Xtasy 5632 or GeForce2 MX400?Completely confused:(

[Guest]

I'm more of a software/programming kinda person, but I decided to built my first machine. This post asks for graphics card advice, which is the part that confuses me *completely*.

My machine so far is Athalon XP 1700, 512megs DDRAM, seagate 10000rpm scasi drive, other things standard. 19 inch flat screen monitor to go with the setup.

That said, I am not a gamer, and I do not expect to play games a lot. On occasion, I plan to play tournament unreal, but gaming performance should be adequate, not top of the line. For me, the most demanding thing on the card would be graphics programs, like phototshop. Also, it would be nice to be able to watch TV on my monitor, but I'm not sure what the best solution for that is, so advice on that would be very much appreciated.

That said, I narrowed things down to two cards, VISIONTEK Xtasy 5632 GEFORCE2 GTS-V 4X/2X 32MB AGP and GeForce2 MX400, 64MB SDR AGP. From reading other posts, the first one is fairly easy to overclock for a novice, and may yield nice performance/price ratio. Price/performance is very important to me. But I also don't want to find myself with an obsolete card quickly.

I really, really want to spent under $100, if that is possible. Feel free to consider other cards, as well as adice as to how to get decent TVpicture on the monitor.

Thanks in advance!

Witold

 

[FatBurger]

Get the first one, it'll perform much better.

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[mystic]

Radeon 7500 is a good card in your price range.

 

[rcf84]

Yeah, go for the Radeon 7500 its 2D is great compared to GF2.

Seems ATi is the King of 2D.

THGC, saving 1 pc user from buying a GeForce4 MX at a time.

 

[phsstpok]

I have an Xtasy 5632 and it is a great value ($49) but if $100 is your price point why not go for the Gainward Geforce2 ti450 ($87 at Newegg). The memory is DDR and clocked at 225 mhz (450 DDR) compared to the 5632's 143 mhz (286 DDR). Those are non-overclocked speeds.

If you can afford to wait a couple weeks, see if the release of the full fledged Geforce4's drive down the price of all other cards. Maybe the Geforce4 MX (currently around $112) may drop to your price point. Even at $112 this card may provide THE BEST price/performance ratio (assuming you can do without pixel shaders and the other Geforce3/4 trimmings).

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Dani_mq]

get an ati card any 7000's the have much better image quality at higger resolutions than the geforce 2.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the suggestions. One last question.

Does Radeon 7500 support dual monitor setup? Some sites mention "dualhead" support-especially in the context of having problems under windows 2000--but when I go on pricewatch, no vendor mentions "dualhead" capability or dual monitor support.

Thanks, Witold

 

[FatBurger]

The 7500 does, the 7200 I don't think does.
Check and see if the retail 7500 comes with a DVI-->VGA adapter, my retail 8500 did.

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