What is a good Basic Video Card

[P5-133XL]

I just scanned your system over the Internet. It looks like you need to update your ATI Catalyst drivers. :lol:

Funny that. My machines all run Matrox video adaptors. Either that or Matrox. Or some of them have Matrox cards. Maybe that's my problem - running the ATI Catalyst Windows drivers on my Matrox cards. Damn fine operating system, OS/2 - I have 16.7 million colours at 1280 x 1024 and it seems that I'm running a Windows driver for an ATI card on an ECS system with a G-450! Now that is what I call compatibility!

You really need to start selling 3rd party machines: Your current builder sucks. You know like HP, or Compaq: They know how to build a machine "Right". Ask anyone here - They'll do a better job than that (Maybe?).

 

[Jake the Dog]

as good as HP and Compaq are, surely the best of the best must be; Packard Bell?

 

[Mercutio]

Did you try reseating the cards or anything else that would emulate replacing the card with the exact same card.

Good gods yes! Reseating cards, adding fans, swapping one card for one with the same nvidia chip. Changing drivers. Changing RAM. Changing power supplies. I actually have a few nvidia cards I haven't thrown away. All of them pulls from other PCs - so I really don't know if any of them work - but I have 2 GF2MXs, a bunch of Vantas, a GF2 Ultra and a GF4MX 440 (to be fair: a student just brought that one to me and said that it's broken... it's sitting in my box of oddities at work).

 

[CougTek]

The Sapphire 9100 Pro 64MB here is $315, a bit expensive. I haven't seen a Sapphire non-Pro yet.

You must be kidding me! I can have the exact same card (Sapphire Atlantis 9100 64MB) for a mere 108$CDN here. The 128MB version goes for 138$CDN too and Fush saw the 128MB for 82U$. I just can't believe the same card sells for 315AU$. It's a rip off! I know AU$ worth less than U$ and even a bit less than $CAN, but the conversion difference cannot explain alone such a huge price disparity. Shipping to your remote island either.

 

[Tea]

It'z not "remote". It'z right here. Everyehere elze iz remote.

 

[time]

Coug, he said Pro. I don't have a price on one, but I imagine it would be quite a lot more than the standard 9100.

Plus, I believe James is talking retail prices (not wholesale), and including 10% sales tax?

 

[CougTek]

AFAIK, there's no Pro or non-Pro version of the 9100. It's just sold under a 64MB or a 128MB configuration, with the memory of the 64MB version clocked 30MHz higher than the one on the 128MB version.

The 9100 "Pro" James saw was probably only a typo, done by someone thinking too hard to the 9000 lineup.

 

[time]

I consider you an expert in these matters, Coug, so that would explain why it's not on my pricelist.

As a guide, I think a Sapphire 9100 64MB should sell for AU$175-185 (incl tax).

 

[CougTek]

I consider you an expert in these matters, Coug,

Shit, see what you've done? I'm stuck in my computer room, head no longer passes through the door opening.

While still a tad on the expensive side, 175AU$ would make more sense. Prices in canuck land are generally around 5-10% higher than in the States, while prices in wallaby land are well above 20% of what they are in the States IIRC from the last time I did some price comparison with Tony and you. For instance, the 128MB 9100 cost 82U$ and 138$CAN (91U$). 138MO$ (moose $) worth more or less 155$KA. Add anything between 15-20% to this and that should be a good approximation of the lowest price you should be able to find for these. So I would expect the 128MB version to cost somewhere around 185$KA, without taxes (how much are your taxes?).

Apply same logic for the 64MB version. ==> ~145$KA before taxes.

 

[time]

10%.

You're right though, the difference does seem too great for such a small item (shipping down under is an issue with larger items).

As another comparison, a Gainward MX440 is down to about US$53 (AU$90 ex tax wholesale), and I've seen a Hightech MX440 for US$41. Which is why I don't think MX400 is worth US$38.

 

[James]

Not to be annoying here, but what, what, what is the difference between all the different ATI models?! Even the sites I go to for their love of feature tables (Anand, Tom) don't really seem to be clear on it. Plus it's hard to map it back into what I'm familiar with (ie Nvidia card speeds).

