has text as big as that. Best option would be to increase text size, I'd say, because you're almost certainly not going to get any bigger text with the same dpi. Scaling the resolution down on a big LCD would be a big waste, since it doesn't look nearly as good when it's outside the native res.

 

[kmmatney]

Originally posted by: WildViper
Oh No...another problem now.

I just heard my dad complain about how small the text is on his current monitor(old 17" big box one). His rez is 1024x768. I just realized that the new 24" monitor has a higher rez and the text will get even smaller!

How can I solve this? In the past, increasing the text size in xp pro has not worked well.

Since I heard that most lcds won't look good at small rez than they are recommending..I think I am stuck.

I used to run my 19" CRT at 1024 x 768, because of my bad eyes. However I can handle the native rez on the 24" LCD no problem. So he should be OK. I also think that this 24" LCD scales quite well, so you can run it as non-native resolutions such as 1440 x 900 or even 1280 x 800.

If you want the largest pixel size at native resolution, then a 19" LCD will give you large pixels. LCD TV's also have larger pixels.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Makaveli
I would look at a AGP X1950Pro, but even that card you won't be able to game at 1920x1200! It might not be wise to go with a 24` monitor while still on AGP if you care about gaming anyways. If its just gonna be windows stuff then its fine.

I ran WoW at 1920x1200 on a Radeon 9800 Pro, and got decent fps. When the card died I went to an old Radeon 8500, and it still ran well enough. People exaggerate the effect of high res.

Btw, you really should get DVI

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: Makaveli
I would look at a AGP X1950Pro, but even that card you won't be able to game at 1920x1200! It might not be wise to go with a 24` monitor while still on AGP if you care about gaming anyways. If its just gonna be windows stuff then its fine.

I ran WoW at 1920x1200 on a Radeon 9800 Pro, and got decent fps. When the card died I went to an old Radeon 8500, and it still ran well enough. People exaggerate the effect of high res.

Btw, you really should get DVI

Exaggerate the effect of high rez? Dude! You were playing WoW! :roll:

 

[jrichrds]

I'm running the Soyo 24" on an ATi Radeon 9000 AGP 64MB right now, and it runs fine at the native 1920x1200 resolution with RGB cable. My card does have DVI connector, but when I use it, the image has a lot of green flickering pixels and flashes in and out. Tried DVI-D cables that came with Acer and Dell monitors too, which were able to keep a stable image for a minute or so before reverting to the same behavior.

 

[biostud]

Doesn't the HD 2400 pro help in en/decoding of HD content, and would therefore be beneficial for video production

 

[clickynext]

Originally posted by: kmmatney

Originally posted by: WildViper
Oh No...another problem now.

I just heard my dad complain about how small the text is on his current monitor(old 17" big box one). His rez is 1024x768. I just realized that the new 24" monitor has a higher rez and the text will get even smaller!

How can I solve this? In the past, increasing the text size in xp pro has not worked well.

Since I heard that most lcds won't look good at small rez than they are recommending..I think I am stuck.

I used to run my 19" CRT at 1024 x 768, because of my bad eyes. However I can handle the native rez on the 24" LCD no problem. So he should be OK. I also think that this 24" LCD scales quite well, so you can run it as non-native resolutions such as 1440 x 900 or even 1280 x 800.

If you want the largest pixel size at native resolution, then a 19" LCD will give you large pixels. LCD TV's also have larger pixels.

That's true, I didn't think of that, LCD TVs do have very large pixels for their size.

Just a guess here, but if the previous monitor for your dad was a CRT, and not a very great one, then the extra clarity from LCD might make it okay. I remember for myself, the readability of text went up quite a bit when going from CRT->LCD, but then again, my eyes aren't that bad at close range... yet.

 

[WildViper]

Well I got the monitor delivered yesterday. Strange that it was not in better packing from Officemax. Oh well, it was ok.

The monitor is superb! Amazing to say the least. I am coming from a 17" CRT and this beast is simply awesome! I want another one now for my work.

Now, my video card can do the high rez, but at 100hz. While this monitor was stuck at 60Mhz for some reason. So when I do switch it to the highest rez, something strange happens.

First of all, the image is stretched beyond the monitor. So for me to get to the XP taskbar I have to scroll as if I am going off screen. Perhaps I have to adjust some other settings, but...before I do that...I have to solve another problem:

WHen I scroll down, the whole monitor flickers. So, I think this is cause of my videocard not being able to handle hirez at lower hz then 100hz???? Not sure.

I will post a review of the 24" once I have my system properly working.

Btw, I am using it at 1024x768 and it looks good. It actually is what I will keep it at for my dad.

So, should I buy the ATI 9600 Pro card mentioned earlier??

Thanx