Video card question - LM miscellany part 2

[Lunch Money]

OK,

So I'm likely going to get a trailing-edge bit of video technology. I've seen the GeForce4 MX440 for $70 CDN, which is dual-CRT. I've seen the ATI Radeon 9200se for $80 CDN, which is dual-head (DVI and CRT, though I can get a converter to make it dual-CRT). The ATI is "newer" technology, but I'm wondering if it matters. The GeForce strikes me as a more reliable product, but I have no actual data upon which to base that assumption. None at all.

If I decide to go TFT/LCD in the future, can the CRT heads on those cards send a signal to the 'digital' monitors? Ie. is there a CRT-to-DVI converter, also, and is it cost-effective?

I've also seen (for even cheaper) 32-meg dual head AGP cards around. The two I mentioned are both 128 I believe, but I thought I read somewhere that in an audio workstation, more video card memory can actually result in slower performance in non-video-specific applications. Truth or myth? Is it even a consideration? Ie. if 32 MB is plenty, then I might go the "even cheaper" route.

Cheers,
Greg

[Miles1981]

LCD screen come mainly with crt, not DVI.

[Lunch Money]

Cool, that's good to know!

Greg

[MG42]

ASustek AX-800

[VitaminD]

the main difference between the cards mentioned are their 3d capabilities and performance..

the 440mx does everything the dx7 standard does... (vertex shading, bump mapping etc)

the 9200se does everything the dx8.1 standard does..
(dx7 stuff + pixel shading and some other stuff i cant recall)

basically, if you do any bit of gaming on that computer, you're going to want the 9200se..

also worth note.. I got a retail BBA (built by ati) radeon 7500 and it came with the dvi to crt convertor in the box... might check to see if maybe the 9200se does too!

[MG42]

ATi AX 300 and 600 (Asustek) are on PCI Direct, AX-800 on AGP 8x, must have the good mother-board.

[Lunch Money]

I'm not going to do even one iota of 3D gaming on this machine.

But for the slim difference in price, I'll check into the 9200 coming with a converter.

As for the AX-800... yucky yucky yucky... a gaming card with a monster-looking fan. No thanks. Not in my music PC.

Greg

[japut_99]

This may or may not be taken into consideration but after reviewing the "performance atributes" of some vga cards. I can honestly say that the 9200 from ati will perform but only because it will hog system resources. And before anyone says anything about agp aperture...your bios will be overrun and changed by your os. This is the card asking for 125 megs of your system ram no matter what your aperture is.

[Lunch Money]

I've heard that before. That's no good.

What cards (out-of-date technology is fine, I can go to eBay) would you recommend that don't pig the system resources?

Greg

[japut_99]

I checked out three (9200, 9200se[64 megs] and geforce 5500 all sub 70 us dollars- so I know where you stand on this). I ended up with a ge5500 mostly because it was 46 dollars but also it wasn't a major wart in the system. It still is little heavy on the pci bus but the drivers cause about 2 megs of overhead- very livable. It's got that fan though so you might want to stay away from it. Also I should add that I never saw what the overhead for the 64 meg version of the 9200 was-it didn't get that far I had already grown accustomed to performance similar to the 9200 w 128 megs. I just couldn't go back. It seems you very rarely hear anyone talking about nvidias drivers so maybe that was a pretty good clue for me. Good luck with your purchase though.

PS I just checked out the other thread your on about trailing edge technology and I'm right there on it. Proud owner of a kt600 motherboard as of July and I couldn't be happier coming off a kt133. Excellent points there.

[Linde]

LCD screen come mainly with crt, not DVI.

The more recent ones has both dvi and crt.

I have three iiyama flatpanels 15", 17" and 20.1". Only the 15"is crt only (this the oldest one).

Henny

[Linde]

OK,

If I decide to go TFT/LCD in the future, can the CRT heads on those cards send a signal to the 'digital' monitors? Ie. is there a CRT-to-DVI converter, also, and is it cost-effective?

Nope. Not nescesary because TFT/LCD's with a dvi-input has always also an analog input.
The other way is possible. I have a Matrox P750 wich has only two DVI outs. But it came with extension cord/adapter wich splits the dvi into two crt's.

Settle for a DVI output card with a dvi TFT/LCD. I think the quality is better.

I'm happy with the P750, although not very well suited for gaming.

Henny

[Lunch Money]

Now, assuming (correctly) that I NEVER want to EVER do any 3-D gaming or rendering. Would something like THIS be sufficient? They sell for peanuts on eBay with great frequency. I know that one's instinct (ie. MY instinct!) is to say "ick.. maybe that's too old", but is it really?

Greg

[Robert Randolph]

Awesome card for daws.. almost anything matrox will serve you well...

I remember devonB having issues with a UAD-1 and a matrox card, but they oughta be the top choice for any daw.

[Lunch Money]

I continued surfing and saw the next-generation (I guess) G450 dual-head for $23.95 CDN "Buy It Now". If it's up to the task of a DAW, I think that one'll be the winner. I don't anticipate getting the TFT/LCD any time soon, so I'll probably be able to recoup the huge $24.00 ($30.00 CDN incl. shipping) in value once (if) I get a trailing-edge DVI-capable video card for my monitors at a later date.

Well, I guess I should install my new optical drive and make sure it works....

Greg