 

[Mercutio]

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

My simpleton answer is that higher numbers tend to be faster, except that there's a singularity for values between 8500 and 9100.

Radeon 7x00s tend to be a little faster than GF2 MXs.
Radeon 8500s are in the same league with GF3s or GF4 MXs. The 9000, 9000 Pro and 9100 are slightly less complex cards that are roughly equivalent in performance. coug says the 8500 is still the good one. Whatever. I got three extra 3fps comparing a 8500DV (slower than a normal 8500) to a 9000Pro.
Radeon 9500s compete fairly well with Geforce4s, and are basically down-clocked 9700s.
9700s are superior to GF4s and arguably compete with GFFXs.

ATI has several different revisions of a card. Rather than trying to remember all the differences, I just try to remember that "Pro" cards usually have faster RAM and cost more money, while LE or VE are both used for "budget" models.
Nvidia does the same thing, with "ultra" and "titanium" and so on.

7x00 cards are passively cooled, as are some 8500s, 9000s and 9000 Pros. Almost every nvidia card I've seen in the last couple of years has a fan on it, so I count this as a plus.

While I'm at it, ATI cards pretty much all do hardware DVD decoding and have the best TV-out of any card currently available (including Matrox). Video in on ATI cards is a couple notches above everything else I've seen, and I've got a pretty good collection of vidcap hardware.

 

[CougTek]

James,

For an explanation about the differences between the various Radeon 9000 and 9000 Pro, I suggest you to read this comparative article at X-bit Laboratories. They compare the performances of the Radeon 9000 varaint to the Radeon 8500 and a GeFarce 3Ti200.

About the Radeon 8500 and 9100 :

The Radeon 9100 is a renamed 8500

And in this old article, again at X-bit, it is written that :

Taking into consideration that currently RADEON 8500 LE cards have appeared in the market (they differ from ATI RADEON 8500 by lower price and lower frequencies, working at 250MHz/250MHz vs. 275MHz/275MHz of the regular RADEON 8500), we decided underclock our RADEON 8500 and to test it at the working frequencies of RADEON 8500 LE, i.e. at 250MHz/250MHz.

The new Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9100 uses the same chip as the older Radeon 8500 (R200), but (upon verification) at slightly lower frequencies.

To sum it up :

Radeon 7500 and lower : Radeon 256 core with thinner manufacturing process compared to the original Radeon DDR. Significantly slower than RV250 and above. DirectX 7 support.

Radeon 9000 64MB & 128MB : RV250, 250MHz core, 200MHz DDR RAM
Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB & 128MB : RV250, 275MHz core, 275MHz DDR RAM
Radeon 8500LE 64MB & 128MB : R200, 250MHz core, 250MHz DDR RAM
Radeon 8500 128MB retail : R200, 275MHz core, 275MHz DDR RAM
Radeon 9100 64MB : R200, 250MHz core, 230MHz DDR RAM
Radeon 9100 128MB : R200, 250MHz core, 200MHz DDR RAM
RV250 and R200 chip support DirectX 8.1

Radeon 9500 and above : R300 core, much more advanced chipset. DirectX 9 support.

I also found this that could help you figure out the differences of the slower Radeon cards.

 

[James]

Thanks.

Merc,

"Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes"

Not necessarily - perhaps the discussion that followed was more of interest than the original question, and thus it wasn't answered.


Thanks Coug. Is there much difference in the video encoding capabilities of the various AIWs?

 

[Mercutio]

The answer to that question is "it depends".

Everything between the original Rage AIW and the 9000 Pro VIVO uses the same Rage Theater chip for video encoding. My Rage VIVO is as capable as my AIW7500 as my 8500DV.

The difference between those cards then comes down to the number and quality of video inputs and outputs. Only the 8500DV+ can do component output, for instance, and the Rage AIW has SVideo output but not input. Of course, these differences can make a difference in picture quality, but in general, the work the card is doing is the same.

