DVI and Radeon 9700 Pro

[burrens]

Guys I am thinking of getting an LCD, but it doesn't have DVI just analog. I heard this only really matters if you have a cheap vidoe card. So am I missing out on anything by not having DVI on the LCD?

 

[lung]

I'm currently running two Delll 1800FPs on my 9700 Pro. There is a difference in quility between the DVI and the analog, but it is very very minimal. If I had to only use the analog, I would be quite happy with it. The DVI is just a bit brighter and sharper, but only a tiny bit. You should be fine with just analog.

 

[ProviaFan]

The 2D image quality of your video card will be important if you are using the analog connection. Pre-GF4 and most (all?) *MX nvidia-based cards are not likely to offer satisfactory 2D IQ, unless you happen to be an Nvidia zealot. The GF4s do appear to have improved (in general), and unless you run some high resolutions at high refresh rates, you might not be able to tell the difference between a Built-by-ATI card. Go Matrox if you don't need much 3D and you want the ultimate in analog 2D image quality.

 

[fishbreath]

You want to avoid buying nvidia based solutions which have an MX suffix. The reason is the output filtering (supposed to remove high frequency noise). At 1280 by 1024 this filtering often causes shadowing, which is especially obvious on LCD screens. There is a fix which involves snipping capacitors/inductors, but I doubt this is a great approach for most people. I perform about two filterectomies a week for clients.

This problem first arose with GeForce2 MX solutions and persists even today on some of the cheaper cards. Recommend you stick to an nvidia 4200 solution or better.

Any Radeon product should work fine, and in general the image quality and dvd playback is better on the later Radeon products. There is a marked difference in image quality between the 9700 Pro and the 4600 solutions, with the advantage very clearly in the Radeon's favour, however for most LCD screens you simply will not be able to see a difference (it takes a top notch monitor to discern a clear difference). If you are on a budget, the 9000 Pro card works fine.

The 9700 Pro at 60Hz seems to cause problems on several LCD monitors, but when the frequency is bumped to 70Hz the banding completely disappears.

 

[gshock888]

actually DVI and VGA matters a lot (at least to me)

I have a 18" LCD Dell. I used to run a DVI Radeon 7500 on it, i need that card for another pc, so i switched back to a geForce2 MX, my god what difference. running at 1280x1024x32bit, you can see the whole picture blurred and the text blurred. initially i thought it was my eyes playing tricks.

so, if you can settle dvi for a few extra bucks and if you have LCD, dont settle for vga.

but like the people before me said, maybe the MX is really cheap quality...

 

[moogle077]

Voodoo 3 3000 with CT1702 on analog looks fine for me. The text is nice and crisp. no ghosting or color bleeding ...

One day I'll try the DVI connection tho the monitor supports it but i dont have a vid card that does

 

[gshock888]

actually DVI and VGA matters a lot (at least to me)

I have a 18" LCD Dell. I used to run a DVI Radeon 7500 on it, i need that card for another pc, so i switched back to a geForce2 MX, my god what difference. running at 1280x1024x32bit, you can see the whole picture blurred and the text blurred. initially i thought it was my eyes playing tricks.

so, if you can settle dvi for a few extra bucks and if you have LCD, dont settle for vga.

but like the people before me said, maybe the MX is really cheap quality...

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: gshock888
actually DVI and VGA matters a lot (at least to me)

I have a 18" LCD Dell. I used to run a DVI Radeon 7500 on it, i need that card for another pc, so i switched back to a geForce2 MX, my god what difference. running at 1280x1024x32bit, you can see the whole picture blurred and the text blurred. initially i thought it was my eyes playing tricks.

so, if you can settle dvi for a few extra bucks and if you have LCD, dont settle for vga.

but like the people before me said, maybe the MX is really cheap quality...

Did you hook the MX up with a DVI connection? I'm surprised to hear that the MX had quality issues even with a digital connection. However, image quality aside, there are other reasons why I'd never buy a GF?MX product (that doesn't mean I wouldn't consider a regular Geforce Ti4?00 if DVI were the only connection being used, just that I think GF?MXes suck in general).