Decent PCI video card?

[wkearney99]

Every now and I then I have to rearrange hardware and need a PCI-based video card. The ones I've got lying around all seem to be incompatible with more recent releases of windows. I'd like to find a reasonable priced, decently performing card that can still plug into a PCI slot. Yes, that's PCI, the old small slot, not ISA, AGP, PCI Express (PCI-e) or PCI-X.

When dealing with video cards over the years I've generally found the nvidia ones give me less grief when doing normal desktop and media playback stuff. I don't need this card for gaming. The ATI stuff has driven me crazy on more than one occasion when trying to overcome what the catalyst software wants to do versus how I've got a KVM switch set up. So I'm inclined to want to avoid ATI/AMD cards.

I just want a PCI card that can do 1920x1200x32 video with reasonable performance (no real gaming needs at all) and not cost too much. Being able to mirror VGA and DVI output would be an added plus. Don't need HDMI but could work with it if the other port still did VGA.

Any suggestions? Or, better yet, any warnings of what to AVOID?

 

[cortexodus]

This is what I use for the same sort of thing you're talking about. Although, I use it strictly for temporary stuff, it'll do what you're describing. It totally sucks if Aero is enabled though, just FYI. Everything works fine but when you go to move a window it slows to a crawl until you release the window.

This one looks sorta promising in terms of more modern options.

 

[AltTabbins]

Just go with the 6200 that cortexodus linked and be done with it. Anything newer than a 5200 would work and im not even sure why a 5200 wouldn't work with the default windows 7 drivers.

 

[XTF]

Yes, that's PCI, the old small 16-bit slot, not PCI Express (PCI-e) or 32-bit PCI-X.

16-bit PCI doesn't exist, you'd have to go ISA for 16-bit.
PCI is 32-bit, PCI-X can be 64.

 

[wkearney99]

16-bit PCI doesn't exist, you'd have to go ISA for 16-bit.
PCI is 32-bit, PCI-X can be 64.

Consider that nit picked. The point was to avoid suggestions for cards that won't work. Or dialogs about why using a PCI slot is bad, slow, whatever.

 

[wkearney99]

Heh, I have a 6200-based card now and I know *exactly* what you're talking about window-wise. There are a couple of situations where it's screwed up on me, thus my search for something else. I'm hoping to hit a little higher on the performance scale.

I'm always a little skeptical of the 'whole card heatsink' units. While I've had my share of video card fans crap out, they usually last until the motherboard they're plugged into goes obsolete. I've got a PILE of AGP cards like that. But of the few whole heatsink cards I've tried all of them got returned. Either from excessive heat, high-pitched whine or intermittent video problems (likely due to heat issues).

I already have one or two 430-based PCIe cards and they're decent enough for most work. There appear to be some in-stock at a local retailer. I'll pick one up to give it a try. Thanks for the link.

 

[bwang]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500221
passively cooled, and pretty decent.
a bit on the expensive side though

 

[cortexodus]

I'm always a little skeptical of the 'whole card heatsink' units.

I'm on the same page about the large passive units. However, I've learned that mitigation of thermals with larger, slower fans that aren't mounted directly to the card is easier than trying to find replacements for the little dinky fans that usually get put on the lower-end cards.

I'm on the other side of the failure spectrum, I've seen about a million of the little fans bite the dust well before I wanted to retire the card. Usually, it's "zip-ties to the rescue!" in those cases so I don't mind the clunky passive units for making it a little easier to deal with fan replacement.

I'm curious to know what you'll end up trying out.

 

[wkearney99]

I'll be out near the store tomorrow and plan to pick up that Zotac. I've got another machine that has a 430 in it already and it's performance is familiar. I suppose I could swap in the new one for a few days comparison.

I'm also doing this for an eventual switch to a DVI KVM setup. Right now the machines all send VGA to an aging Avocent that tends to lose the mouse wheel now and then. So there's a few machines in the rack that are using motherboard VGA. Being able to pop in something like that Zotac would give me a way to continue using them without having to change too much. Just about everything has at least one PCI slot free.

Tangentially, anyone used any of the PCI-e 1x cards? Or used a 1x-to-15x flex extender cable? I realize there'd be a performance hit using a 16x card in a 1x slot. But for regular desktop stuff is there a tremendous performance hit? Don't need gaming performance here, just decent office apps and web browsing sort of activities.