Need video card suggestion...

S

SBMongoos

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 22, 2001
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I have an old friend of mine that has an old Dell with 1G of RAM, 2.4Ghz P4 CPU with an old built in Analog video card. We can add a 4X AGP card. I helped him setup up a Dell SP 2309W monitor not too long ago. This thing can do HDMI. Nice monitor. However he's stuck with the old analog and the quality is not so hot for his old eyes (he's 86 but on the ball). But, he really wants to take advantage of the HDMI.

Here's one I found that I thought would work well for him:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121315 has HDMI connector on the video card, not sure about the reviews as they are very mixed.

It's mostly for reading email, surfing, watching video segments and some times he does some video converting and editing. Just looking for a great card that will do the job for an affordable price. Thought the link above may be a card that made sense for his PC.

Any thoughts? Appreciate the feedback. I help this guy fairly regularly and train him on various topics, write procedures, etc.
 
"Great choice you have there if you don't want to hassle with rebates. This would be a faster card and would be quiet too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121260"

That's a little out of his budget. He might go for it.
 
slideways666 said:
get that guy some ram.. lol.. Hook a brotha up.. 1 gig-- really? :p
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Be a waste to go much higher for what he does. The GPU on a new card should take the load off the existing CPU and what it's doing now. Not that it's that much.
***

Update: can't as his mb maxes out at 1g. Yikes! He should be good with this anyway.
 
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douglatins said:
Thats a though one... AGP is a dying standard. Isnt there a way you can upgrade?
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Not without upgrading the PC. Which he was going to do be he decided to hold off. He has a lot going on and I think he decided to reprioritize a bit with his money. He's fine with this buying him time. Sort of a temp investment. The major reason is for sharp clear text and picture quality.
 
Than yea if he really wants it than that card would do it and it seems to be a fair enough hold over for what he's doing but id agree upgrade when passable.

- John
 
Realistically, any AGP video card with a DVI output would do the job fine. You could even go with something like a used 9800Pro or Geforce 6200, etc. It might not be an option if the security of a card with an active warranty is something that's important to your friend, but it's something to think about if he really wants to save cash.
 
Zero82z said:
Realistically, any AGP video card with a DVI output would do the job fine. You could even go with something like a used 9800Pro or Geforce 6200, etc. It might not be an option if the security of a card with an active warranty is something that's important to your friend, but it's something to think about if he really wants to save cash.
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Good to hear from you Zero82z. I've gone this path with him. Actually he's fine with whatever I suggest and I guess I'm leaning the way he is in trying the HDMI. I've heard it's better than DVI for sharpness and clarity.

By the way my new PC is running fine. You were involved in feedback when I built mine. Running at OC of 4Ghz with no issues. May try 4.5 in the future.
 
he is 86 but can tell the difference between analog and digital? most older people dont even have the correct aspect ratio set on the monitor so I find that a little funny. I sure as heck cant tell any difference on my Dell lcd or any other one for that matter.
 
cannondale06 said:
he is 86 but can tell the difference between analog and digital? most older people dont even have the correct aspect ratio set on the monitor so I find that a little funny. I sure as heck cant tell any difference on my Dell lcd or any other one for that matter.
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This is my concern. However, his eyes seem to work very well for 86 and he's very sharp mentally. He recently told me he could tell that something hung on the wall was askew by 1/8" so his wife measured it and he was right. That's pretty funny.

I'm looking at this card now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102073

As the reviews are better and he can simply use DVI with a DVI cable he already has. Same picture anyway. My concern is that will he achieve a better picture when dropping the res down. He has it maxed out now (2048 x or higher) with analog for it to be a nice quality but things appear rather small of course even on this 23" LCD monitor. Another concern is that his PSU is only 250w.

Any thoughts?
 
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SBMongoos said:
Good to hear from you Zero82z. I've gone this path with him. Actually he's fine with whatever I suggest and I guess I'm leaning the way he is in trying the HDMI. I've heard it's better than DVI for sharpness and clarity.
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Stanley Pain said:
It's practically the same damn thing. Placebo Effect and all that.
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Not practically the same thing, exactly the same thing. HDMI is a DVI signal with an added audio stream. Using a DVI to HDMI adapter will provide the exact same image quality as a direct HDMI connection would.
SBMongoos said:
By the way my new PC is running fine. You were involved in feedback when I built mine. Running at OC of 4Ghz with no issues. May try 4.5 in the future.
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Glad to hear it :).
SBMongoos said:
I'm looking at this card now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102073

