Recommend a decent video card under $50 ?

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I'm doing a Frys special MB upgrade with a K7VTA3 and an Athlon XP 2400 ($69
combo). I need a new video card for this too - I have no real need for
any 3D gaming to speak of - its mostly just web browsing, 2d office apps.
I will do some digital imaging with it though - just Photoshop type stuff.
I'm looking to just spend maybe $40 for video adapter. In that price
range, newegg.com sells an Asus NVidia GeForce2 MX 400 (64MB) or a few
brands of Radeon 7000 and Radeon 9200SE. I'm not sure how a GeForce2 MX
400 compares to these Radeon based cards. I don't need DVI or tv out -
just a basic card with good stability and good speed for 2D and Photoshop.

Anyone have a recommendation of these or other alternatives in the $40 price
range ? Or could you point me to somewhere that has reviews of lower end
cards ? All the reviews I see are for expensive cards - $200 to $400 which
is way beyond what I want to spend on this basic machine.

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

Radeon 9200SE

"Tom Betters" <soccer1959@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1ZKcc.201345$1p.2293617@attbi_s54...
> I'm doing a Frys special MB upgrade with a K7VTA3 and an Athlon XP 2400
($69
> combo). I need a new video card for this too - I have no real need for
> any 3D gaming to speak of - its mostly just web browsing, 2d office apps.
> I will do some digital imaging with it though - just Photoshop type stuff.
> I'm looking to just spend maybe $40 for video adapter. In that price
> range, newegg.com sells an Asus NVidia GeForce2 MX 400 (64MB) or a few
> brands of Radeon 7000 and Radeon 9200SE. I'm not sure how a GeForce2 MX
> 400 compares to these Radeon based cards. I don't need DVI or tv out -
> just a basic card with good stability and good speed for 2D and Photoshop.
>
> Anyone have a recommendation of these or other alternatives in the $40
price
> range ? Or could you point me to somewhere that has reviews of lower end
> cards ? All the reviews I see are for expensive cards - $200 to $400
which
> is way beyond what I want to spend on this basic machine.
>
> Thanks.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

Thanks. I did find a review that said a Radeon 9200 is significantly
better than a 9200SE. Newegg has a Sapphire 9200 (not 9200SE) for $54
including shipping with all buyers so far rating it as 5 stars. The
review did agree with you that the 9200SE is a very good value for the
money. But for an extra $10, I'll go with the standard 9200 rather than
9200SE. I appreciate the response.

"Tod" <no_spam_me@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:q8Lcc.80451$gA5.1011266@attbi_s03...
> Radeon 9200SE

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

The 9200 should be a little faster then the 9200SE

"Tom Betters" <soccer1959@comcast.net> wrote in message
news4Ncc.210275$po.1047876@attbi_s52...
> Thanks. I did find a review that said a Radeon 9200 is significantly
> better than a 9200SE. Newegg has a Sapphire 9200 (not 9200SE) for $54
> including shipping with all buyers so far rating it as 5 stars. The
> review did agree with you that the 9200SE is a very good value for the
> money. But for an extra $10, I'll go with the standard 9200 rather than
> 9200SE. I appreciate the response.
>
> "Tod" <no_spam_me@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:q8Lcc.80451$gA5.1011266@attbi_s03...
> > Radeon 9200SE
>
>

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

"Tod" <no_spam_me@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:qvVcc.206828$1p.2330020@attbi_s54...

" The 9200 should be a little faster then the 9200SE "


To the OP:

Photoshop use can really benefit from the 128-bit memory interface that the
9200 has, whilst the 9200SE only has a 64-bit memory interface. A 128MB
card would also help, but it might stretch your budget to get a 128MB 9200.

You haven't stated how much system memory you are running, which can also be
a great factor in Photoshop usage. The combination of Windows XP and Adobe
Photoshop can eat up memory quite easily. 256MB would pretty much be a
minimum recommendation, with 512MB or above being desirable.

The level of how much all this will benefit you depends mostly on how heavy
your Photoshop usage is. I would certainly recommend buying a 128MB 9200 if
you can, and then adding more system memory later if you feel it is
necessary.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

Tom Betters wrote:
> I'm doing a Frys special MB upgrade with a K7VTA3 and an Athlon XP 2400 ($69
> combo). I need a new video card for this too - I have no real need for
> any 3D gaming to speak of - its mostly just web browsing, 2d office apps.
> I will do some digital imaging with it though - just Photoshop type stuff.
> I'm looking to just spend maybe $40 for video adapter. In that price
> range, newegg.com sells an Asus NVidia GeForce2 MX 400 (64MB) or a few
> brands of Radeon 7000 and Radeon 9200SE. I'm not sure how a GeForce2 MX
> 400 compares to these Radeon based cards. I don't need DVI or tv out -
> just a basic card with good stability and good speed for 2D and Photoshop.
>
> Anyone have a recommendation of these or other alternatives in the $40 price
> range ? Or could you point me to somewhere that has reviews of lower end
> cards ? All the reviews I see are for expensive cards - $200 to $400 which
> is way beyond what I want to spend on this basic machine.
>
> Thanks.
>
>

I like ATI but Nvidia Linux support is better.
fwiw

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

"Cuzman" <cuz@supanet.com> writes:
>Photoshop use can really benefit from the 128-bit memory interface that the
>9200 has, whilst the 9200SE only has a 64-bit memory interface. A 128MB

Where do you come up with this nonsense? Do you even have the slightest clue
how any of this works?

The wider bus between the GPU and frame buffer memory is only an advantage
when the GPU is generating the pixels. When a 2-D application like Photoshop
is drawing on the screen, raster data from main memory is being transferred
across the AGP bus to frame buffer memory. The AGP bus has far less bandwidth
than even a 64-bit memory interface on the video card, so how could a wider
memory bus on the video card "help" Photoshop, when the AGP bus is obviously
the bottleneck?

-J