Cheap office video card suggestion for quality high res

dyn · n00b Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 32

Hi all,

I'd like to ask for help/suggestions. I've been using my lovely beast 22" iiyama pro 510 monitor with a Matrox G450 AGP card, but my new office box got only a PCI-Express slot

Needless to say, the onboard Intel 915G shows real crap screens even at 1600x1200@85Hz...

Therefore, I'm looking for a cheap PCI-E slotted video card which would only be used with linux, only for 2D use (development, etc), no 3D support needed at all. On the other side, I'd like to get my crystal clear screen back at 1920x1440@85Hz...

The only advice I got from a hardware guy is to get a cheep nvidia 6200TC-based board (costs around $100), but he wasn't sure if it could deliver the same picture quality as my ~4 years old matrox card.

Anyone can share his experience and give some suggestions on the topic? It'd be much appreciated.. and thanks much in advance.
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s3ntinel · n00b Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 64

TC (TurboCache) (or Hyper Memory for ATi) shares system memory, much like your integrated graphics, so make sure you have enough (fast) memory. Note though, that the pci-e bus will always be slower than memory on the card, so this may be a false economy - see http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050208/index.html for more information.

See http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/index.html for more ideas

snakie · n00b Joined: 24 May 2005 Posts: 2

Is that PCI-E slot backward compatible with regular PCI cards? If yes, you can use PCI version of Matrox 450 DH.

dyn · n00b Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 32

s3ntinel thanks, I know about that drawback, but I don't think it's important if I'll only do 2D work with the card...

snakie, I don't think PCI-E is backwards compatible, but the box has a PCI slot, so maybe I can try to trade my G450 AGP with someone to a G450 PCI... that's one solution.

Also, anyone can give a clear yes/no answer whether the 6200TC works with the current linux nvidia drivers?
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dyn · n00b Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 32

Well ok, I invested into a geforce 6200TC. Seems to work well in 2D (haven't configured GLX yet), very nice picture in 1600x1200@85Hz and in 1920x1440@85Hz as well.
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