Video upgrade question

I have on board graphics w/224MB video ram, I bought a wide screen HD monitor my board does not have the HD jack. I am not a gamer but would like the higher quality picture of HD, are their any decent cheap HD cards that some of you would recommend?

 

By "HD jack," are you referring to an HDMI plug?

 

The quality of your picture on your new monitor is going to be affected by both the quality of your video card and the cable you run between it and your monitor.

If watching HD movies is the most demanding task your video card is going to be put to, you need a decent card- probably better than your onboard- but nothing overboard expensive either. Most modern cards (and some onboard gpus too, depending) will have no problem rendering HD, if you let us now what kind of motherboard you have, or the type of video slot is on your board (AGP, PCI, PCI-E, etc), we can make some recommendations. The size of your monitor would be relevant too.

For choosing the cable, you need to know what type of connections you have on your monitor and your video card. VGA, DVI, and HDMI are your options. Many times you won't have the same connection on both ends- for instance, many video cards will have a DVI connector while the monitor may have HDMI. You can pretty easily find cables for whatever you need with a little looking, for instance here. HDMI to HDMI is technically optimal, but with a good DVI to HDMI you're going to have to look really hard to be able to tell any difference.

 

I am running a ASRock Conroe 1333-D667, with a 3.4 dual core and 2 gigs of ram. So I will be looking for recommendations, I do not game just would like to use the capabilities of the new wide screen. Monitor came with a DVI cable!

Thanks in advance

Phil

 

The ASRock Conroe 1333-D667 does have a PCI Express slot.

"Slots
- 2 x PCI slots
- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot
- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
- 1 x HDMR slot"

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=ConRoe1333-D667 R1.0

But you still haven't really explained what you mean by "HD Jack," unless you're only talking about that one DVI cable.

If that's the case, you can just buy a DVI-to-VGA adapter or choose any mid-range card with a DVI-out... If you do not game, the odds that you will notice the difference between VGA and DVI are slim to none.

 

Hi I pulled the book out it shows a PCI Express X1 slot and a PCI X16 slot Express slot, one is a full sized PCI slot the other is abut 1/3rd the size. Are they what I think they are?

Phil

 

http://i46.tinypic.com/mr8j07.jpg

Any PCI Express x16 card will work in the larger of the two slots.

 

This card is a good deal right now and would run hd movies for you very comfortably. You could go cheaper if you needed to to something like this. You may not notice the difference just running movies to be honest, but that first card's a really good deal and if there's a difference to be seen, it's the better card.

You really don't need anything else to get you going, there isn't a special jack or cable to use for hd. Provided your monitor is hd capable, the quality of card and cable you use are your only other direct considerations, and you couldn't ask for a better picture of where to put it than the one thetechnomancer's posted there. Be sure to ground yourself on the metal casing before you handle the card or touch any other hardware!

 

Hi great feed back, those cards both look interesting. Like I said I do not game but one of my grand kids may jump on the machine who knows. The monitor is a new Samsung with a decent rating so a card should make a bit of difference, will be searching ratings and prices to get the best bang.

Thanks

Phil