What is the cheapest card I can get with decent video-out?

[The Sauce]

All recommendations welcome.

 

[Athlon4all]

Prolly an ATi Rage 128 Pro card with TV out or even a Matrox G400/G450/G550. You'd have to look, but rest assured, you want to avoid nVidia cards for TV out.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Be sure to get "built by ATI" not "powered by ATI" which is made by someone else and could have a lower-quality TV-out than a real ATI card. newegg.com has a bunch of cheap ATI cards.

 

[busmaster11]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Be sure to get "built by ATI" not "powered by ATI" which is made by someone else and could have a lower-quality TV-out than a real ATI card. newegg.com has a bunch of cheap ATI cards.

Like to a TV? I'd try a Radeon DDR, Built By ATI. Anything older than that's not worth your time.

 

[ProviaFan]

A Radeon VE "built by ATI" would probably be the best bet. I think you can find them for around $50 or sometimes less. They also have good dual monitor support, but the 3D acceleration is not the best. However, you really can't complain considering the price and the image quality. (note, however, that the image quality of "powered by ATI" cards is often significantly less than desirable)

 

[McCarthy]

Hmm, a different idea entirely. You asked about video out, not gaming performance. This has a nice TV out from what I've read, gaming performance is outdated, but if you're into video watching that doesn't matter. Also, no whiney fan to add noise/collect dust.

ECS AG315T

Specs: 64MB, SiS315 AGP 4x 256-bit 3D Graphics Accelerator. Up to 166MHz 3D engine/memory clock. DVD Motion Compensation Decoder and Video Accelerator. Supports up to 20Mbit/sec bit rate decoding Direct DVD to TV playback. 24-bit true-color RAMDAC, 375MHz pixel clock, resolution up to 2048x1536 64k colors 75Hz.

$37 at newegg (where I ripped the specs from)

Review 1

Review 2

Review 3

Review 4

ECS info page for AG315T

Unfortunately most reviews key on Quake III benchmarks and only mention the TV out or other aspects of a card.

DAPUNISHER's comments here on his

Another thread about it here

And finally this short post

Seems like an ideal card for a video watching system. I'm planning to get one for my spare box just for that since I never game on it. Right now stringing my Canopus Total 3D along a bit longer though.

--Mc

 

[The Sauce]

Yah, that's great info. This is just for my GF who only wants to be able to use her computer in bed (lazy byatch)...and has a 15 inch monitor. Just need to output to her tv so she can surf from across the room.

 

[Morph]

NewEgg has an AGP Radeon 7000 w/ tv-out for around 35 bucks.

 

[bluemax]

Hope she gets regular excercise so she doesn't turn into a 5'X" pile of goop. Surfing from bed... yeesh.

In all seriousness, text quality is still only so-so even with the best TV out. She'll find that web browsing or word processing will be quite hard on the eyes, unless the font size is incredibly large.

 

[virusag11]

Most GF2MX400 cards have video outs that work well. My buddy uses a card based of this chipset and his video out is pretty damn good.

I use a Built By ATI AIW Radeon 8500 and it looks great on the video out.