Looking for the CHEAPEST card with DVI (single, no dual needed) and passive cooling
- Thread starter glenn1
- Start date
Some fx5200s don't have fans. They're pretty cheap too. That's the only one that rings a bell at the moment
PeteRoy
Senior member
DVI 2D is not that big of an issue on quality. Either it can handle the res or it can't basically.
Its digital, you wont see much variance from one cards DVI output to another usually.
Besides in the lowend where you are looking you are sure to not find any super DVI or whatever. They are all going to be comparable for like $50.
And those should pump out as good DVI output as a $300 video card honestly. They are all single link besides the Quadros
I use 5200s for Dell PCs without AGP ports, and they work exceptional. Great DVI quality.
Looks same as my SLI 6800GTs do.
Its really more of an issue of bandwidth, and you should be good up to 1920x1200 on a 5200 thru DVI. Higher will require a dual link DVI port.
5200 is a great choice for what you are looking for. And you'll have a DX9 (albeit, slower in games) card to better accelerate Windows Longhorn.
It might not be a screamer in games (about like a Geforce3 for the 5200 Ultra), but its fast enough to be faster than a plain old DX8/7 card in Longhorn, I'd reckon.
GL
id go for a passively cooled 9600, im sure toms hardware did a test and showed that overall ATI's DVI out was of better quality than rival Nvidia cards
technically it did better.
in practice i dont believe they noted any visual differences
he said he wanted strong winxp drivers and they ran some tests here
http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=9412&head=1&comments=1
nothing you are prob going to notice in practice.. kinda like the DVI thing.. but i like to know a company pays attention to detail like Nvidia does.
Thats how you get those better load times, that pain in the butt coding session late at night.
As far as WinXP acceleration, Nvidia accelerates it all within the drivers. There is a noticable difference esp on slower rigs.
They did this right at the XP launch, it was impressive.
To give an example, on my old 1700+ when I used my 9800 Pro and dragged a window around fast, the rig would stutter a lot.
With a Geforce2MX, it was silky smooth. I was shocked.
Then I remember reading that NV press release from 2001 or so about optimizing ALL of the NV cards for Luna (Windows XP's GUI).
Im not sure ATI accelerates anything within the GUI at all from the way they perform.
Its not really a neccessity tho on higher end rigs. Just nice to know they are taking care of those little details that matter.
Esp when you move to Longhorn it will get alot more important to have at least DX9 and good GUI acceleration in the drivers.
DVI signal integrity IS going to matter with high resolution panels. NVidia's chips have their signal quality degrade when things go past ~130 MHz right at the source, and that's bad for 20" or larger.
Go with ATi. The lowest it goes for maximum-frequency DVI support WITHOUT signal integrity issues (unlike NVidia's chips) is the 9250SE; step up to the 9550SE for full DX9 support and better video overlay renderers. The 7000 does not support DVI past 1280x1024 if I remember correctly.
Go with ATi. The lowest it goes for maximum-frequency DVI support WITHOUT signal integrity issues (unlike NVidia's chips) is the 9250SE; step up to the 9550SE for full DX9 support and better video overlay renderers. The 7000 does not support DVI past 1280x1024 if I remember correctly.
ahh yes drivers...i missed that, cant go far worng with Nvidia then, IMO they have the best driver set, they load quicker, use less resources they do everything better than ATI's i have had both Drivers...and Nvidias are the best to me, got cool little features i can make use of, and when i want the control panel its there instantly...i remember ATis control panel taking forever to load
i have noticed the window dragging too, but doesnt seem to be there now, my 9500pro works silky smooth too in XP and games, but i still prefer Nvidia, the colours dont look as rich on Ati cards to me
On a strictly DIGITAL link, there's zero substance behind "colors don't look as rich". It's digital. Pixel brightness values are transferred as numerical values.
Besides, the "rich colors" thing with NVidia is actually the driver overdoing the contrast, aka "digital vibrance". Ask your local graphics designer about how that totally screws up color reproduction in favor of oooohhh-ing the normal user - very much like the Sony Trinitron CRT monitors did and still do.
Besides, the "rich colors" thing with NVidia is actually the driver overdoing the contrast, aka "digital vibrance". Ask your local graphics designer about how that totally screws up color reproduction in favor of oooohhh-ing the normal user - very much like the Sony Trinitron CRT monitors did and still do.
In practice you can't tell though, past the 130mhz. Unless you have super eyes, mine are 20/10 and I cant tell.
I dont think the signal integrity thing is as big as deal as having the best GUI optimized drivers for him considering this issue is one revealed thru "benchmarking" the DVI output.. instead of real world use differences.
stuman74
Senior member
- Oct 26, 1999
- 874
- 1
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I just got that Dell 1905FP display as well. I currently have an AIW 128 Pro (I know, it's old). It seems to work ok. I'm trying to assess if a DVI card would be that much better. I'd like to get an AIW card again (mostly for TV of course) and I don't really play games. Is the AIW 9700 good?
You'll be on the 130 MHz pixel clock mark when you're running a 1280x1024 panel. 1600x1200 panels are 162 MHz. NVidia drivers work around the issue a bit by letting you run the panel on reduced refresh rate, to push the pixel frequency back down into the window where the signal quality is still "good enough".
If the signal integrity issue strikes, you don't get a picture AT ALL, or nasty jumps and twitches as the display fails to sync up with the poor signal. I've seen that happen with 5200 cards often enough, even on 1024x768 panels where the signal frequency hardly is 100 MHz. This problem exists, and has been demonstrated in both measurement and effect by numerous website. This isn't a superficial issue that can be debated away - unlike load times of control panel software and somesuch. How often do you think that will be used? Once? Twice? Never again after installation?
Why put up with inferior output quality when there are alternatives that plain and straightforward WORK?
stuman74
Senior member
- Oct 26, 1999
- 874
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- 81
It's a custom connector that goes to their breakout cable, which has all the VIVO plugs. You can see the cable in photo number "4" on Newegg (it's the one in the middle).
Note that there is NO DVI output on the R9600 AIW. It has dual VGA outputs. The 9000/9200/9800 AIW cards have a single DVI output (but no dual-monitor support).
I would recommend a standalone TV tuner. This lets you upgrade the tuner later (for instance, to an HDTV tuner), and if you decide to get a new video card, you won't lose the tuner functionality.
If you want TV stuff, maybe. The original poster wan't big on games. The GF4MX-4000 is basic, but will handle a *little* 3D OK. But it's reliable, decent output, and dirt cheap. Like I said, a lousy $20-30.
Many would recommend a nice video card and a good TV tuner like the Happauge 250 (forget the exact name.) It's got better quality than the AIW series and more (and more reliable) features. Most importantly, you won't have to buy expensive All-in-Wonder cards every time you upgrade. A decent card plus the PVR-250 is almost equal in cost, but far better in function.
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