Graphics Card for New LED Monitor

[americanswan]

I just bought a brand spanking new Samsung LED 23inch monitor. I need to stop using my "analog" on board graphics and use a digital graphics card.

Any suggestions?

I need a basic graphics card that can output DVI or HDMI. The monitor will never experience a 3D computer game. I just need a graphics card that will support the monitor and surf the web.

Thanks.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well, any dedicated card should do the trick.

What are you computer specs? We need to know if you have a PCI-E x16 slot available, as there is a good (but small) chance you don't or you only have an AGP or PCI slot.

 

[americanswan]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
Well, any dedicated card should do the trick.

What are you computer specs? We need to know if you have a PCI-E x16 slot available, as there is a good (but small) chance you don't or you only have an AGP or PCI slot.

Good question. I probably won't be much help. The computer is nearly four years old. It came with 512MB RAM. I upgraded to 1Gig just recently. The processor...I don't remember the Mhz ....the computer runs XP64 without a problem.

I must have a AGP slot, but I don't remember if it has PCI-E.

I think you're right, any "new" dedicated card should work. When looking at monitors, I didn't realize they used the NEW dvi cabling. I am used to the old (analog/serial) cabling. So I figure I need a cheap modern digital graphics card.

The main problem right now is the monitor complains the analog on board graphics doesn't support high enough pixel size for the monitor.

 

[americanswan]

Cheap? I'm expecting to spend about $80 on card. (I'm in South Korea)

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well you need to find out what slot you have before buying a card.

But any card you find that has a DVI output will work just fine. Just get the cheapest you can find, and make sure it's the correct slot (AGP or PCI-E x16).

 

[Sylvanas]

Get the latest CPU-Z which will tell you all the info you need about your CPU, motherboard and RAM. Then all you need to do is find a card. Anything on the lower end of this generation or the previous generation are a good place to start. So we are talking the Radeon 3450 or 4350, anything in that range will be cheap, silent and low power which is all you need (and will have all the appropriate inputs).

 

[cheesehead]

I think you mean "LCD," not LED (thought it might be an LCD with an LED backlight).

Just about anything will do - you could likely get a used high-end card from four or five years ago for under $40 that would work beautifully. Just look for a card compatible with your system (AGP or PCIe - usually one or the other will work) and a DVI port.

 

[IlllI]

whether it was led or not would have no relevance to what graphics card you should get

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: americanswan
The main problem right now is the monitor complains the analog on board graphics doesn't support high enough pixel size for the monitor.

First thing to do is figure out what the onboard video is, using GPU-Z as others suggested.

It is possible your video can support the monitor's native resolution, but that you need a newer driver to do so, or perhaps only to go into the video control panel and move a slider, click an option to set a custom resolution, or something like that.

As for buying new cards, assess whether your system has adequate airflow to use a passively cooled card as many in the low end don't have a fan on the heatsink. However if you aren't gaming the video card temps won't rise much, but some things not so obvious can cause 3D mode and a fair load like screensavers.

Figure out what kind of slot you have, and if a local business you like to shop at has a few alternatives within the desired price range, posting what those choices are (hopefully links to exact model online) might help someone suggest if a minor price difference is worthwhile... since you aren't gaming the desirable options might be heatsink as already mentioned, a newer model looking forward at operating system driver support for as long as possible, better video/movie acceleration, what type and # of outputs in case you ever need a new monitor again or eventually wanted to hook it up to a TV, etc.

If it uses an AGP slot, some of the oldest AGP cards with DVI output used a ADC chip IIRC, which would result in lower quality output. I'm talking about pretty old cards like the Geforce 3 or 4 era, but slightly newer than this could be a bargain if you find someone with a used card to sell, locally a friend, computer shop, or auction... providing it's not so old that limited driver support becomes an issue, we don't know how long you might want to use the card.