onboard DVI

[Aganack1]

Are we going to see any onboard video that uses an DVI port? My office is considering switching to sff pc's, but all the barebones come only with 15 Pin D-Sub connectors. My boss is a convinced that DVI makes an absolute difference, but he doesn't want to put in extra money for a separate video card.

 

[littlebitstrouds]

I wouldn't be surprised if this happened soon. This would be a selling option for many people, they can't overlook it much longer.

 

[WalkingDead]

if you are using an Asus nForce 1/2 IGP board, for $20 from newegg you can get any addin board that adds the DVI and S-video out.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Some Shuttle XPCs have a DVI dongle driven by the onboard video chip (provided that model has onboard video, of course).

-SUO

 

[foofoo]

my new work pc (from mpc, formerly micron pc) (p4-30.c, 1gbddr400, etc) came with an intel motherboard which has built in video and a little agp card that puts out dvi. it's only $20 extra for tha card. so it's already here.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Aganack1
Are we going to see any onboard video that uses an DVI port? My office is considering switching to sff pc's, but all the barebones come only with 15 Pin D-Sub connectors. My boss is a convinced that DVI makes an absolute difference, but he doesn't want to put in extra money for a separate video card.

I know the SFF zealots are going to hunt me down and kill me for saying this, but I'd recommend that you build normal industry-standard systems out of high-quality parts, if you're going to be building them yourself. I'll even supply a proven recipe: click here and add the $20 DVI-out card or get a $35 Radeon 7000 AGP card with DVI-out and 32MB of its own RAM. If you're going to use WinXP Pro, boost the RAM to at least 384MB.

I agree that at higher resolutions, DVI is a noticable improvement over onboard VGA-out or even a separate card's VGA-out. I've got a Planar 17.4" LCD that has both DVI and VGA inputs, and I hooked it up to my Radeon 7500 by both DVI and VGA simultaneously and toggled between them. The difference is easy to notice without even trying.

edit: if you don't feel that the trusty A7N266-VM/AA is modern enough for you, check out the A7N8X-VM or the new A7N8X-VM/400. But so far I'm 30 for 30 on our A7N266-VM/AA's, and with a 2400+ they're pretty fast for the money.