General questions about video cards

[jas0nt]

hey,

i've got a few questions about video cards in general, and one specifically on the Radeon 9600 Pro.

1. will the manufacturers of video cards effect the overall performance? i compared two video cards (both are Raedon 9600 Pro) and they are assembled by different manufacturers, but their prices differ greatly. is there any really any noticable difference?

2. has anyone had any past experiances of the manufacturer of ATi video cards called PowerColor (www.power-color.com)?

3. does a TV-out compatible graphics card mean you can plug your computer into a TV, (thus seeing your computer on the TV screen) or does it mean you can plug your TV into your computer, and see the TV from your monitor? if not, what card do i need to do that?

4. do all ATi manufacturers use the same ATi built GPUs?

thanks.

[hobey19]

as far as number 3 goes, it will give you the ability to put whatever is on your monitor out to your tv. if you wanted to watch tv on your computer, you will need a tv tuner card. i have always used ati aiw cards, so i cannot recommend a stand-alone tuner, but have seen many people talking about a leadtek one. hope that helps

craig

check it out here

[Joeberg]

From what I've read PowerColor make good Cards. Quality varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. TV Out lets you use a TV as a monitor (Not as crisp/clear as monitor use though).

[DragonNOA1]

I did some searching at Newegg.com, and here's what I found:

1. For the most part name brand cards MIGHT have better warrantees, but from reading the reviews (and taking out the occassional dud card that both name-brand and underdogg had), the reviews were pretty consistent in saying they were good cards. Of course check the package, b/c u might get more software, or in the case of the hercules 9800 pro, it had onboard LEDs, nifty. A lot of the negative scores came from not being able to tweak, or with being upset with ATI drivers.

2. I haven't had experience with powercolor, but from reviews at Newegg, they are good with an occassional card having noisy fan problems.

3. VGA out(15 Pin D-Sub) = analog outputing to a CRT monitor (what everyone does)
DVI connector = digital outputing to LCD screen
TV-Out(S-Video) = notice the "OUT" part, if you get an "All-in-Wonder" you get a S-Video IN, notice the IN... So the majority of the cards have s-video out, if you want to watch tv on your computer get either a all in wonder ATI card or a multimedia card like this one

4. yes, just like nvidia does.

[kbaasit]

As far as price and compatibity goes:
U have the OEM and PC products that come straight from manuf. Sometimes U cannot get support from that equipment manuf. unless it was there 'out of the box' product. The price question answers itself.

your 2nd question: No

quest 3 & 4. I would suggest you to check out:

www.ati.com

[lil Jimmie]

I've used ATI, Sapphire and PowerColor and all are great cards the things to watch for are the "SE" or "EZ" versions as these will be lower clocked than the standard or PRO versions.