Recommend a Video Card! 3

[colinmitton]

I have got a PC with Vista Home Premium on, It has a got an on-board Video controller which is not very good and uses shared Ram.

I have a PCI-E x16 Slot and up to £40 to spend on a video card. My monitor has only VGA connections but I plan to update to one with DVI in a few months time!

I dont want a 'Gaming' card as I general do things like edit Images and play around with my Digital Camcorder video. I have had a look on Dabs and Ebuyer but there are so many to choose from I'm not sure what to go for?

Any Ideas...

Thanks

 

[electronicsfreak]

If im correct on price translation that is around 80 in US dollars. If im correct then this would be more than enough for you with power to do some games if you decided to play any.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130026

As far as brand wise, I recommend evga.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[paparazi]

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/128084

Can you stretch to another tenner?
Note**** DDR3 and not 2

Martin

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[Nelviticus]

To be honest, if you're not interested in gaming then any card should do - in fact I'm surprised you think that your on-board graphics aren't up to the job. Here's a link to Dabs showing all their in-stock, sub-£50 cards with DVI:

Dabs cheapo DVI cards

This card can use shared memory but has 256MB of its own installed. It's also silent as it has no cooling fan and only costs 25 quid.

If you want more peace of mind, this card only costs 31 quid and has two four-star reviewer recommendations. Again it can use shared memory but has 256MB installed.

Neither of those will be any good for gaming but will be perfectly fine for everything else. As Martin indicated, for another tenner you can get an adequate gaming card but if you're not into gaming you might as well spend the money on something else.

Every DVI-equipped card I've bought has come with an adapter to connect to VGA monitors.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[Nelviticus]

Oh, and a P.S. for electronicsfreak - although 40 pounds is about 80 dollars, computer parts all cost a little more in the UK than the US thanks to the "we charge more because we can get away with it" rule :-(

Nelviticus

 

[electronicsfreak]

ah. Im still learning about the UK, only reason I know what I know is I had a friend move over there for a short while lol.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[paparazi]

Trouble is: If you go with a basic addon graphics card you might as well stick with the integrated onboard as there will be little performance gain (it has been proven that adding a graphics card does improve general Vista performance) and I mean with general apps not gaming.
So if you are going to do it then at least help your Vista score with some more graphics grunt.
And for just a few quid over budget this is as powerful as you are going to get @ £54.99 FREE POST

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=132313&_LOC=UK

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[colinmitton]

Thanks for the comments folks, I was out of the office yesterday and have not had chance to reply.

My main concern was the internal card not handling the video editing / big graphic files I like to edit but I may just try increasing the RAM and see how it goes.

The 8500GT cards look tempting though... On a very rare occasion I'm known to play games....

Thanks again, If I do get a graphics card I'll go with the 8500GT but its good to know that about the on-board video as a lot of people like myself general trash them and put a graphics card in because they general perform poorly! Its opened my eyes...

Colin

 

[Nelviticus]

A windows desktop doesn't take up much graphics memory at all. If your display is set to 1280 x 1024 (for instance), that's 1,310,720 pixels. If your colours are set to 32-bit, 32 bits is 4 bytes per pixel for a total of 10,485,760 bytes = 5MB. I think it actually takes up more memory than that because it holds the whole 'image' of every application window even if it's hidden behind another one, but it's still not a great deal of video memory. That's why the minimum requirement for Vista Home Basic is only a 32MB graphics card.

It's only when you get into 3D games that you start eating up video memory. All those textures have to be loaded into video memory so that they're available quickly.

For image editing, if you're working on a picture larger than your display size I *think* that is all stored in video memory rather than main memory. It will take up as much room in memory as it would on disk if you saved it as a Windows Bitmap file (.bmp), since that is an uncompressed file format. Even so, an image would have to be pretty enormous to tax even a 64MB graphics card.

Video editing is different though. That takes up huge amounts of main memory.

I could have got some of that horribly, horribly wrong (I'm only an interested layman) but I'm pretty sure the general gist is correct!

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[colinmitton]

Thanks for that Nelviticus, useful information to know. I know from the past that onboard video of around 32mb slow down badly when you have 6 or more apps running. Your answer has confirmed that! just as a side thought I wonder how the GPU handles the multiple tabs in IE7? does it keep a image of each tab? Stupid question I know but I'm like that )

Well I'm definately upgrading to 2GB of RAM know for the video editing!

