Hi folks,

Anyone have suggestions for a well rounded PCI (not PCI-e) video card for replacement of my VIA C7 "Super Green" mainboards' onboard video ...it's a VGA out only or I wouldn't care to upgrade it.

If DX9 isn't much an image quality mark over DX8 for just viewing .avi DivX and XviD movies, no games on this machine, that would narrow the field a great deal and lessen the investment but I know there's not one DX7/8 video card capable of Vista....and that is OK actually.

I would like to run Vista on this thing but it's pretty well married to the tried and true WinXP (MCE?).

Looking for the lowest possible power consumption and so instead of going absolutely crazy looking for this information with Google I am compelled again to return to the peers on these forums - you guys are very in the know. try to Google or forum search "PCI" ..yeah you get PCI-e. Nutz.

1) DX7 or 8.1 satisfactory for my needs or would I see a noteable stepup in IQ at DX9?

2) What camp and model has the best IQ balance with lowest power draw?
(if it looks like turd who cares if it only draws 20w)

3) Were AGP to PCI adapters ever made? Just a thought I couldn't let go...

If anyone knows a workaround to this problem or have suggestions on how to remove and transplant my processor to another MB please clue me in.


Hello

Newegg has the best searchable product database among online computer stores. Do a search for video cards, then narrow it to PCI only, and 41 items came up, ranging from $30 to $385.

HIS Hightech H925HS256RPN-R Radeon 9250 256MB 128-bit looks to be the cheapest fanless DX9 card with DVI, at $46.

No idea what power, but it's gotta be low. Probably under 20W.

No DX10 for PCI, afaik.

An Albatron KI690-AM2 mini-itx board will give you similar or even better performance from its integrated graphics... but the board is >$250, looks hard to find, and you still need a CPU (ideally a 45W TDP A64x2). No way it'll be as low power as your current VIA, but it will run circles around it in performance, and run vista no problem -- tho not with the transparency feature everyone thinks is so cool -- just eye candy, imo. (To me the improved audio section and the built in MCE in the home premium are the main reasons to consider vista; i'd probaly turn off all the eye candy...)

Thanks Mike ..I wonder if this C7 is soldered onto the mainboard but just one way to find out. Would I damage things just removing the heatsink?

Appreciate the AM2 suggestion and believe me I have considered it but I really LOVE this VIA processor for what it does. Nothing like taking the Kill-A-Watt to this thing - it's almost funny.

Until you've had one of these babes and with the sole intent to use it only to run your downloads and uploads (if you should like to do that sort of thing) and just forum and web browsing and see youre only drawing 24-27 watts TOTAL SYSTEM POWER I'm afraid you just can not appreciate one of these processors. So in my skinny green PC defence I recommend you try one of these - anyone. The 1.5Ghz power it puts out is plenty, seriously, and anything more just isn't needed.

Haha, Mike everyone suggests I get or should have gotten an AMD. You know the only slow bump I had a while was just 1Gb of DDR2 in it a while at 64bit no dual channel.

But of course the damn board came with less than appealing video capabilities. I have been shopping Newegg and the web a few hours now for various things (looking, with high hopes, for a wireless gameing keyboard for my main rig).

Hey Mike do you have any idea what sort of aftermarket cooler I can add to this board and processor if I can safely remove the old one (has a fan)? It's that Jetway C7 combo off of Newegg ..maybe its still available ..I forget the model number. I have one of the original solid copper Hedge Hog heatsinks made for the first AMD Athlon series but I'm not at all sure it would be a fit....sure would cool it though.

A word on the DirectX , do you think DX9 would be any better for viewing/previewing digitized movies (um, ie; DivX) or the DX8.1 be cool? I was reading the Newegg reviews on thos ATI 9 series PCI and many complain that they get a low max resolution when using the DVI out ...main reason I want one.

Total pain in ...

Pardon the long posts and bit of ramble and the Blueberry and Rhubarb wine

Absolutely. Soldered, impossible to remove w/o damage. Stop thinking about it.


Hmmm.... was playing earlier today with a ???-itx VIA pc -- Zonbu. No HDD. 9~13W AC. Only a VGA output tho -- no DVI.

If you are not gaming, then a matrox G550 might be just great for you. Power draw is low, as there's hardly any 3D stuff in the chip. Image quality is great for 2D, and if you are connecting with DVI to a LCD then all devices have the same image quality, except for things like AA in 3D and any video postprocessing effects.

One last thing...

Would the increase in power usage be offset a bit or more from the DVI use ...? The monitor is a somewhat old, and very expensive at the time, Sony LCD 23inch widescreen that has an optional VGA input available.

Move up to a more power hungry add-on card but switch from VGA CRT emulation (?) to LCD. Guess The Kill-A-Watt will tell me but I have no frame of reference until I buy the card - see?

ty

Excellent suggetion!

I'll investigate

Im,

How about the Millennium G450 PCI model? The other one is a little too much ...not willing to spend it becuase it's 3x the cost of the rest of the system. I did find a G450 cheap cheap. $35.00 used.

I found a refurbished G550 for a total of $41.85 shipped FedEx 3 day.

Any links to how green this card can be or image quality?

I'll go looking for myself before I buy but it's a great idea if these are reliable with excellent IQ and the refurb. warranty is legit.

People are too hard on stores selling refurbished items though. I mean you can expect a higher risk of a failed product - thats where customer servcie counts BUT SO DOES YOUR ATTITUDE (right?) ...espcially when the opperation is small.

These resellerratings.com reviews are just full of pissy people you wouldn't want to have to deal with if you got them a gift that broke in the box. Happy Birthday ..now get over it.

Jeez, anyway back to the card. haha

EDIT: Nevermind! The store was GainSaver.com ..an apparent ass sore in the e-store community even for refurbished. My opinion stands with a few exceptions with this store at the very top of the list.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the radeon 7000. They're easy to get new in pci and agp and even DVI/VGA/composite out.

I have a 32mb radeon 7000 agp that I used with an a64 venice 3800+ system to get power down to 47 watts idle. Swapping the radeon 7000 with a geforce 6200 bumped up power on that system by about 10 watts.

I remember hunting for a spec sheet on the card and eventually found one that claimed it was around 3 watts. Can't be sure though since I don't have the right equipment to test it.