I need video card advice

[Sabacc]

(I wasn't sure wheer to post this, so what the hey)

I'm going to be entering college next year and I'm going to be getting a new computer. As a result, I'm also going to be enetering the Wide Wonderful World of Video Cards! Now, I'm a pretty experienced gamner - not mild enough to get some shump 8 MB graphics card and not hardcore enough to spend upwards $300 for a GeForce 4 - so I'm probably looking to get a card that has about 64 MB DDR RAM. However, to save money and space, I'd also like to buy a card with a TV Tuner.

Now, the only video card maker that I've seen combine these features is ATI; I'm thinking of getting a Radeon AIW 7500. Keeping in mind that I only want the features listed abouve (that is, I'm not too concerned with MPEG encoded or video out), is this card a good choice? Or is there another card someone can recommend (keeping in mind that I'm going to be a poor student real soon)?

Also, is there any card that takes Red-Yellow-White connections (I forgot what this was called) instead of the coaxial connection? To be honest, I only want this feature too hook up my video game systems, though I know Radio Shack and other places sell converters.

[HAL9000]

I just replaced my AIW Radeon 32mb with the AIW 7500 and I'm quite pleased with it (My other machine still has the 8Mb version). Yes, it has the RCA input and outputs.

[morriswindgate]

I second Hal's choice and also look into the Powered by ATI cards for a little better price, but get only the ones that are by Sapphire that are found on Newegg.com.

[Jim Baxter]

Any Geforce 4 Ti card is still pretty strong.
I ran Nascar 4 (Papyrus) at 50 FPS with that card

[Nuclear Krusader]

I'd stay away from the GF4 MX series though. They don't even support the nVidia's nfiniteX II engine. Haven't tried them yet, but some people have told me that they provide a very crappy performance. If you don't get one of the larger cousins (GF4 Ti series) then grab a GF3 Ti200 instead.

[mike1987]

man i gotta GeforceMX420 froze up on C&C renegade evertime in single player but not multi i dont know what the heck wrong with it havin problems since i installed it.. winxp and 256 ram 1.2ghz.. ahh hitman runs fine thoguh nota prob same with Return to caslte wolfenstien runs fine ofcoarse iv never seen performance of a TI so i dont know what im missing it was $100 i wanna ti though now

[theENiGMA]

I have the AIW 7500. I've had no, and I mean no, problems with it. Usually, when I get a new hardware component, something goes wrong in the install, or something doesn't work that did work with the old card or whatever. This card installed flawlessly, and I never (well almost never, 3dfx ) looked back.
-KEiTH

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by mike1987 man i gotta GeforceMX420 froze up on C&C renegade evertime in single player but not multi i dont know what the heck wrong with it havin problems since i installed it.. winxp and 256 ram 1.2ghz.. ahh hitman runs fine thoguh nota prob same with Return to caslte wolfenstien runs fine ofcoarse iv never seen performance of a TI so i dont know what im missing it was $100 i wanna ti though now

The Ti is the only way to go for gaming performance from the many posts I've seen on PC Mech and some reviews. If you can hold out that long, I gotta feeling the prices on all of them will go down around August when NVidia says they're going to release their next generation card.

[Charger]

newegg.com has a few GeF3 Ti200 cards for under $120.00 and I have read that these can be safely OC'd to Ti500 performance.

[spork891]

THe Ti200 can be OC'ed to 500? Would I have to add a larger fan?

Also something was mentioned earlier, is there a cheap way to make it possible to play your console game on your monitor?

Right now the only solution I know of is something called a VGA box which sounds like a kind of KVM switch with one socket for your computer and another for your monitor. It's $60 bucks or something.

There just *has* to be a way to do this with a simple cable or something...

[Paul H]

I have had a few All-In-Wonder ATI video cards. They work great, but the problem is that it gets expensive to replace them when they no longer are fast enough for new games. I now would get a seperate TV tuner card, ati's work great, and a speedy video card. Look at the Radeon 8500 LE on newegg.com. It is $99 + $8 shipping and performs at or above the Geforce 3 and Ti 500, easily trouncing a Ti200. Unless you are going Geforce 4 ti4200 or higher, this card flat out flies. How is 8300's at 1024x768x32 (default setting) on Madonion 3dmark2001 se for a $100 video card and an XP1800+ ? I have a retail Radeon 8500 and one of these, there is little difference in speed, not enough to spend 60% more on the retail. (retail scores 8495 on that system.) Add a pci tvtuner card and for $160 you will be very happy. And if you have a DVD-rom drive, the DVD playback on these ATI's is incredible!

[MoxManiac]

Hi,

If you want to get a seperate TV tuner card like Paul said, I suggest the Leadtek Winfast TV2000/XP. You can get it at newegg for I believe $60-70. It has a TV and FM radio tuner, Composite/S-Video Inputs, and can capture from any of those sources. It also includes a remote and software for doing all that. It also works great in Windows XP (if you use XP make sure you go to Leadtek's site and get the updates to the card's software)

I have this card and am very pleased with it.