March 27, 2005

Curious George: Help Me Buy a Video Card (For Love of God Help Me) My current GeForce FX Shit 5200 card, that came with my computer, is dying (this started literally right after the one year warranty) and I need to buy a replacement soon.

Shopping for one has been fun because I have absolutely no idea how to compare different video cards. Also, the prices range from, like, 40 bucks to more than I paid for my whole PC. I'm vaguely aware that a more expensive card should be better than a lower priced card, but that would rely on graphics card makers acting out of logic, and it seems more likely that the whole stupid graphics card industry is as senseless as war. So I do not know at all what to consider buying. Basically, I'm looking for a mid range level card, but I guess I would pay more for one that I could use for several years without needing to upgrade. I don't play any video games on my computer other than Bubble Bobble, but I do like to use it to watch a lot of video files and DVDs. If anyone could recommend a good video card to buy, you’d be a sweetheart. XOXOXO

posted by Bruise Brubaker 19 years ago
  • ...but I guess I would pay more for one that I could use for several years without needing to upgrade.
    Ooh... that's going to be your problem. Motherboards have already started shifting away from AGP to PCI Express. If you buy online, a mid-range nVidia GF FX will set you back $100-150 and be serviceable for a long while to come if you pick a good manufacturer. I've had a lot of luck with Albatron, myself. Or you could go a little more expensive and shittier, pay for an extended warranty at a big retail store, then have an 'accident' a few weeks before it expires. One can get very creative with a little high voltage...
  • Erm.. that should be Anandtech.
    Serves me right for not including the http://
  • Anandtech's advice is very sound. Since you're not doing gaming what they quote as entry-range will be well suited to your needs---I think that even an AGP card will be serviceable for years to come. Standards like that don't go obsolete for a while.
  • Couple of factors for non-gaming cards to consider: Output type--budget cards just have a single VGA output (used for CRT monitors and cheaper LCDs). Nicer ones have dual outputs, one VGA and the second one usually digital (DVI--used by higher end LCDs, and which with an adaptor will work fine with whatever, letting you use two monitors if you wanted). Really high-end cards just have two DVI's, but those are outside your budget. Cooling--higher performance cards tend to have active cooling solutions (i.e., fans). These can sometimes be noisy, and can be prone to failing (usually becoming truly irritatingly loud as a warning sign). If you're a quiet computer freak like me, and don't need the performance, something with just a passive heatsink might be preferable.
  • If you don't play 3D games, even a GeForce 5200 is tremendous overkill. It's likely you'd be perfectly content with a fanless card in the sub-$40 range, as long as it has the output types you need (as Pryde points out). The money you would pay for something "better" would all go into a faster 3D processor or more RAM - stuff you're not going to use. I imagine that you're going to want to focus on price, output type, quality of driver support, and possibly quietness. NVidia and ATI based cards are both available for under $40 now, and both have pretty good drivers that are updated regularly (historically, NVidia has had an edge in this department, but recently ATI drivers have improved). Fanless cards based on chipsets from either maker are available for under $40 - maybe something in the ATI Radeon 7000 series or NVidia GeForce4 MX series is what you're after. Check out NewEgg, where customers leave product reviews, and the available stock can be easily searched and filtered by price, chipset, connectors, or other parameters.
  • I'd say you could go a bit higher than the Radeon 7000—maybe something like a 9000 or a 9200, just because I believe it'll support features from a later version of DirectX than the 7000 series, which could come in handy. They're not actually that much faster than the 7000 series, but they'll probably be slightly cheaper (if only because it's hard to find the 7000 and 7500 these days). The next step up is a bone-stock 9600 or 9550 (NOT the 9600 Pro or XT; you're getting into budget gamer territory there). From what I know of standard video cards, they don't help very much (if at all) with video file and DVD playback; a better CPU or more memory will have a greater impact. So don't spend more on a better video card if you're trying to improve your DVD playback.
  • You can have a look at the Ars budget box guide; but to echo what everyone else is saying, the base models of the Nvidia (ie the 5200) and ATI (ie the 9250) ranges will do nicely for anything except heavy duty games (and I'm still running an old GeForce GTS 2 Ultra and using modern games Just Fine). If you watch movies and the like, check the quality of video output; ATI and Matrox (remember them?) generally get better reviews on image quality and output to TVs. Get something with DVI (in case you want an LCD) and video out as well as the basic analogue monitor plug. If you don't need serious performance, get something without a fan.
  • 1 what are the other specs of your current computer. No need getting more than you can use. 2 what do you do with/want to do with the computer? if all you do is surf the web and play flash or shockwave games, get the bottom of the barrel 3 do you know if you even have an agp slot or if the old videocard is soldered to the motherboard, in which case you will have to hunt for a pci (not pci express) card, which is greatly limiting. as far as ati or nvidia, it is basically the differnce between ford and chevy and don't let anyone tell you otherwise (unless they tell you to buy a ford, then they are losers and idiots!)
  • I love my nVidia GeForce 5200. Love it. DVI + CRT + S-Video output, 256 megs RAM, sweet cooling fan. Don't let your current card turn you off on the nVidia. The chipset is nVidia, the other features are put on by the reseller. The chipset is solid. (Mine's a Chaintech, by the way. So far so good.) PS: Use the nVidia drivers from the website, not whatever ships with the card. The default set doesn't have all the cool features enabled. If you go ATI, well, I haven't been as impressed. My laptop has an ATI card, and while it works fine I miss some of the added bits the nVidia driver adds in, and ATI is missing. The newer Hydravision software add-on seems to help, but still isn't the same. In terms of performance nVidia and ATI appear to be pretty much neck-and-neck. Realize while shopping that some programs (not games, programs - including WinXP itself) are pretty resource-hungry, and thanks to advances (primarily from nVidia) some systems are beginning to offload some of the work onto the graphics card. (My current card has more processing power and more memory than my entire first Pentium computer did, so why not make it do some of the work?) And for gosh sakes check out NewEgg. You might pay a bit more for the parts, but their return policy is rock-solid. I have never gone wrong ordering from them. Bit of advice: Go retail boxed, not loose parts; You spend less going loose, but there are bound to be missing bits here and there (cables, guides, etc.) that are included in the retail box.
  • Thanks for thew advice everybody, now I am less confused. :) smiley face Hopefully, this thread will be useful for anyone else who comes by in need of a new video card.