I am in the process of purchasing a new computer.

The computer will be used for a lot of email, research reading, editing
photos and playing videos and DVDs
I am told that the Radeon 9800 and the NVIDIA 6600 are overkill for my
needs.
Would I be better with a NVIDIA MX 4000 or a RADEON 9250 or 9200 or NVIDIA
NX 6200, save 100 and get a better monitor.

Windows XP SP2
 Athlon 64 3200
 1GB DDR SDRAM
 19" LCD Monitor


Thanks,
pjt

"Taoist"  wrote in message 
news:fZuNe.7797$Il.4398@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...

>I am in the process of purchasing a new computer.
>
> The computer will be used for a lot of email, research reading, editing
> photos and playing videos and DVDs
> I am told that the Radeon 9800 and the NVIDIA 6600 are overkill for my
> needs.
> Would I be better with a NVIDIA MX 4000 or a RADEON 9250 or 9200 or NVIDIA
> NX 6200, save 100 and get a better monitor.
>
> Windows XP SP2
> Athlon 64 3200
> 1GB DDR SDRAM
> 19" LCD Monitor
>
>
> Thanks,
> pjt


If you're not playing modern games, you might as well use the graphics built 
into your motherboard (if any) and save buying a Graphics Card alltogether. 
For the applications you list, you wont really see a major benefit.  On 
board graphics are designed to handle 2D graphics and DVD video perfectly 
well, its just fast moving 3D graphics they struggle to reproduce.

HTH

Simon

Taoist wrote:

> I am in the process of purchasing a new computer.
> 
> The computer will be used for a lot of email, research reading, editing
> photos and playing videos and DVDs
> I am told that the Radeon 9800 and the NVIDIA 6600 are overkill for my
> needs.



Yep way to advanced for your needs, you go for NVIDIA 5200, thats will 
be cheap enough and do what you want.

Phil

ME! wrote:

> "Taoist"  wrote in message
> news:fZuNe.7797$Il.4398@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> I am in the process of purchasing a new computer.
>>
>> The computer will be used for a lot of email, research reading, editing
>> photos and playing videos and DVDs
>> I am told that the Radeon 9800 and the NVIDIA 6600 are overkill for my
>> needs.
>> Would I be better with a NVIDIA MX 4000 or a RADEON 9250 or 9200 or 
>> NVIDIA
>> NX 6200, save 100 and get a better monitor.
>>
>> Windows XP SP2
>> Athlon 64 3200
>> 1GB DDR SDRAM
>> 19" LCD Monitor
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> pjt
>
> If you're not playing modern games, you might as well use the graphics 
> built
> into your motherboard (if any) and save buying a Graphics Card 
> alltogether.
> For the applications you list, you wont really see a major benefit.  On
> board graphics are designed to handle 2D graphics and DVD video perfectly
> well, its just fast moving 3D graphics they struggle to reproduce.
>
> HTH
>
> Simon


That might not be entirely true in this case, the guy is wanting to use a 19 
lcd monitor, which at the very least is 1280 x 1024, probably in 32bit 
colour, takes quite a bit of processing power and video memory, at least 
32mb jsut to turn on!!!. Even a cheap low end card, as suggested radeon 9200 
or geforce fx would be better then the internal.

Gaz

Gaz wrote:

> ME! wrote:
>> "Taoist"  wrote in message
>> news:fZuNe.7797$Il.4398@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>>> I am in the process of purchasing a new computer.
>>>
>>> The computer will be used for a lot of email, research reading,
>>> editing photos and playing videos and DVDs
>>> I am told that the Radeon 9800 and the NVIDIA 6600 are overkill for
>>> my needs.
>>> Would I be better with a NVIDIA MX 4000 or a RADEON 9250 or 9200 or
>>> NVIDIA
>>> NX 6200, save 100 and get a better monitor.
>>>
>>> Windows XP SP2
>>> Athlon 64 3200
>>> 1GB DDR SDRAM
>>> 19" LCD Monitor
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> pjt
>>
>> If you're not playing modern games, you might as well use the
>> graphics built
>> into your motherboard (if any) and save buying a Graphics Card
>> alltogether.
>> For the applications you list, you wont really see a major benefit. On 
>> board graphics are designed to handle 2D graphics and DVD video
>> perfectly well, its just fast moving 3D graphics they struggle to
>> reproduce. HTH
>>
>> Simon
>
> That might not be entirely true in this case, the guy is wanting to
> use a 19 lcd monitor, which at the very least is 1280 x 1024,
> probably in 32bit colour, takes quite a bit of processing power and
> video memory, at least 32mb jsut to turn on!!!. Even a cheap low end
> card, as suggested radeon 9200 or geforce fx would be better then the
> internal.
> Gaz