 

[paparazi]

Nelviticus
I know what you are saying is technically correct and in theory modern onboard graphics shouldn't hinder desktop applications.
It's just that I have witnessed for myself how adding a middle ranking graphics card has improved general desktop performance.
I have also read several threads on this site where experienced system builders have reported the same ie; that desktop performance was improved after they have fitted an addon GPU (note* I'm not talking about gaming) with Vista installed machines and especially those with the more sophisticated versions that utilize more graphics power.
I have to add that 2gig is definately a good move for video editing (again especially with memory hungry Vista)
And that generally video editing eats up CPU cycles so faster dual core machines have a large advantage with software that is designed to take advantage.
Martin


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[colinmitton]

I had another play with the PC and Vista last night, when I had things like iTunes and Trend AV installing (not at the same time) I could see the Graphics having trouble re-drawing the screen when I had IE running. I do currently have 1GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo processor.

I definately think the GPU was stuttering as the memory usuage and processor was not taxed at all.

I've also looked at the differnet types of onboard card and they do seem to go from bog standard intel to Nvidia or ATi onboard by be Nelviticus has just spent a bit more on his motherboards

I think I'm off to ebuyer / Dabs! RAM and Video Card Here I come!

Thanks again folks..

 

[Nelviticus]

I have to say that I've only ever used on-board graphics at work, where we have very plain desktops. We only upgraded to Windows XP a month ago!

From what you and Martin have said it does sound as if Vista is too demanding for the current crop of on-board graphics chipsets. The luddite curmudgeon in me thinks it's a sad day when the world's most popular operating system becomes too demanding for average hardware

Thanks for the info, I will stop telling people that their on-board graphics are just fine!

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[colinmitton]

Just want to say thanks!
Got the Video Card today, ASUS Nvidia 8500GT and it works very well! Vista is running smoothly and scores 5.4 & 5.6 on Graphics and 3D! (For those that were wondering)

I've yet to play with the video editing should hopefully try on wednesday!

Thanks again
Colin

 

[paparazi]

Hi colinmitton
Could you just comment for us on wether general "Windows performance" is better now that the card is fitted.
I know this might not be quantifiable with a benchmark but do you feel as though general performance has increased or stayed the same.
I just think it might benefit others in the same situation knowing if an addon card actually makes Vista run smoother etc.
Obviously any feedback can be useful.
Martin

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[colinmitton]

I'll have a better 'play' on Wednesday evening! could anyone recommend some things to do thats graphic hungry with-in vista? I did get a game (Touring Car Championship or something like that!) to try as part of the graphic's cards package. I'll also sort out a spec! and give the correct vista ratings for it all...

Is there maybe a demo game or something I could try as well?

I must admit I did have IE, Email and AV console open all that the same time and switching between the app's was fine. I also have the sidebar running as well. there was no visable re-build of the screen. I'll try some suggestions both with and with-out the new Graphics card!

 

[Nelviticus]

If you want to test the non-gaming side of things, just try dragging a few windows around the screen, alt-tabbing between a load of open applications, doing that fancy new 3D Windows key switching (holding down the Windows key and pressing tab), minimising/maximising windows and so on. In general just do the things which previously made you feel that the on-board graphics were struggling.

I'm interested in your opinion of how much difference it makes.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[colinmitton]

No problem, I'll be putting office 2003 on it on wednesday so I'll try it then with and without the new graphics card!

Colin

 

[colinmitton]

Sorry I've not had chance to reply as I've been really busy at work and home!

I tried Multiple applications open and the various methods of switching windows!

With 3 applications open (Word, Excel, Outlook 2003) switching with the traditional ALT + Tab was pretty much the same I could not really notice a difference between the Cards. Using the Aero switching windows-key + Tab was a little slower but there was no major lag or stutter.

Once I added in 3 or 4 more windows / apps the difference was more note-able as the video card continued performing as you would expect but with the on-board you would notice a slow down.

I guess from that its the age old 'what are you going to do with it' question. If your going to use it to a basic level i.e. browse the web / send email / write the odd letter, then on-board graphics will be fine. Anything more you should go for an external!

One thing I will say is get the latest video driver as I tried this with my Vista test machine at work and the Vista rating improved with the newer driver and video performance improved slightly as well.

I hope this helps you out there!

Colin

 

[paparazi]

Nice to have that valuable feedback Colin.
Much appreciated.
Martin

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