Which one should I buy?

[a7berwill]

I'm currently using an ATI Rage Pro 8MB card, and for the most part, I'm happy with it. I'm fixing up an old system for my brother, so I figured I'd buy a new card for myself and give him the old one. Obviously, I do almost absolutely no gaming.

Just looking at prices on newegg:

$34 ATI Xpert 2000 Pro 32MB
$48 Leadtek GeForce2 MX200 32MB
$36 Gigabyte TNT2 M64 32MB
$30 MSI TNT M64 32MB
$45 CardExpert GeForce2 MX200 32MB

+ shipping, I figure I could get myself a more than adequete (for my purposes) card for $40-50.
I'm running XP, so if there driver issues with any of them, I'm not getting anywhere near it.

So, which one? (or anything else not listed above in that price range).

 

[GT578]

since you do no gaming....I'd take the Xpert 2000 pro since 2D is good on that card and DVD is good too. Actually.....just get the MX200 so you can actually play games if you ever wanted to.....

 

[Rand]

I'd go with the ATi XPert 128 of the choices offered, no doubt about it.
It has the best 2D, and the best DVD of any of them. It lacks in gaming performance, but none of the others are terribly good in that respect either, but it should be good enough for basic 800x600x16bpp gaming and certainly far better then what you have now... and besides if you don't play games then that's a non-factor.
It also looks to be the second cheapest one listed, which is a small bonus.

If ou've already got an ATi card that's doing wel for you it would be a simple switch to go with another ATi card.
The Rage 128 chipset it's based upon has been out for long time now, and the drivers have matured to the point wherein you shouldnt have too many compatibility issues.

If your running a VIA based mobo, you may wish to pass on the other options as the VIA/nVidia/WinXP combo seems to be occasionally troublesome due to the nv4_disp infnite loop bug that's been plauging the Detonator drivers. Both nVidia and VIA are working on a fix for it though, and it doesnt affect everyone. Besides that nVidia's drivers are quite reliable.

 

[PUNKtotalled]

ATI's rage 128 drivers were so crappy, that they just could become better! Now you can count on it. Go for the Xpert 2000.

 

[a7berwill]

I am running a KT133A mobo, so I guess that's just another (small) step away from the GeForce cards.

Thanks for the adivce. Looks like I'll be going with the ATI card.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Not so fast, I'm running a Geforce3, KT133A, WinXP Pro system and I have absolutely no problems... knock on wood. So keep it in mind, but don't base your decision solely on this. ATI has it's own combination problems.

 

[a7berwill]

Yeah, I understand that, the fact that there may be driver issues with the nVidia cards was not really a major factor at all in my decision.

For $39 shipped, I'm not going to complain about what kind of performance I get with the Xpert 2000, I'll be thrilled if it works, and as I expect, is even a mild improvement over my 8MB card.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

ATI Radeon 32MB DDR 4X AGP Video Card - OEM Powered by the ATI RADEON graphics processing unit (GPU) Featuring ATIs CHARISMA ENGINE, PIXEL TAPESTRY and VIDEO IMMERSION technologies - NO TV OUT Click Here for the TV Out Version Fedex Saver Shipping $5.00
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YES

 

[TssTech2]

Don'tknow about the other cards, but the com store that I work in uses the GigaByte TNT2 board for most of the new systems we build and they work great. For an all around card that can do a little gaming, but can also play DVD's and really has a good picture, these cards are it. Works with all the
OS's we've tried (9x, ME, 2k, xp) with no problems.

Edit: In fact, we even order our boards from newegg, they are the 'Thundra' series GA-622C retail box