Value of integrated graphics on mobo?
 

"Lem" wrote in message
...
Approximately what would it cost to buy a seperate graphics card
offering the same sort of quality as the integrated graphics on a
quality motherboard like:

Asus A7N8X-VM (nVidia)
Asus A7V8X-VM (Via)
Gigabyte 7VN400M (Via)
MSI-K7M2G-L (nVidia)
etc

Graphics cards tend to be rather expensive - I can't find any for less than
$40USD locally. On the web, you can find some cheaper ones, e.g.:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...roperty&DEPA=0
but you have to be careful that the card will work with your mobo. For
example, the Sapphire listed on the above page is rated at 1.5V (as per
users' reviews) and thus will not work in all mobos. At a price point below
$30 or so, you're probably dealing with similar quality as most integrated
video.

Therefore, integrated video is a bargain if you're not a gamer, etc. Either
way, you can upgrade with a nice AGP card, then when your mobo needs
upgrading, you take the AGP card with you to the new mobo and sell/use the
old mobo w/ integrated video as part of a cheap bargain system.

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 12:43:02 +0100, Lem wrote:

Approximately what would it cost to buy a seperate graphics card
offering the same sort of quality as the integrated graphics on a
quality motherboard like:

Asus A7N8X-VM (nVidia)
Asus A7V8X-VM (Via)
Gigabyte 7VN400M (Via)
MSI-K7M2G-L (nVidia)
etc

the onboard gfx cards are cheap, maybe $50 to get equivalent performance. You
are better off with a separate card.

I found this 32MB PCI card looks pretty good for $22.00 AGP is pretty much
the same price

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/topmicrousa/sis32mbpci.html

Vendor has it for higher but a search showed it ant neutron express for 22
they just didn't have a good description!

Wayne

"Lem" wrote in message ...
"mrdancer" wrote:

Graphics cards tend to be rather expensive - I can't find any
for less than $40USD locally. On the web, you can find some
cheaper ones, e.g.:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...property&DEPA=
0 but you have to be careful that the card will work with your
mobo. For example, the Sapphire listed on the above page is
rated at 1.5V (as per users' reviews) and thus will not work
in all mobos.

Yikes. I was thinking of getting a Sapphire. I tired your link
but just got a search page. Which Sapphire graphics card did you
mean as they sell 5 different ones.

Surely it's all plug and play these days and pretty much any modern
graphics card will work pretty much any modern mobo. Or not?


At a price point below $30 or so, you're
probably dealing with similar quality as most integrated
video.

Therefore, integrated video is a bargain if you're not a
gamer, etc. Either way, you can upgrade with a nice AGP card,
then when your mobo needs upgrading, you take the AGP card
with you to the new mobo and sell/use the old mobo w/
integrated video as part of a cheap bargain system.

On 4/7/2004 5:28 PM Lem brightened our day with:

"mrdancer" wrote:



Graphics cards tend to be rather expensive - I can't find any
for less than $40USD locally. On the web, you can find some
cheaper ones, e.g.:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...property&DEPA=
0 but you have to be careful that the card will work with your
mobo. For example, the Sapphire listed on the above page is
rated at 1.5V (as per users' reviews) and thus will not work
in all mobos.



Yikes. I was thinking of getting a Sapphire. I tired your link
but just got a search page. Which Sapphire graphics card did you
mean as they sell 5 different ones.

Surely it's all plug and play these days and pretty much any modern
graphics card will work pretty much any modern mobo. Or not?




If you try putting that Sapphire into a 5 year old motherboard you might
have some problems. If you use modern components with modern components
no worries.
If you aren't going to be doing any intensive, cutting edge gaming
onboard graphics are fine. Get an nForce2 board with the IGP. They
cost about $10 more than the ones without.

--
"Cocaine's a hell of a drug" - Rick James

Steve [Inglo]

"Lem" wrote in message ...
"mrdancer" wrote:

Graphics cards tend to be rather expensive - I can't find any
for less than $40USD locally. On the web, you can find some
cheaper ones, e.g.:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...property&DEPA=
0 but you have to be careful that the card will work with your
mobo. For example, the Sapphire listed on the above page is
rated at 1.5V (as per users' reviews) and thus will not work
in all mobos.

Yikes. I was thinking of getting a Sapphire. I tired your link
but just got a search page. Which Sapphire graphics card did you
mean as they sell 5 different ones.