The *other* difference is that the newer cards, those based on the 7500, 8500 and 9000, can use a newer version of ATI's multimedia center software. The older version is utterly functional, but missing the "One Touch Record" feature that allows for flexible recording and scheduling (e.g. if your recording needs to be 10 minutes longer, you can add a little more time to the session). The old MMC 7.1 also lacks skins, but most of the skins for ATI's software are pretty ugly. No loss there.

The 9700AIW's big advantage isn't in terms of recording quality, but that it's got enough horsepower to do other things while a recording session is running. I can watch a DVD (ATI cards are hardware decoders) and cap at the same time, or watch off on input and record on the other.
Subjectively, the quality of caps on the 9700 might be a little better, but that have more to do with the huge wad of cash I forked over to get one.

 

[e_dawg]

Ah, ATI. My AIW 128 has given me extreme Rage on numerous occasions in the past with putrid drivers and MMC software in both W98 and W2k. I avoided vid capture entirely in W98 and W2k for fear of hard lockups and the TV tuner function wouldn't work properly with current versions of the MMC and driver in W2k. Basically, it was completely useless as an All in One card. Apart from that, however, it was very stable with the W2k install CD drivers in non video/TV situations.

I now use the nForce onboard video (64-bit GF2MX); the biggest thing I miss about ATI is the 1152x864 resolution setting

 

[LiamC]

I thought this thread interesting for many reasons. I have been hearing and hearing about ATi's image clarity and (early) NVIDIA's lack of, so I picked up a Sapphire Radeon 7000 VE 64MB (DDR) for 2D work in my wife's computer. She does Graphic Design work. The monitor is a Mitubishi 19" Diamondtron NF (aperture grill). The card cost AUS$69.

To test ATi out, I shut down, removed the Herc GeForce2 64MB and installed the ATi. Rebooted and installed the latest catalyst drivers.(3.1??)

So far so good. Everything works fine and I could immediately see the brighter colours and sharper text (1152 x 864 @ 100Hz). Yep, the 2D is better - very good in fact. So far I'm happy and think that for the price, this is a very good 2D card for the money. I'll keep you posted of any glitches...

 

[honold]

it may also be observed that 3-year old tomatoes taste worse than new tomatoes i don't get these comparisons, guys. geforce2/3 are ANCIENT. if you want an image quality reference, use a geforce4.

 

[blakerwry]

good point, however lots of people have and still use geforce2 and 3's on a daily basis. These people might wonder whether it would be worth it to upgrade to a ATi card...

epecially the people LiamC described... people who don't require 3D, but do need good image quality... thus they're buying "lower" end video cards, but still need something made with quality.

 

[honold]

that's a good point to make too. i think any modern nvidia or ati solution will be better than whatever they're already running in terms of speed/image quality (unless they're using matrox and don't care about speed).

 

[time]

I agree with Honold.

When I did a quick quality comparison between two MX440 cards and a Radeon VE 7000, I couldn't detect any obvious difference at 1152x864 or even 1280x1024. Of course, I was not trying this with a 19" Diamondtron.

 

[CougTek]

Radeon 7000 is an old design, based on an older GPU. Same generation than many GeFarce 3 in fact. Besides, there are still some GF3-based cards sold as new. And there are also many GF2MX still sold in modern systems, so IMO, the comparison still stands as valid.

Comparing the 2D clarity of a GeFarce 4Mx 440 to the one of a Radeon 7000, for instance, is much like comparing the 2D of a Radeon 9000 to the one of a GF2MX. Apples and oranges. Radeon 7000 is about the same generation as a GF 2MX, while the Radeon 8500/9000/9100 are based on technology of the same era as the GeForce 3 and 4 lineup.

The Radeon 7000 is supposed to have lesser 2D quality than the more modern 8500/9000 and up cards. However, depending on the manufacturer implemention of that chipset (and Sapphire is supposed to be quite good), it can be very good or quite average.

 

[blakerwry]

Does the 2D quality of the card really have much to do with the GPU generation.... i dont think so... I think it's more about using quality components(like DACs) and coming up with a good layout/design of the PCB.

