Which card should I buy?

[moosey]

this is for a LCD flat panel with DVI. So the DVI output would be used. The system would not be for gaming and at most it would play DVDs. It would mainly be used for regular things like Internet and typing. I hear that if DVI is used the image quality on all card is the same. Which of these would you recommend?
1. ATI Radeon VE
2. ATI Radeon 7500
3. GeForce 2 MX with DVI

 

[Daovonnaex]

Radeon 7500 without question.

 

[Rand]

If it's not being used for gaming then I'd go with the Radeon VE over the Radeon 7500. The R7500 does have marginally better 2D though.
Either would seem to be far preferable over the MX for your uses.

 

[tracert]

The Radeon VE can be gotten for a much better price then the 7500 and works great Hardware wise. Just be sure to buy the Retail version and not a "Powered by" version.

I got sucked into buying an OEM and am hating it now. I use Win2K and the drivers wont work to play some games with Hardware acceleration. I am not into 3D gaming much but I do play Age of Empires II and the like. With the OEM, Radeon will only allow use of their "Reference Drivers" which are terrible (Edited here ---> I was incorrect in this statement! New Beta Driver 6018 works great!) . I have to completely disable Hardware Acceleration just so my system wont crash during an AOE game. I am thinking of downgrading to WinME just so I can get my Video Card to work. I have been looking at the possibility of selling this one and buying a retail one or a MX card.

Edited Here too -----> My mood has completely changed 180 from this after some new Drivers, sorry to flop around so much but now I am loving this card. It is amazing what new drivers can do.

 

[chibchakan]

<< Radeon 7500 without question. >>

 

[Mustanggt]

If your not going to be playing games then you dont need to spend extra money on 7500, get the Radeon VE or look around for a regular radeon DDR , I picked up a used one for $45

 

[Wolfsraider]

tracert
I have been looking at the possibility of selling this one and buying a retail one or a MX card.

a gforce mx imho you wont like.

i got one in a retail computer purchase ,the color was good but absolutely worthless for gaming or dvd.
i put it in my little girls computer p-3 866 512 ram win xp/ 98 dual boot etc

they couldn't play most of their games bcause it locked up or stuttered really bad and dvd had green dots (squares) all over.

i updated the drivers alot trying to get it stable enough for age of empires their favorite game even 98 did not like that one

they have a ati 128 pro now and no problems

my best friend has the radeon ve and he got it retail at bestbuy that thing keeps up fine with my radeon all in one wonder but i didnt know there was a difference except he paid $99.00 for his and the web lists 58.00 and up oem though i think

thanks for that info and i would recomend retail as he has not had any problems except madded 2002 sometimes a football player doesn't have a head on performance setting lol

 

[tracert]

Thanks for the info, H.A.

I think I will be trying to see if I can find a retail version of this card. Too bad I can't find out a way to flash the bios to a retail. This card would have been a perfect card for me except for the fact that I can't get the drivers worked out. I will start looking for a retail version and sell this one. I liked it becuse it had video out and two monitor outputs.

Edited here ------> Again, with the new Driver everything works great.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

The Radeon 7500 is an overclocking beast. I've got mine stable at 330/300 (600 MHz effective) without mods or special cooling, that's up from 290 / 230 stock!!! That's ~ 14% overclock on the core and a 30% overclock (!) on the memory.

Now I know some peole will say that 3dmark is synthetic and useless but my score is roughly 12% higher than a GF2 Ultra on a similarly configured system! DVD playback is quite simply stunning. *end rave*


If you do not game at all, however, the Radeon VE will do just fine, I imagine the DVD quality will be just as nice.

-Ice

 

[Willoughbyva]

Tracert:
I just got a Radeon 7500 and was looking for some drivrs for it. Have you checked out http://www.rage3d.com/ they were saying something about OEM drivers from power cooler or something.

Also http://www.omegacorner.com/ati.htm

Good luck with it.

Will

 

[tracert]

Willoughbyva,

Thanks for the help, I have the card made by Joytech, and when I try to use a driver from another Manufacturer or try to use the Retail versions, I get an error message. The only driver I can use seem to be the "Reference" Drivers (Edited here------> I was incorrect with this statement, the new driver works great). Does anyone here know of a possible way I can get a bios update or get a copy of the actual driver files so I can do a *.inf install? Let me know.

I created another topic for this issue, please follow this Link.

 

[tracert]

Wanted to let everyone know that the new Beta Driver 6018 took care of all my problem. I couldn't make the card crash after these. 2D is very pretty too. I am completely happy with even the OEM card now.

I wish I had not been so harsh in my previous post, but you know how it is when you can't get something to work like you think it should. Very frustrating. All I can say is I am very happy with this Radeon VE now.