2 Video Cards, Must Chose one

[THESANTINI]

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-102-324&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-142-025&depa=1

I've narrowed me search to these two video cards. Or you guys may help me, I'm going to be running two 21" monitors at either 16x12 or 2048x1536 for playing online poker. I need dual capabilities, any reccomendations in the under $125 range.

Thanks.

 

[Matthias99]

If you don't need 3D performance, they're both overkill. Get an R9200[or 9200SE if you REALLY don't care about 3D performance at *all*], or find a RADEON 7500 used somewhere. There's no need for a $100+ video card if all you're going to do is run 2D apps like poker clients.

 

[THESANTINI]

I am concerned with using Windows XP and my processor to control the dual setup, rather than having hardware handle these processes with my P3 866mhz chip. Is that a legitimate concern?

 

[blodhi74]

find a 9700 pro ..... will be the same price with greater performence

 

[THESANTINI]

Can you link me to what you are talking about, either from Newegg or www.Provantage.com, because this is what I found http://www.pricegrabber.com/se...od.php/masterid=611213 $319...

 

[Azndude51]

THESANTINI, why did you choose those 2 specific cards out of all the ones from newegg?
Pretty much any 9600 will work, the 256mb of memory really isnt going to make a difference with what you're doing.

contrary to the others' suggestions, a 9700pro is overkill and it still costs more than a 9600 off ebay and with the 9600. and since you still have a PIII, like me, you must like to keep your computer parts for a long time. unlike the 9200 or below, the 9600 will be windows longhorn compatible (directx 9) when it comes out in a couple of years.

actually, with a PIII 866mhz, you should probably just buy a whole new system, you can build a decent one for around $400 since you probably already have the monitors. but i should really be talkin since i have a PIII also.

http://anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2231

 

[Zebo]

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-140-026&depa=1

Excellent card. Is all you need..listen to Matthias99 above.

 

[THESANTINI]

I just want to be sure about this Zebo- the card you linked me to, do you think with my current setup:

p3 866
256 megs ram

that this card will be able to support dual monitors at 2056x1536 for low graphics (i.e. online poker).

it is my understanding that I will replace my old AGP with this one and be good to go with my monitors?

 

[THESANTINI]

?

 

[BenSkywalker]

I don't know why these guys are pointing you to the boards they are, Matrox is king for what you are looking for.

 

[THESANTINI]

That card you rec'd is $105 the other is $39, what does it offer that the $39 card doesn't (that I need)?

 

[BenSkywalker]

Superior dual monitor management and superior DACs. You push any vid card to 2048x1536 and you are stressing the he!l out of its 2D parts(digital to analog converters and capacitors- results in fuzzy/less sharp images). ATi and nVidia parts are both clearly inferior to Matrox in terms of quality of display when you start pushing in to the upper resolution limits. It isn't just the $35 board I'm talking about either, the board I linked you to has a better 2D display for what you are looking for then any of the $500 ATi or nVidia parts. Dual monitor management is also much easier with Matrox parts then it is with ATi(which can be a bit of a PITA), although it is comparable to nVidia.

Edit-

Forgot to mention, feel free to poll the member of this forum. The most well versed here will all tell you that Matrox is the best choice for 2D. We argue about ATi and nVidia mainly as this tends to be a forum for 3D enthusiasts.

 

[THESANTINI]

Understood, but for the extra $70 I'll have to spend to get that card, is it truely worth my money?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: THESANTINI
Understood, but for the extra $70 I'll have to spend to get that card, is it truely worth my money?

Not to disrespect Ben up above, but IMHO, no. Matrox certainly offers very good 2D quality, but (at least to me) the newer ATI cards (the RADEON 9XXX series, at least) seem comparable (older cards, particularly cheap NVIDIA ones, are definitely not, and will lose signal integrity at high resolutions and refresh rates). I will admit, though, that while I've seen both of them, I have not put them side-by-side on the same monitors and done any sort of in-depth testing, nor have I specifically used the 9200SE.

And running dual monitors seems pretty easy with any card these days; the drivers all support it out of the box. Unless you have to have spanned displays (and you don't for what you're doing), ATI, NVIDIA, and Matrox all work pretty well.