 

[LiamC]

My understanding is that text/pixel clarity at higher resolutions has more to do with the quality of the filters and DAC's.

Quality of course costs - but if the GPU becomes cheaper, then a more substantial portion of the budget can be spent on these other things. I must admit to being a bit sceptical that I would see any improvement - but I did notice. FWIW

 

[blakerwry]

My understanding is that text/pixel clarity at higher resolutions has more to do with the quality of the filters and DAC's.

Quality of course costs - but if the GPU becomes cheaper, then a more substantial portion of the budget can be spent on these other things. I must admit to being a bit sceptical that I would see any improvement - but I did notice. FWIW

i see it as there are basically 2 segments in video cards... low end and high end...

High end stuff consists of the latest and greatest (or best in its segment) type cards, they are usually expensive and built well...

low end cards are usually a generation or two behind in the GPU department and since they carry a smaller price tag, usually built with less attention to detail/cheaper parts...

So, if i bought a geforce2 when they were brand new and bought one made yesterday, I would probably find that they are not the same quality, even though they use the same GPU and perform very similarly.

the thing about video cards recently though, is that companies are intentionally releasing new GPUs that are crippled or in someway made to compete with GPU's of a generatino or two old... this started with the m64... continued to Vanta... MX... w/ ATi, it seems that they just use the same GPU's and clock them slower or provide a smaller memory bus...

These crippled cards start off with a low price... so it's possible that the manufacturers would cut corners in order to increase profits... infact, this happenned with the geforce2 MXs

So in my experience, if you want the best 2D clarity get a card when it's hot.. or get a card from a manufacturer known for their clarity throughout their product line-up (Matrox).

 

[Mercutio]

Bear with me as I pause to remember the 3 month period when the Matrox G100 was available... Sigh.

What a great card that was. All the justificatons for buying Matrox in a card that cost maybe $30 new.

 

[Howell]

These crippled cards start off with a low price... so it's possible that the manufacturers would cut corners in order to increase profits... infact, this happenned with the geforce2 MXs

In what way did a manufacturer or manufacturers cut corners with the 2mx? Other than putting an Nvidia chip onboard.

 

[Tea]

On the other hand, it haz to be zaid that low-end video cardz are aztonizhingly good theze dayz. When you look at the on-the-dezktop performance delivered by even "really zlow" cardz like, zay. the TNT M64 or even the ZiZ thingz, and then you look at the price, and then you look at how many millionz of them get zhipped and the fact that the vazt majority juzt plug in and work for yearz and yearz .... well, we zhould be grateful, really.

 

[blakerwry]

These crippled cards start off with a low price... so it's possible that the manufacturers would cut corners in order to increase profits... infact, this happenned with the geforce2 MXs

In what way did a manufacturer or manufacturers cut corners with the 2mx? Other than putting an Nvidia chip onboard.

there was a known problem with several manufacturers geforce2MX boards, the manufacturers cut corners on DACs and on filters... ultimately you could run the cards at 800x600 or maybe 1024x768... but if you went higher you started to get some real blurrness...

i've also heard problems about using these MX's in KVMs or with long cables... like they had a weak signal that was only exacerbated by the longer than normal cable length.

This page further explains the problem... and offers a solution(cut the filters out)
http://www.geocities.com/porotuner/imagequality.html

 

[blakerwry]

On the other hand, it haz to be zaid that low-end video cardz are aztonizhingly good theze dayz. When you look at the on-the-dezktop performance delivered by even "really zlow" cardz like, zay. the TNT M64 or even the ZiZ thingz, and then you look at the price, and then you look at how many millionz of them get zhipped and the fact that the vazt majority juzt plug in and work for yearz and yearz .... well, we zhould be grateful, really.

True, you couldn't always get a $30 video card that would do more than you needed... or could you ever do that besides now?

These low end cards we have now just rock as far as overall value is concerned.. they offer more fearures and performance than the average office or casual computer user needs, and are dirt cheap.