Inexpensive 2D/light 3D card

[TXvhp]

I am looking for advice on a cheap card to replace my trusty Vodoo Banshee. System is Intel 815 chipset mb/pIII 933/512 mb generic PC133 SDRAM/Gateway 17" CRT monitor. Obviously, games are not a concern Well, maybe DT Sprint Car Racing. What I am looking for is good 2D quality, and I really like the idea of DVI as I will eventually get a LCD monitor. Been considering the Radeon 7500 or maybe a 440MX based card. All suggestions are appreciated!

 

[sechs]

A Matrox card would be a good choice; I don't know of any cheap ones with DVI, however.

ATi would probably be a the next manufacturer of choice. You should be able to pick up a Radeon or better card with DVI-I.

 

[spanky]

i think the 7500 is a good choice

 

[rbV5]

I'd look at a Radeon 9000, has the DVI you want for when you need it and a great bargain, fully DX8.1 in hardware as well.

 

[rogue1979]

Radeon 9000 is cheap, has superior 2D, and as a bonus it can do serious gaming. While not considered a "heavy hitter", it overclocks nicely and plays games smoothly at higher resolutions.

 

[Shah4u]

I think geforce 4 Mx 440 is the best choice

Coz it has digital vibrance control feature

Mean great colors in both 2d and 3d

And 2d games looks very beautifull and color full if u enable Digital vibrance control

It also has very good 3d gaming speed

I really think u will like it when playing 2d games with it

Or other wise Geforce 2 MX 400 will also be good choice for 2d gaming coz it has digital vibrance control feature and quite a reasonable 3d speed if ur not a hardcore gamer u will find this card very good.I have used this card for a whole 7 months and with Digital vibrance set on high very color full games on my neo-geo roms which are 2d games with very nice speed almost 200fps when enables trbo mode in winkawasak emulator for neo-geo.Plus it has a very low price and high performence in 3dmark 2001se almost 2500-3000

I am currently using Geforce 3 ti 500

U can view my system rigs at following
http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=20933

 

[Peter]

Digital Vibrance Control, eh? Just a new marketing buzzword ... for nothing more than gamma correction. That's been there for ages, in practically any post-1997 graphics chip.

 

[rogue1979]

Digital Vibrance is just a fancy word for gamma, color and brightness correction. Any decent video card from ATI or Nvidia can get the same results. If you already have a Geforce4 MX440 it will do a good job. However, if your are buying new, there is only $10 difference between the MX440 and the Radeon 9000.
The 9000 is much faster when overclocked to 9000 Pro levels, fully supports DirectX 8.1 hardware, and has better 2D and 3D image quality. When you add the DVI connection, the 9000 can be had for $71 shipped and the MX440 goes for (cough) $77! Also when you are using a quality LCD monitor the DVI option on Nvidia cards makes little improvement over the analog connection. The hardware specs on the DVI intput are not up to par with ATI's. This is a known issue with Geforce 2 and Geforce 3 chipsets, perhaps Nvidia corrected the shortcoming on the Geforce 4, since I don't have one I can't comment on that.