PCI Video Card Suggestions?

[kjmcdonald]

I'm building a new system.

I haven't made up my mind whether to get a GF3 ti500 or wait
until Jan-Feb and get a NV25 based card.

Either way, I planned to have a second PCI Video card in the
machine anyway, and seeing as how I need one to put the thing
together and test it, I thought I'd start with the PCI one
and make up my mind on the AGP one later.

I'd like to get a PCI board that has alot of the features I
may not find on the GF3 or NV25. Those most likely will be
available with TV out but I'd also like to have video in at
least, and a TV tuner if possible. 32MB would be cool but
16MB is probably enough. I'd love a price around $50 but I
suppose I could go to $100 if it most of the features - I'd
rather save my money for the AGP board later.

Anyone have any Ideas?

I also have questions on the DVD accelerator boards I see around.
Most(All?) use a VGA pass through. How well does that work? I'm
guessing that the pass through this doesn't work with DVI huh?
Some of these boards have TV out also. Can they send the DVD to
the TV full screen without also putting out on VGA port to the
monitor? Do I Have to pass a VGA signal through to make it work?
or Can I hook it up to the TV only?

Lastly are there any PCI Video boards like I've described above
that also have this HW DVD decoders??

Thanks for the Help!

-Kyle

 

[kjmcdonald]

Bump! BTT

 

[Davegod]

most of the higher end boards like GF3Ti's and ATI's have TV out anyway (including my Creative GF3ti200, even tho it didnt say it did hmm). TV Tuner cool but theyre usually seperate card to teh vid one i think. seriously considering a tv tuner myself cos here in UK u can get all the free digital TV channels on it

and really, theres no point i can think of in having a good pci card as well as a good agp card, get some cheapo peice of poo PCI card and get the best AGP card u can.

 

[So]

I agree with davegood, I doubt you will find a PCI based video card that has the features you want. The only card that comes to mind that would really fit what you are looking for in one piece of hardware is the ATI all in wonder (which hasn't been out in PCI form for some time IIRC) or some of the older NVIDIA based cards (I think there was one of the very early GF2s that had TVin, but it ceratinly didn't come in PCI form). If you are going for the features you mentioned, you will probably have to compromise, either get the features you want in AGP form, or get a TV tuner card + a cheap PCI video card. It is a shame that they don't (to my knowledge) make such a card, for I would probably jump on it if it was reasonably priced.

Who knows, maybe you'll stumble across exactly what you're looking for, or maybe some other intrepic Anandtecher will know of it. Anyway, good luch in your search for the right card.

As for the AGP card - that is a real dilemma, I got a GF3 in july, but who knows - NV25 may be a great leap forward but then again, it may not. If you are going to be desperately missing your games for a month or two I would just get the AGP card now.

Like I said, good luck, and enjoy your new system!

 

[SilverBack]

From the way the rumors are going there won't be a NV25 until near the end of May.

As far as your needs. Asus makes very good products under thier "Deluxe" series of cards.
They have video in and out. They can capture video as well.
To get a tuner you would need to get a nVidia Personal Cinema.

That should really satisfy anything you need to do!

 

[kjmcdonald]

Hi.

Davegod, So, SilverBack, thanks for the info.

What would really solve my problem is if they would just make
a motherboard with 2 AGP slots

Yeah I guess what I'm looking for is like a PCI All in Wonder.
Too bad they don't make them anymore I wasn't really looking
for spectacular 3D or anything. I think I have another free PCI
slot so maybe I will go with 2 cards. I was already thinking of
a second card for the HW DVD decoder though. Can I get that and
the TVtuner together? I don't think I have room for 3 PCI cards


So, about being away from my games for afew months... I don't
even have a machine at all right now. I thinkit's been 8 years
since I had a PC.

Did anyone have any answers to my DVD card questions??

It's too bad about the NV25 being pushed out till May. Oh well,
that'll be right about when I get my tax return

You know it's a shame the MB's dont' have ISA slots much anymore
I think I still have a 1MB ISA VGA card around here somewhere
just kidding...

-Kyle

 

[So]

I don't claim to be any expert on DVD decoding setups (I don't even have a DVD drive, admittedly) - but to my knowledge, you probably won't find hardware DVD decoding combined with a TV tuner on one card. You might, however, find some sort of PCI Video card w/ harware DVD decoding - i.e. an old ATI card (I am pretty sure that they don't make any Radeon's for PCI slots either) - I think only ATI has included real hardware DVD decoding on a video card, other companies have made efforts to include someting, but I don't know how well they work. Hopefully someone else can be more helpful w/ the dvd decoding, so good luck.

 

[kjmcdonald]

Thanks again So, I think I figured it out.

For now I think I'll get the cheapest 16MB PCI card I can find.
And I'm going to try to get Nvidia's Personal Cinema that was
linked to above. It lookslike the Personal Cinema does Tv
tuning, recording, Video digitizing, editing, *and* HW DVD
acceleration. Cool huh?

I can live with that for now, and then when the NV25 comes out
I think I'll get one of those and ditch the PCI video card.
(I've heard rumors that at least one of NV25 cards will have
dual DVI connections) The second monitor is all I really wanted
the PCI card for anyway, I just thought it'd be a good way to
get some of the other features while I was at it. The personal
cinema looks like it has everything but the framebuffer, and
if I'm lucky the NV25 wil have 2 of it's own so I'll be all set.



-Kyle

 

[kjmcdonald]

Actually, Does anyone know where I can find more info on the
Nvidia Personal Cinema? The website didn't give too many details.
Has this been reviewed anywhere?

-Kyle

 

[ElFenix]

if you're getting a new system you needn't worry about hardware dvd decoding unless new is really "new to me." any processor over about 500MHz can decode dvds themselves no problem. tv out comes on most of your good geforce cards (my leadtek tdh, for example, need to go blue pricematch that thing on the 29th.) ati makes some pci cards with quite a few features, definitely look into those.


i'm running a pci voodoo3 2k for my second monitor. actually i decided it was annoying, so i hooked that monitor back up to the other computer at my desk. use it to find strategies while playing games and such.

 

[Salvador]

Definitely a ATI Radeon card IMO. It's up to you if you want the AIW features. The Radeon is a great card and I might end up dumping my GeForce3 for one if I can't get this lousy 2d problem worked out.

Sal

 

[brianp34]

If you're talking about using this thing as secondary card, aren't you limited as to what features (hw dvd decoding etc) that will be available on your primary monitor? I guess it wouldn't matter much if you were using two identical monitors, but if you wanted to use a smaller one for the secondary monitor, you'd have to change the primary display adapter in the bios to make the PCI primary and hook the primary monitor up to it to use those features. Like ElFenix said though, you shouldn't be concerned with a dedicated hardware decoder card, in my experience the quality they give hasn't been up to par with a good video card. The radeon's definately handle DVD beautifully, and the tv out on the one i'm using is good as well. The drivers, like most people will tell you, are definately a problem. I've had a great deal of trouble with both beta releases and official releases under 98 and xp. Just something to consider.

brian