replacement PCI vid card for wife's PC

[gr8tango]

My wifes S3 Savage card has gasped its last breath. I'm looking to replace it with a cheap PCI card. It looks like the TNT2 or SiS 315 chipset cards are the cheapest PCI cards out there around $30 before tax. Anyone know who makes a reliable card using either chipset? The PC is used for Office, web, and keyboard instruction, nothing exciting.

 

[moogle077]

My voodoo 3 3000's lasted me at least 3 years so far ... No problems yet

 

[Peter]

There are even older SiS chipset cards still around, e.g. SiS 305 or 6326 chip based.

Remember, the older the chip gets, the harder it will be to get driver updates even in the near future - but then, the things are old enough for the drivers to have matured already.

If you want something cheap and old that's still being driver compatible with the current developments at the manufacturers, you should go for an SiS Xabre 80 or 200 (never saw them in PCI though), an ATi Radeon VE aka 7000, or if you desperately have to, something TNT2 based (though 2D image quality usually isn't that great on those).

 

[RyanM]

I'm selling a Matrox Millenium II right now. PCI, supports resolutions and refresh rates up to 1600x1200 @ 75 Hz, native support in WinXP and 2000, and the 2D quality is spot-on. Also works great as a 2nd video card for multimonitor rigs. $15 shipped.

Check out the for sale thread here - http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=45&threadid=1011408&highlight_key=y&keyword1=ink

 

[Batman5177]

if the computer is only used for office apps and web surfing, then 3d acceleration and more video ram will give no advantages.

i had the same card that MachFive is selling (Matrox Millenium II). i highly recommend it.

it was one of the best cards before all the video cards started getting 3d acceleration built in.

i remember upgrading from a 1MB video card to the Matrox Millenium II, it made DUKE NUKEM 3D run so fast it was unplayable!!!!!!!!!!

 

[RyanM]

rofl. I had that same problem. Wolfenstein 3D was hysterical.