TV-Out

[ZN13]

If a graphics card can output HDMI, and it also has a VGA port, could it output a TV signal through the VGA port using this?

I want to use ZOTAC's new Ion board to make a Media Center PC for my mom so she'll have a computer when I go to college in a couple months. She doesn't have a HDTV, but it has S-Video in so I figure that'll be ok.

[bicostp]

A cable that just connects wires together won't work unless the video card was designed to use them (which that board was not). It has a lot to do with scan rates, and not many video cards can output a slow enough signal for an analog TV.

You need a real adapter like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815100005" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's more expensive but it will actually do what you want. It only supports up to 1024x768, which is about the limit of what you'd want to use on an analog TV (even through S-Video) for anything but videos and emulators. Seriously. 1024x768 on a regular SDTV is barely legible, even up close. 800x600 is better, but very cramped.

If you're expecting your mom to use this as an actual PC (web browsing, email, basically everything but videos), then do her a favor and get a real monitor.

Actually, you might just want to buy her a real PC. Even one of the Conroe based Celerons will run circles around the Atom. The only reason to consider an Atom is its very low heat output and power requirements, which make sense for laptops but not desktops. (Even the dual-core Atom is a real dog if you want to call it a desktop CPU. Intel themselves claim the Atom is about half as fast as a mobile Celeron at the same clock speed.)

Here's a budget build that will do everything the Atom board can do, and more, and still come out cheaper:

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4050e Brisbane 2.1GHz - $35
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm - $30
Motherboard: Foxconn A74MX-K - $40
RAM: WINTEC AMPX 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 - $16
Case: Any ol' MicroATX case (I pulled this one as an example) - $30
PSU: Thermaltake TR2 430W - $26
GPU: Radeon HD 4350 512MB - $41 (Optional but it has built-in S-Video/Compunent Video, is cheaper than the TV adapter I linked you, and is HDCP compliant so you can put in a Blu-Ray drive and use a DVI-HDMI cable in the future if she decides to get an HDTV)
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE 320 GB - $50

Price of the Ion board + TV adapter: $240
Price of the ion board + all the extra parts listed above to make a fully functional computer: $336

Total to match the Ion board + TV-Out adapter in functionality: $172 ($68 cheaper than the Ion board)
Grand total: $268 ($68 cheaper than the Ion board)

[ZN13]

I was afraid of that. :/

But thanks Bic! That's probably the route I'll end up taking.