Best PCI-e16 card for 2D, photos

[loves-tech]

I am building a PC for a friend. She is not a gamer. She does e-mail, excel, powerpoint,photos, web surfing and office products in general. I would like a video card that produces a good all around picture. She does not care about 3D.

The Matrox g550 is long in tooth. I want to get something a little newer in case she wants to install a new application that would require a newer type card. I am thinking that I won't have to pay much more than $50 to $80 for the card because gaming is not involved.

What is a good, fairly cheap card? I want a PCI-e16 card because I like the choice of motherboards better since I want SATA II.) This card looks like it would work:
ASUS EAX300SE-X/TD/128 Radeon X300SE 128MB 64-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Low Profile Video Card - Retail

She wants a 17" or 19" LCD. I am looking at the
Acer AL1714CB-8 Black 17" 8ms LCD Monitor 370 cd/m2 350:1 0.264mm Pixel Pitch - Retail.

Any comments on these choices? Would they work well together?????

 

[Quailane]

They would work just fine. Why not get a 19" monitor though? That is a good improvement for people who do a lot of 2d stuff.

 

[JCLW]

You could always just use onboard video (but get a board with a x16 slot). Then if she ever wants to run Vista you could just pick up a card in a year or two.

But yes, the X300 would work as well.

 

[loves-tech]

Thanks Quailane and JCLW. I always wondered why the Matrox was so good at 2D and why everyone raved about them. There are so many features on the ATI cards such as:
* SMARTSHADER * SMOOTHVISION * TRUFORM * VIDEOSHADER - * HYDRAVISIONTM -
I am wondering outloud which of these features, or combination makes for good pictures.
I get the impression that any new card would have the right stuff for clear pictures, colors and contrast. Thanks again for replying

 

[loves-tech]

P.S. The on-board video cards look like the have vga output only. I was looking for DVI. If there is not much diference in DVI and analog, maybe i'll go for one.

 

[Quailane]

From vga to dvi would make probably the most impact on image quality than anything else.

 

[loves-tech]

Thanks again Quailane. This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for but forgot to ask. I will definately go DVI then.

 

[loves-tech]

P.S. If anyone can point me to a link on what all the functions mean for a video card, I would love to read as much as I can to make a good decision. I did a search on the forums, but got too much info for the type of search I wanted. I will continue searching.
This forum is great!

 

[Quailane]

* SMARTSHADER * SMOOTHVISION * TRUFORM * VIDEOSHADER - * HYDRAVISIONTM -
I am wondering outloud which of these features, or combination makes for good pictures.

You mean these? The first four have all to do with 3d graphics. The last one is to change setting for 2d and 3d. It allows you to have multiple monitors and you can tweak the colors to your heart's content. There are other options as well. You can tweak pretty much everything about the way the card displays its image onto your screen.

The truth is though that these features are common to all modern cards whether they be nvidia or ati cards. All of these same functions are present, they may just be labled differently. Drivers for cards are fairly complete, even for my bottom-end pci express card, the 6200TC. I think you have a good card selected for what you are trying to do.

A couple of other features that a card may have is s-video out, which most do, for hooking up to your TV, but it can only really be used for movies and stuff like that as the tv can't display your desktop acceptably. Also there is VIVO, video-in / video-out, which allows you to recieve video signals from composite sources, such as a VCR or a camcorder, or maybe even a digital camera that allows you to hook it up directly to a tv, but with a digital camera, the image quality is noticeably affected because it is using composite video. You may also find a card with a tv tuner built in. These are usually not worth it since you can easily buy a stand-alone pci tv tuner card. I hope this helps.

 

[fafnir]

if you're an amd person use an "asus a8n-vm csm"

s939 board for ~$80-90, comes with hd audio, dvi, and a x16 slot in case you need to upgrade

nvidia "6150" on board


i'm on one right now and its been without issues save for a bios update to begin with

there's also an ecs with ati integrated and dvi for a bit less, but its nowhere as fast and lacks hd audio, gigabit ethernet, and sata II, where as the asus has all of these

but the ecs is ~$60-70





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