My four year old laptop has a 1600*1200*32bit screen and works just fine 
with its 32MB nVidia Geforce2go graphics. It is fine for Office, surfing, 
email, photo editing and video editing and playing DVDs. It is complete 
pants for playing 3D games but that is down to the graphics and the weedy 
PIII 900 processor.

For the use described by the OP I would definitely start with onboard 
graphics and only upgrade if needed. Even then, a Radeon 9800 would be 
massive overkill. I only have a Radeon 9600 (128MB) card in my Media Center 
PC and that works perfectly well for all the above and can even stretch to 
Half Life 2 if I want.

Tiny Tim wrote:

> Gaz wrote:
>> ME! wrote:
>>> "Taoist"  wrote in message
>
> My four year old laptop has a 1600*1200*32bit screen and works just fine
> with its 32MB nVidia Geforce2go graphics. It is fine for Office, surfing,
> email, photo editing and video editing and playing DVDs. It is complete
> pants for playing 3D games but that is down to the graphics and the weedy
> PIII 900 processor.


The geforce2go is an extremely powerful video card. It is dwarfed by many of 
the cards presently available, but it will still destroy *any* on board 
graphics.



> For the use described by the OP I would definitely start with onboard
> graphics and only upgrade if needed. Even then, a Radeon 9800 would be
> massive overkill.


A 9800 is certainly overkill, but even a cheap fx or 9200 would be an 
advantage...


>I only have a Radeon 9600 (128MB) card in my Media Center
> PC and that works perfectly well for all the above and can even stretch to
> Half Life 2 if I want.


The difference between seperates and on board is huge, i have come across 
machines that can grind to a halt when you up the resolution.....
Even an ancient cheap tnt2 would still outrank onboard graphics.

Gaz

On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 14:25:45 +0100, Gaz wrote:


> That might not be entirely true in this case, the guy is wanting to use a
> 19 lcd monitor, which at the very least is 1280 x 1024, probably in 32bit
> colour, takes quite a bit of processing power and video memory, at least
> 32mb jsut to turn on!!!


Nonsense. 1280 * 1024 * 4 = 5Mbytes.


> Even a cheap low end card, as suggested radeon 9200 or geforce fx would
> be better then the internal.


This may be the case (note, though, that /really/ cheap video cards use
cheap passive components, resulting in a blurry picture), but for
non-gamers, on-motherboard graphics are good enough these days.


> Gaz


Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>

"Alex Butcher"  wrote in message
news:pan.2005.08.20.21.14.10.683464@assursys.co.uk...

> On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 14:25:45 +0100, Gaz wrote:
>
> > That might not be entirely true in this case, the guy is wanting to use
a
> > 19 lcd monitor, which at the very least is 1280 x 1024, probably in
32bit
> > colour, takes quite a bit of processing power and video memory, at least
> > 32mb jsut to turn on!!!
>
> Nonsense. 1280 * 1024 * 4 = 5Mbytes.
>
> > Even a cheap low end card, as suggested radeon 9200 or geforce fx would
> > be better then the internal.
>
> This may be the case (note, though, that /really/ cheap video cards use
> cheap passive components, resulting in a blurry picture), but for
> non-gamers, on-motherboard graphics are good enough these days.
>
>

Are we sure? My Advent has a GF4 MX440 128Mb graphics and using a 19" TFT @
1280x1024 is fine until a DVD is viewed. The picture crawls (P4 3.0, 1.5gig
ram), blurs, ghosts for 1/2 a second on everything that moves etc. A friend
tried it in his PC 1024x768 AMD 2000, 256Mb ram just to test and it and the
DVD was fine so not the card. We tried his ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128Mb card to
see the difference and DVD played perfectly. So, low end GF (or any brand I
expect) cards may not be great for DVD over a certain resolution.
James

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 19:58:59 +0100, JJ wrote:


> "Alex Butcher"  wrote in message
> news:pan.2005.08.20.21.14.10.683464@assursys.co.uk...

