Video card recommendations, please

[pepperspray]

Anyone here care to recommend a good graphics card - preferably one that I can run dual monitors on?

[Kraellin]

pepperspray,

this is entirely dependent on what motherboard you have and what type of card slot(s) you have on the motherboard. currently, there is pci, agp, and pci-e types (i dont even count on-board cards as these tend to be a bit buggy, cheap, low-end and fussy). so, we'd need to know that first, unless you're planning to build new and going to build around the vid card.

[MajorSONAR]

I am a hardware junkie. I read everything I can about computers and "stuff" related to computers... Rest assured I know what I'm talking about.

Kraellin made some good remarks about types of video cards (e.g. AGP, PCI-E, etc.). Most video cards now a days are designed for 3-D rendering, primarily for games. Most applications on the other hand (including photoshop) rely on 2-D graphics. Rendering 2D graphics was perfected years ago. You will find very little, if any, speed in buying a high end graphics card. Even the extra RAM on a video card is primarily used for handling 3-D graphic images.

Most current video cards have both DVI (digital video interface) and VGA (video graphics array) interfaces. Most LCD (flat panel) monitors will use the DVI interface, while most CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors will use the old VGA interface. Many of the video cards on the market today will support dual monitors (assuming one was DVI and one was a CRT). Here is a link to one store that sells video cards.

http://www.superwarehouse.com/Dual_M..._Cards/c3/1884

I know nothing about this store, but you could use the list to check out the variety and prices of the cards. Once you pick a card you like, I suggest using pricegrabber to find the best deal (www.pricegrabber.com).

Like I mentioned above, a cheap video card will be just as fast as an expensive card (only in 2-D). If you play games or plan on doing 3-D rendering, you should NOT buy the cheapest card.

If you are going to play games or do 3-D rendering, I can make some suggestions based upon your budget.

Hope this helps.

[pepperspray]

Thanks for the info!

I'm not rebuilding my computer. What's happened is that I had an old 19" CRT monitor, that had lived in sulphurous Rotorua (NZ), had a broken degauss button, and some colour shifting in the lower lefthand corner (where Windows blue became a pastelly pinkish tint, and the upper left corner was whitish), which was attached to my new (2.4 years ago) computer. Naturally, I thought the faults were to do with my monitor, and so I tolerated them.

But now I have a new LCD monitor - a Samsung SynchMaster 970P, as recommended by Tom's Hardware. But the same problem is still there.

So, it's obviously not the monitor's problem, but the graphics card is faulty - and looks like it always has been, but I didn't pick it up, because I blamed the old monitor.


Anyhoo, my motherboard is a GA-8IPE1000 Pro2 SCK478 i865 DDR400. My current faulty video card is a 128MB GeForce FX 5200 (which doesn't support a second monitor - which will be an old 15" CRT).


Thanks for your advice, guys. Much appreciated. I now know much better to trust users on the internet WAYYYY more than someone in a store who's just trying to close a sale.

[Littlecoo]

If you are not heavily into gaming and/or HDvideo apps, most any agp card is ok for photoshop etc. IMO high-end cards are a waste of money if your needs are just for dual display and running nothing more taxing than photoshop. I am using a nvidia geforce fx 5600xt running dual display. I have tried ati equivelents and didn't like the firmware all that much especially in it's handling of multi displays...that was painful (may be different now and with later cards). Anyhow, I am happy with the nvidia forceware and my mediocre card does exactly what I want it to do reliably and if it wasn't for my love of games I'd have no need to upgrade.

[pepperspray]

That looks pretty good. Thanks, Littlecoo. I'll look into what they cost over here.

[Littlecoo]

I've been looking at agp vid cards myself lately (for a multimedia machine I am building) and there is decent crop of them priced around AU$100 (not much more in NZ$ I'd guess) an Albatron Geforce 6200 128M DVI TVO AGP is AU$60 at one place I frequent... that's not bad.

[MajorSONAR]

I am currently using an ATI A-I-W (All in Wonder) video card (model X800 XT). This card supports dual monitors and is an AGP card. One of the nice features of this card is the ability to watch TV on my computer (along with a lot of other abilities).

The card still has power to run current 3D games at fairly high resolutions. Prices are dropping... I think I've seen the card for $180. There is a 2006 edition of the card for around $80 USD, but this card is less powerful (for playing games) than the X800 XT model. If you are not playing 3-D games the 2006 editon of the card may work perfectly for you.

I've owned both Nvidia and ATI cards and like Littlecoo, I prefer Nvidia because the drivers seem better. Overall the quality of the cards is very similar. Nvidia does not make a card with all the capabilities of the AIW. I wanted all the extra's the AIW had, so this is why I bought the card.

Overall, I am very pleased with this card and highly recommend it.

[pepperspray]

Thanks, guys.

I'll definitely be checking out new video cards next week as it looks more and more like I'm going to have to.

Cheers!

[cardmnal]

I recently bought a GeForce 7300GS video card.It supports DVI, VGA HDTV has s-video outputs and has 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. it supports multiple monitors and includes a DVI adapter so you can easily hook up multiple CRT monitors. It has 3-d capabilities if you are planning to work with Bryce or Poser or some other 3-d software and it's not too bad for gaming either. The control panel is pretty intuitive making it very easy to configure your monitors. I only paid about $90US at a local office supply store that is not known for it's great prices.



Alan

[pepperspray]

Thanks, cardmnal.


In my frustration, my sister came to the rescue with her credit card and bought me a nVidia/Leadtek WinFast A6600 GT TDH. I have to pay her back, unfortunately , but I'm so grateful to her that I might just double her allotment in the Xmas present budget!