Video & Sound Card Questions

I'm in the market for a new pc. I currently have a 4-year-old Gateway with on-board video and audio. It's just not cutting it anymore - if it ever really did,

I'm looking at Gateway's GT5034 available locally at MicroCenter (http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=231624). I'm thinking of buying it and having them install a video and a sound card.

My concern for a video card is that I want to connect via S-Video to my television set (3-year old Panasonic tube) so that I can watch video podcasts (This Week in Tech, Diggnation, etc) that I currently get as bit torrents from the net. I have been converting them individually from AVI to DVD format using Nero for playing on a stand-alone player - but it takes from 4 to 9 hours to convert each!

Additionally, I also have a friend who is trying desperately to get me into gaming. He has a Radeon 9250 and insists that I stay with this brand.

The video cards I'm looking at are the following:

Radeon X1300 256MB PCI-E x16 Video Card
PowerColor Radeon X700EZ 256MB PCI Express Video Card

I'd like to stay under $200 and these are the only Radeon cards they have under that price. Can anyone explain the differences between these two cards? They are in the same price ball park and I can't, from their descriptions, see any difference. Of course, never having a video card before ... I'm not sure what I should be looking for in the specs.

Adding to the confusion ... there are some "ATI RADEON" cards NOT made by ATI but by other manufacturers (such as sus Computer International). Can anyone explain this to me?

As for a sound card ... do I really need one? I have been using Fruity Loops to compose music but have been running into major lagging because of my current processor (1.2Gh Celeron - ugh). The new pc's processor (AMD) should solve that.

The proposed machine has on-board sound described as "SoundBlaster Pro Compatible Audio Chipset". Would buying a moderately sound card be any improvement over this? My main concern is connecting the output(s) of the sound card to the input(s) of my TV. The TV has left-right component inputs but I guess the sound card does not. How would I go about making this connection? Would it be different if I just used the on-board audio and forgot about a sound card?

Hope this isn't too confusing. And thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to enlighten me here about a/v.

AMD® Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4200+
(4) 512MB DIMM Memory Modules

Time to convert and make those dvds will be around 40 minutes. Nice time change for you.

Yep, as Train said above, it's a beaut.

I'd go for the X1300 over the X700, as these specs speak for themselves:

http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1300/Products.html = X1300

http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx700/specs.html = X700


Liam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zeszut

Adding to the confusion ... there are some "ATI RADEON" cards NOT made by ATI but by other manufacturers (such as sus Computer International). Can anyone explain this to me?

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It's still the same chip on the graphics card, but the different companies may make the boards differently or put different coolers on them to try an improve performance.

Also, most if not all graphics cards now have an S-Video out connection on them, however I've never had too much success with getting a decent picture on the TV, maybe you'll have better luck.

With a dual core CPU, you won't need a separate sound card. Fruityloops will only tax one of the CPU cores and you'll still have the other. You won't notice any lag or slow down at all.

If you're serious about music production then you should certainly think about investing in a decent sound card. Although onboard sound is reasonably good these days, the motherboard is a very electrically noisy environment, and is about the worst place possible to locate a sound chip. A decent sound card will always give an improvement, though a cheap card probably isn't worth the bother. Also, the high-end cards can take the load of the CPU for gaming, which can improve the frame rates. The only problem is that the cards for serious music production and/or gaming are expensive :( Look at the Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi series, it's ideal for what you want if you can manage it:

http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Ca...sp?Category=36

Thanks, Liam. I followed your links and have to agree. The X1300 looks like the one I should get. It's available locally for $120. Their specs say it has "NTSC TV OUTPUT" and "TV Out VIVO Port (S-Video/Composite Video)".

I understand your concern about video output to a TV, David. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe I'll have better luck. And thanks for the sound card suggestion (of not needing one). I thought about that until I saw the next post.

Thanks, SuperSparks, too. I don't know how serious I am about audio since I have been running into a brick (or should I say "lagging") wall with FL. Maybe I'll just get a basic sound card under $50. If I find out I am serious, I could always upgrade at a later time.

