Video Card Q's

[Village00idiot]

I am building a new computer for the first time and I would like to get some things cleared up about video cards (keep in mind I am a newbie). I am definitely going to get a GeForce and probably a GeForce 2 Pro 64 MB. I know that this chipset is made into cards by a bunch of different companies. Visiontek, Asus, PNY, Elsa, Inno3D, Power Color, MSI, LeadTek... and probably many more. I was wondering what is the difference if any between these brands. I'm thinking all of the cards look different and are priced differently so some have to be better than others. I want to know which of these companies is the best when it comes to the GeForce. In terms of the GeForce 2 Pro 64MB, two companies stand out as having the lowest prices and the are MSI and Power Color. Which one is better? Are they both bad? Are they both the same along with all of the other brands? This has been troubling me for a while and I hope I can get some of this cleared up. Any input at all that any of you can give me would be helpful and appreciated.

 

[SilverBack]

Actually all the Geforce cards are pretty similar. Many use the main reference design with only cosmetic diferences. There are some with TV-Out or a few different features, but on the average the cards are very much alike. On the lower end cards ( MX ) memory speed can be different as well as stock clock speed.

The MSI vid card would do you well.
eVga puts out a very good card also.

Mine? A VisionTek GF3.

 

[bevancoleman]

Most cheap cards are based of Nvidia referance design, so none of them are bad. However there are defintly brands that are better.

I have a Power Colour Geforce 2MX, it run great.
MSI has a repritation of producting good m'boards, there video card also seem to be reasonable.

Both of the above compaines use referance design, generally a company that makes there own design also make a better design (no point designing a new board if it's worse).

The main diferance between the boards is TV-out, duel output, etc. The bigest diferance in terms of 3d performance is memory speed. The memory and core speed are also what what makes a board a Pro/Ultra/GTS (ignore the name in the title, some manufactures fib a little)