Originally posted by: Peter
Analog signal quality isn't the chip's fault - neither on the card nor on the mainboard. It's all in how much care the board/card designer put into their circuit design. As such, you can't make any generalizing statements about what chips give what quality.
Excellent point - I agree that a lot of the problem (in general) is likely to lie with the circuitry, and that can affect both integrated & cards. But integrateds are also likely to find themselves in a worse environment than cards do in this regard - i.e. I imagine there is extra noise, interference, etc., involved in being so close to all the other functional blocks of the chipset.
In any case, in the specific example I used (Via Unichrome) the chipset uses a 230Mhz ramdac. I think you have to agree that is rather substandard? This is the other "hidden" problem with integrateds - the cheaper chipsets often use slower integrated ramdacs. Most decent chipsets use 333-350Mhz ramdacs, it seems to me. Now, while I admit that a higher ramdac doesn't guarantee quality ("my 400mhz wins!"), a lower one is certainly asking for trouble at higher refesh/resolutions.
So I think I am justified in making the generalization that cheaper integrated chipsets are a problem, irrespective of board maker/circuitry issues. Of course, cheapo board makers tend to have poor circuitry designs AND tend to use cheapo chipsets - a double whammy for sure.
Pssst ... you seem to have missed the fact that modern graphics solutions have long had the RAMDAC integrated into the main chip - there ain't no such thing as "skimping on RAMDAC quality" anymore. It's all in the circuit design.
Oops, mental slip on my part when I wrote that (ah, the good old days when I used to look at external ramdacs when choosing cards). I know they're integrated today - I meant to refer here to those very same circuitry issues you pointed out in your post (i.e. cheapo card makers skimp here in circuitry design, leading to signal quality issues).
And now back to our regularly-scheduled program - the OP's question:
If your sis means 2D games (which is likely), I maintain a good quality integrated chipset will suit her needs fine.