Video Quality of "powered by ATI"

[elwood03]

I recently was upgrading my secondary computer to Windows XP and needed a supported video card. I bought a Powered by ATI OEM Radeon 32DDR from New Egg because it was cheap and I don't really game on that computer. Now the 2D video quality seems much worse than the previous video card (a Savage 2000) and no where near as good as the G450 in my primary computer. By the way the monitor is a 19" Hitachi which has always looked great. Now it looks kind of muddy. Even the DVD quality isn't great (and it's a 1Gig T-Bird with plenty of memory).

Anyone have any experience with these cards? Is it that they just use cheap components?

Thanks,
Probably one of the longest running junior members here! (I lost my old log in information when my email changed and I'm usually just a 'lurker'

 

[Tiger]

I've got the same card in my T-bird and I think it looks better than my old G-400.
Colors are definitely brighter and crisper. Comparison on the same KDS VS9-e.

 

[BFG10K]

This is one of the reasons why I stick to genuine ATi boards; you don't know what crap the 3rd party manufacturers have done to the cards.

 

[Maggotry]

<< This is one of the reasons why I stick to genuine ATi boards; you don't know what crap the 3rd party manufacturers have done to the cards. >>


Yeah. ATi has always had great 2D and DVD playback. I recently bought a "real" Radeon 8500 for my wife's PC although the 3rd party cards were cheaper. This is a case of "get what you pay for".

 

[AA0]

I've been waiting for a reviewer to actually comment on this, but none seem to do it. It is very annoying. I seriously don't know how they even got their own sites now... each are just providing awful generic reviews and don't provide any new data to people.

Sometimes I think of starting my own site for reviews. Possibly ask people what they want a listen to them, unlike current sites. My last review seems to have done well, although a lot of companies didn't seem to like it too much.

 

[nortexoid]

interesting...stay away from those cheapo 3rd party cards...

u're probably still safe going w/ the bigger (top-tier) manufacturers like hercules, gigabyte, etc. that make ATI cards...it's a shame that they dont' set some sort of standard for the components use...

 

[tjdavis1138]

Speaking of reviews, does anybody remember the days when Anandtech used to review motherboards? Instead of just doing a roundup. I miss those days.

 

[AA0]

I prefer the roundups, gives you a good comparision. I can live without the 10 articles in a row that are about things that are not released. Tech previews are interesting... but shouldn't be the bulk of a site. I remember the good old days that this site used to review hardware, those were the times I tell you. I go to Tom's for my reviews now. They do more then just cpu, vid, and motherboards, and they do it better.

 

[Mitzi]

This is one of the reasons why I stick to genuine ATi boards; you don't know what crap the 3rd party manufacturers have done to the cards.

Yup, the image quality of my ATI Radeon 8500 is easily as good as the Matrox G400 which it replaced. I could of got a 3rd party identical "powered by" card for almost 3/4 of the price - I'm glad I didn't.

 

[ProviaFan]

I have a "powered by ATI" Radeon VE card, and the image quality of it sucks beyond all description...well, it's just very muddy. (ah, now I know why he gave it to me )