As the reviews are better and he can simply use DVI with a DVI cable he already has. Same picture anyway.
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The 3450 you were looking at above is actually a faster card and slightly cheaper as well, although the cost of getting an HDMI cable may negate that benefit. In practice, there would be no difference between any DVI or HDMI-supporting cards in terms of image quality, so my recommendation would be to just go with the cheapest card you can find.
SBMongoos said:
My concern is that will he achieve a better picture when dropping the res down. He has it maxed out now (2048 x or higher) with analog for it to be a nice quality but things appear rather small of course even on this 23" LCD monitor.
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When lowering the resolution, the picture quality will always be considerably reduced because of the way LCD monitors work (they basically have to scale the smaller image across the same amount of pixels so the images will look blocky and/or fuzzy). If things appear too small, I suggest that you adjust the font and icon size settings within the OS in order to keep the sharpness of the high resolution while making everything big enough to be easily visible.
SBMongoos said:
Another concern is that his PSU is only 250w.
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That could very well be a real concern. Please post the full specs of his computer, and if possible, take a picture of or copy down the power distribution chart sticker on the side of his PSU and post it here.
 
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Zero82z said:
When lowering the resolution, the picture quality will always be considerably reduced because of the way LCD monitors work (they basically have to scale the smaller image across the same amount of pixels so the images will look blocky and/or fuzzy). If things appear too small, I suggest that you adjust the font and icon size settings within the OS in order to keep the sharpness of the high resolution while making everything big enough to be easily visible.
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I cannot work with the current analog since his LCD is widescreen. Cannot get the proper ratio and he reminded me moments ago that this really bothers him more than anything. So things look out of proportion.

My thought is use the DVI connection and reduce the res a bit so things will be larger. But I believe they would still be sharp. This thing is a 23" monitor as well.

Zero82z said:
That could very well be a real concern. Please post the full specs of his computer, and if possible, take a picture of or copy down the power distribution chart sticker on the side of his PSU and post it here.
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Try this link. You can get the specs here. I did note them at the top. I bet this thing is going on eight years. Six at best.

http://support.dell.com/support/top...pport/product_support_central?c=us&l=en&s=gen
 
SBMongoos said:
My thought is use the DVI connection and reduce the res a bit so things will be larger. But I believe they would still be sharp. This thing is a 23" monitor as well.
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Again, that wouldn't work too well. I maintain my previous recommendation that you just change the OS settings.
SBMongoos said:
Try this link. You can get the specs here. I did note them at the top. I bet this thing is going on eight years. Six at best.
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Based on the specs above, you would be cutting it close with any new video card. I recommend a PSU upgrade if it could be fit into the budget.
 
Zero82z said:
Again, that wouldn't work too well. I maintain my previous recommendation that you just change the OS settings.

Based on the specs above, you would be cutting it close with any new video card. I recommend a PSU upgrade if it could be fit into the budget.
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Seems like a waste of time to bother with this. The key is he does not like the distorted res the wide screen is creating and there is no way around it without a new card. Changing settings will do nothing for this unless I'm missing something glaringly obvious.s
 
That is not at all what I suggested. What I said is that once you get him set up with DVI, if he finds the items on the screen to be too small you can adjust their size to make them appear larger without having to reduce the resolution to a non-native one. That way, you can make everything large enough for him to see clearly while preserving the superior image quality of DVI and running at native resolution.
 
Zero82z said:
That is not at all what I suggested. What I said is that once you get him set up with DVI, if he finds the items on the screen to be too small you can adjust their size to make them appear larger without having to reduce the resolution to a non-native one. That way, you can make everything large enough for him to see clearly while preserving the superior image quality of DVI and running at native resolution.
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Thanks for the clarification. Maybe it makes sense to drop down in performance to a card that does not need to connected to the PSU. I've got some feedback the that Saphire card that it may work fine. But if not you get to keep it.

Maybe go this route: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130465

Sucks though as the other card clearly outperforms the one at the link above. But to buy a PSU on top of it? Then install of both? Not hard to do but it doesn't really stick to the budget for just a card. Trust me I get it but it seems the options are risk this card and hope it works or get one that will do well enough without the concern of more power. I have to admit I like the idea of this guy getting a newer PC but he's changed his mind for now. You get caught in dealing with upgrades that can grow and need to step back and look at how you're spending your money and if it makes sense.
 
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Zero82z your thoughts on the card at the link above? Could stick with the current 250w PSU don't you think. I plan to pull out an optical drive that's not being used but currently connected.
 
p4's are pretty power hungry, but with a 6200, it should do fine.
I have an old 478 2.8 p4 with a 6200 running just fine with a decent oc on a generic 266w psu.
 
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