[snip]

>> but for non-gamers, on-motherboard graphics are good enough these days.
>>
> Are we sure? My Advent has a GF4 MX440 128Mb graphics and using a 19" TFT
> @ 1280x1024 is fine until a DVD is viewed. The picture crawls (P4 3.0,
> 1.5gig ram), blurs, ghosts for 1/2 a second on everything that moves etc.


Oh, that's horrid. Even my Celeron 500 with a 32MB ATI Rage 128 could play
DVDs perfectly. With appropriate hardware and driver support, the card
should take care of the scaling, but IIRC, nVidia cards don't have (as
much) acceleration for video as ATI. That said, my PIII 933/16MB Geforce
2go laptop also played DVDs perfectly.

The more I think about it, the more I think there must be some kind of
misconfiguration or incompatibility present in your system as configured.


> James


Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>

> >> but for non-gamers, on-motherboard graphics are good enough these days.
> >>
> > Are we sure? My Advent has a GF4 MX440 128Mb graphics and using a 19"
TFT
> > @ 1280x1024 is fine until a DVD is viewed. The picture crawls (P4 3.0,
> > 1.5gig ram), blurs, ghosts for 1/2 a second on everything that moves
etc.
>
> Oh, that's horrid. Even my Celeron 500 with a 32MB ATI Rage 128 could play
> DVDs perfectly. With appropriate hardware and driver support, the card
> should take care of the scaling, but IIRC, nVidia cards don't have (as
> much) acceleration for video as ATI. That said, my PIII 933/16MB Geforce
> 2go laptop also played DVDs perfectly.
>
> The more I think about it, the more I think there must be some kind of
> misconfiguration or incompatibility present in your system as configured.
>
> > James
>
> Best Regards,
> Alex.


Hi Alex,
Not sure but it was perfect (and still is) if I connect my Relisys 15" TFT.
Plays fantastic. It's only when I connect the 19" Neovo the DVD playback
goes to the dogs. A full format and re-install of XP home made no difference
(I dislike restore CD's) so I can only assume the card won't handle high
resolution.
James

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 20:29:23 +0100, JJ wrote:


>> >> but for non-gamers, on-motherboard graphics are good enough these
>> >> days.
>> >>
>> > Are we sure? My Advent has a GF4 MX440 128Mb graphics and using a 19"
> TFT
>> > @ 1280x1024 is fine until a DVD is viewed. The picture crawls (P4 3.0,
>> > 1.5gig ram), blurs, ghosts for 1/2 a second on everything that moves
> etc.
>>
>> Oh, that's horrid. Even my Celeron 500 with a 32MB ATI Rage 128 could
>> play DVDs perfectly. With appropriate hardware and driver support, the
>> card should take care of the scaling, but IIRC, nVidia cards don't have
>> (as much) acceleration for video as ATI. That said, my PIII 933/16MB
>> Geforce 2go laptop also played DVDs perfectly.
>>
>> The more I think about it, the more I think there must be some kind of
>> misconfiguration or incompatibility present in your system as
>> configured.
>>
>> > James

> Not sure but it was perfect (and still is) if I connect my Relisys 15"
> TFT. Plays fantastic. It's only when I connect the 19" Neovo the DVD
> playback goes to the dogs. A full format and re-install of XP home made no
> difference (I dislike restore CD's) so I can only assume the card won't
> handle high resolution.


Another option is that your 19" TFT has a slower response time than your
15". That could explain the blurring and ghosting, at least. Have you
tried it with the same resolution (i.e. 1280x1024) on a CRT monitor?

Also, are you running the most recent nVidia drivers?


> James


HTH,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>