Low power, low profile video card?

[ddrueding]

I'm looking for a low-power, PCI-E video card with 1x DVI out. If it was low-profile as well, that would be great. Video quality of VGA @ 1600x1200 just...sucks. I'd would be great if it was an nVidia chipset, as it needs to play well with the on-board 6100 (driving the projector @ 1024x768).

Right now I'm looking at an MSI 6200TC (128MB on-board).

I figure I can just disconnect the VGA portion.

Thoughts?

 

[MaxBurn]

last month I bought an XFX geforce 6200 (AGP) that looks damn similar to what you have pictured there and I am doing 1600x1200@60hz to a syncmaster 204b and it looks very good, this is on the VGA port. I am also using a 25ft VGA extension and a KVM switch on that line. I noticed a pretty good increase in display quality from an old matrox card I had in there, but overall text is pretty sharp.

On another computer I am using DVI to the same monitor and I can just barely see a sharpness increase now, that used to be very noticeable on the matrox card. So bad that I initially bought this geforce for its DVI port to switch everything over to DVI all the way through. After I swapped the card though it brought things up to a level that is acceptable.

Initially I had the same concerns that I think you do about that ribbon cable on the VGA port lowering video quality, but I guess it depends on what your upgrading from. I think eventually I will go all DVI as I wish gratuitous violence on my KVM for the crap it deals me with its USB.

 

[ddrueding]

Actually, I only need the DVI port. I was planning on getting rid of the VGA plug and ribbon cable to help airflow. This is a very crowded SFF system (see sig), and I don't want to impede anything.

 

[MaxBurn]

Are you actually going to use the DVI or just use a VGA adapter? I guess full digital you can't go wrong but to me it looks as if the analog out isn't to bad at all.

 

[ddrueding]

I actually want DVI for my new LCD monitor (21.3" 1600x1200). I've been using DVI on LCD for about 3 years now; and I can see the difference pretty easily.

 

[Computer Generated Baby]

Another candidate is the Matrox Millennium P650 LP PCIe 64. If you put the full ATX slot bracket on, it will do 2 DVI ports instead of 1 DVI port with the standard low-profile slot bracket. It can provide 1920 x 1200 to either one or two digital monitors (LCD) or 1920 x 1440 two analogue or 2048 x 1536 one analogue monitor. I suspect this low-profile P650 video card is NOT bargain-priced like the MSI card (US$39). But, if you need excellent 2-D performance (zoom, scroll, pan, etc) and / or excellent analogue clarity, this would be a simple choice.



http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pid/products/pseries/p650lppcie.php

 

[ddrueding]

Very tempting CGB; I wonder how much heat it produces, whether it really needs that noisy-looking fan...

 

[Computer Generated Baby]

Very tempting CGB; I wonder how much heat it produces, whether it really needs that noisy-looking fan...

In comparison to the AGP versions, the all the various PCI Express versions of the P-series graphics cards seem to have the fan and what seems to be a smaller heatsink. I would say -- yes -- they need the fan. But, I haven't definitively heard of them being noisy. An aftermarket heatpipe contraption could be in order.

By the way, if 1 or 2 monitors aren't enough, Matrox also has a QUAD monitor version of that low-profile card:


http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pid/products/qid/qidlppcie.php