Surely it's all plug and play these days and pretty much any modern
graphics card will work pretty much any modern mobo. Or not?

Try this link: http://tinyurl.com/hqrh and read the user reviews.
Newegg's pn for the Sapphire is: N82E16814102178

Ken Oaf wrote:

the onboard gfx cards are cheap, maybe $50 to get equivalent
performance. You are better off with a separate card.

Do any graphics cards these days use the PCI slot?

If then then if I get an old PCI graphics, is it likely to be any
good?

I posted a decent card with 32 mb of memory that is available in PCI and AGP
for 22.00!

Wayne


"Max" wrote in message
...
Ken Oaf wrote:

the onboard gfx cards are cheap, maybe $50 to get equivalent
performance. You are better off with a separate card.

Do any graphics cards these days use the PCI slot?

If then then if I get an old PCI graphics, is it likely to be any
good?

or you could get what I got my brother....the PCI version of the FX5200
128MB(maybe 64, but I think 128...)...works pretty darn good for a PCI card.
I was actually quite surprised. Enjoy.


"wayne" wrote in message
news:8Kwdc.106453$K91.303887@attbi_s02...
I posted a decent card with 32 mb of memory that is available in PCI and
AGP
for 22.00!

Wayne


"Max" wrote in message
...
Ken Oaf wrote:

the onboard gfx cards are cheap, maybe $50 to get equivalent
performance. You are better off with a separate card.

Do any graphics cards these days use the PCI slot?

If then then if I get an old PCI graphics, is it likely to be any
good?

On 4/9/2004 9:00 AM Filip brightened our day with:

or you could get what I got my brother....the PCI version of the FX5200
128MB(maybe 64, but I think 128...)...works pretty darn good for a PCI card.
I was actually quite surprised. Enjoy.




I have a friend who just got a PCI Radeon 9200 for his 900 MHz Celeron,
it actually plays Call of Duty, Max Payne2... pretty well, he just had
the crappy onboard intel graphics before which was horrible. The most
important thing to look for in one of those cards is memory bandwidth,
128 bit is leaps and bounds better than 64 bit. This is completely
different from the megabytes of RAM on the card. Some of these cheaper
cards come with up to 256 Mb of RAM, that is almost always a gimmick.
Fast 64 Mb RAM on 128 bit bus is going to be a lot better than slow 128
Mb RAM on a 64 bit bus.

--
"Cocaine's a hell of a drug" - Rick James

Steve [Inglo]

Piotr Makley wrote:

Inglo wrote:

I have a friend who just got a PCI Radeon 9200 for his 900 MHz
Celeron, it actually plays Call of Duty, Max Payne2... pretty
well, he just had the crappy onboard intel graphics before
which was horrible.

The most important thing to look for in
one of those cards is memory bandwidth, 128 bit is leaps and
bounds better than 64 bit.

This is completely different from
the megabytes of RAM on the card. Some of these cheaper cards
come with up to 256 Mb of RAM, that is almost always a
gimmick. Fast 64 Mb RAM on 128 bit bus is going to be a lot
better than slow 128 Mb RAM on a 64 bit bus.




Doesn't the use of PCI for a graphics card run the risk that the
PCI bus may be busy with work for other cards and so the
PCI graphics may suffer?

Usually the only other PCI devices that might compete
significantly for PCI bus bandwidth are hard drives.
However, on most motherboards made in the past few years,
the IDE ports on the motherboard are on a PCI bus that
is completely independent of the bus(es) used by the PCI slots.


Also ... is the PCI bus as fast as the AGP slot?

A standard 32 bit/33 MHz PCI bus compares well with AGP 1x.
It has more than enough bandwidth for 2D work and is good
enough for 3D games if you are playing at a low res like
640x480 or 800x600.

For example, a PCI version of the Radeon 9200 benches pretty
much the same as the AGP version until you start playing games
at resolutions above 800x600. Even at 1024 x 768, most people
would need to see benchmarks to be able to tell the difference
between the AGP and PCI versions in most games.

As well, if you have a system so old that you are stuck with
PCI video, then your gaming bottleneck will be the processor.
If you have a PCI Radeon 9200 in an older system, then you
have eliminated the video card as the bottleneck for gaming or
other 3D performance - your ancient cpu is what you need to
worry about.

If you have a newer motherboard that has no AGP slot - then
shame on you for letting yourself get screwed by the vendor.
Server motherboards are, of course, a logical exemption.