I will shortly be putting together a mid-range games PC (probably AMD XP-2600, 512Mb, 120G HDD etc) which will also be used with a Nebula card as a DTT PVR (like a TiVo but it takes the EPG from the Net).

Because of that last bit, and the fact I like to play games on a big screen (32") I'd like the TV-out output to be the best quality I can get.

Some have said that the ATi cards are best because they can output to TV separately (as monitor 2). But I don't know if the GeForce does the same thing.

Basically the card would either be a Radeon 9600 (/Pro) or GeForce FX5600 for around £100. Does either of the two offer better image quality through the TV?

Nvidia based cards output the TV separately but i have also heard that ATI based cards have a higher quality T.V out mainly because Nvidia based cards can only output to the T.V at a maximum resolution of 800x600 where ATI cards can output at 1024x768.

My Nvidia TV out quality is pretty ordinary. I remember at the time of buying (about 12 months ago) that Nvidia boards were not as good as ATI for TV out due to the chip used (but that didn't bother me as I don't really use it). I don't think the reso has much to do with it as it would depend on the TV. Most NTSC TV's will only display 640x480 pixels. Someone can correct me on this though.

go with the radeon m8. i have a gforce4 128 ti4800se only because i cannot afford a pro radeon.....:-]

The S-Video out on the card maxxes out at 480x480/(576PAL).

Some cards have the component out and some cards now have DVI out that can handle higher resolutions, but that's only useful if you have the correct inputs on your TV.

Both my GF4 cards can output TV at 1024x768

(GF4 Ti4200 VIVO and GF4 MX440)

The Ti uses a Philips chip and the MX uses Nvidia's own chip.