About sound cards, I'm beginning to see Turtle Beach again. I remember them being of high quality but I haven't heard about them for a number of years. My local store has both Sound Blaster and Turtle Beach cards under $50. I'll have to look into them.

And, Train, thanks for the heads up about the rendering time reduction. 40 minutes is a lot less than now. Of course, if the video card output is okay, I won't need to do any conversion.

But one more question ...

I see at least 2 of you have AMD processors. The processor on this "new" machine is listed as "AMD® Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4200+". The store site lists it as 2.2GHz. Is that for each processor? How does that compare to the speeds given for the Pentiums?

Again, thanks to all of you.

Clock speed is not as important now, but it is 2.2Ghz overall, not per core, the larger cache is the thing that you should look out for, as you'll notice with the 4200+ and the 4400+ the only differences with them is the cache, which on the 4200+ is 512kb+512kb, per chip, but in the 4400+ it is 1mb+1mb.

Liam

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Originally Posted by liam858

but it is 2.2Ghz overall, not per core

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I've not really read around much on the way dual core works, but surely the chip overall runs at 2.2GHz, so each core will run at 2.2GHz. Like two completely separate processors running at 2.2GHz, but if I recall correctly, with AMD CPU's the cache is not actually 512KB+512KB (or 1MB+1MB), but is actually just 1MB or 2MB and both cores have access to it. Of course I could be way off here, like I said, I've not really researched much into it.

Edit: Incidentally, both of the CPU's in my sig run at 2.2GHz aswell, 200x11.

I see (I think).

I have a Pentium 3GHz at work. Would this AMD machine be ranked faster than that?

Much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zeszut

I have a Pentium 3GHz at work. Would this AMD machine be ranked faster than that?

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That one would take about 80 minutes to knock out those dvd's. That is if you had 1GB of ram. 512MB it would need about 100 minutes.

It is not so much the speed of the processor, but how much it can do in a clock cycle. The more it can do per clock cycle, the faster it can finish a project.

Quote:

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I've not really read around much on the way dual core works, but surely the chip overall runs at 2.2GHz, so each core will run at 2.2GHz. Like two completely separate processors running at 2.2GHz, but if I recall correctly, with AMD CPU's the cache is not actually 512KB+512KB (or 1MB+1MB), but is actually just 1MB or 2MB and both cores have access to it. Of course I could be way off here, like I said, I've not really researched much into it.

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I was going off the info from the AMD site, the table (below) shows them broken down to give comparisons, but in the details it says "Cache: 1mb/512kb per core"

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9284/x22hr.jpg


Liam

Each core does run at 2.2GHz, and each core does have it's own separate cache memory.

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Each core does run at 2.2GHz, and each core does have it's own separate cache memory.

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So the FX-60 is a bit of a monster then.:) (5.2Ghz and 2mb cache overall)


Liam

The clock speed isn't cumulative, so the FX-60 is 2.6GHz and 2MB cache.

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The clock speed isn't cumulative, so the FX-60 is 2.6GHz and 2MB cache.

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D'oh, i mis-read a Tom's Hardware review. :o


Liam

Ah yeah, I found some diagrams of the way the two cores are setup, I would have prefered to find a simpler Intel diagram but the only one I saw was postage stamp sized.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by liam858

So the FX-60 is a bit of a monster then.:) (5.2Ghz and 2mb cache overall)

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Perhaps you were thinking of this one. :p

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Perhaps you were thinking of this one.....

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LOL, nope, but that's a sweet project.:)


Liam

Hey, guys. Just to let you know I stopped on the way home and bought the Gateway PC ... along with the Radeon X1300 and an inexpensive Sound Blaster card.

I'm letting them install the cards since I had a bad experience installing a Radeon 9250 on my current PC.

Anyway, I'll be picking up the PC this Friday morning. I'll let you know how things go.

Again, thanks to all of you for your time, effort and help.

You're Welcome zeszut. :)

I'd be interested in what you think of that X1300, as it seems to be the one of the new X1000 series that gets overlooked.


Liam