 

[Evdawg]

Originally posted by: Zebo
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-140-026&depa=1

Excellent card. Is all you need..listen to Matthias99 above.

I know youve gotten a lot of answer from different people, but turst zebo on this one. Thats enough performance and will level out with your current stats great. Thats the perfect card to get and will run everything you want (like poker) great.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Superior dual monitor management and superior DACs. You push any vid card to 2048x1536 and you are stressing the he!l out of its 2D parts(digital to analog converters and capacitors- results in fuzzy/less sharp images). ATi and nVidia parts are both clearly inferior to Matrox in terms of quality of display when you start pushing in to the upper resolution limits. It isn't just the $35 board I'm talking about either, the board I linked you to has a better 2D display for what you are looking for then any of the $500 ATi or nVidia parts. Dual monitor management is also much easier with Matrox parts then it is with ATi(which can be a bit of a PITA), although it is comparable to nVidia.

Edit-

Forgot to mention, feel free to poll the member of this forum. The most well versed here will all tell you that Matrox is the best choice for 2D. We argue about ATi and nVidia mainly as this tends to be a forum for 3D enthusiasts.

Damned straight. THESANTINI, you're running dualhead for poker - I'm drawing the natural conclusion that you'll be spending a lot of time in front of these monitors. You want to give your eyes the easiest time possible. Even a used G450 will suffice - just make sure you get an AGP model. The only nV/ATi card's I'd suggest would be their workstation lineups (Quadro/FireGL) as they've got the better hardware needed to provide crisp 2D at high res.

Conclusion - Matrox, all the way.

- M4H

 

[BenSkywalker]

Understood, but for the extra $70 I'll have to spend to get that card, is it truely worth my money?

It is up to you, but you make it sound like you are going to be spending a lot of time in front of these displays. If you ask if it was me would I go with it for what you are doing the answer is absolutely.

Not to disrespect Ben up above, but IMHO, no.

Not taking offense or trying to argue over the finer points but I have a R9800Pro right now and it's hooked up to a NEC FP2141SB-BK and the signal quality loses a lot trying to run 2048x1536@85Hz. It's a BBA board purchased new retail from a B&M. The signal quality is actually poor enough on this BBA board that for some time I was looking in to using a Matrox PCI board to drive my 2D desktop and use the R9800Pro as a 3D only card(my monitor has dual VGA inputs so no worries about a KVM killing signal integrity).

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Superior dual monitor management and superior DACs. You push any vid card to 2048x1536 and you are stressing the he!l out of its 2D parts(digital to analog converters and capacitors- results in fuzzy/less sharp images). ATi and nVidia parts are both clearly inferior to Matrox in terms of quality of display when you start pushing in to the upper resolution limits. It isn't just the $35 board I'm talking about either, the board I linked you to has a better 2D display for what you are looking for then any of the $500 ATi or nVidia parts. Dual monitor management is also much easier with Matrox parts then it is with ATi(which can be a bit of a PITA), although it is comparable to nVidia.

Edit-

Forgot to mention, feel free to poll the member of this forum. The most well versed here will all tell you that Matrox is the best choice for 2D. We argue about ATi and nVidia mainly as this tends to be a forum for 3D enthusiasts.

Damned straight. THESANTINI, you're running dualhead for poker - I'm drawing the natural conclusion that you'll be spending a lot of time in front of these monitors. You want to give your eyes the easiest time possible. Even a used G450 will suffice - just make sure you get an AGP model. The only nV/ATi card's I'd suggest would be their workstation lineups (Quadro/FireGL) as they've got the better hardware needed to provide crisp 2D at high res.

Conclusion - Matrox, all the way.

- M4H

Radeon 9xxx and GeForce FX/6 are basically FireGL/Quadro cards with disabled OpenGL features (or the other way around) so they should have the same 2D/3D quality, right?
Anyway, I say either get a Matrox or go with Zebo's advice (if you want a cheap solution)

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Superior dual monitor management and superior DACs. You push any vid card to 2048x1536 and you are stressing the he!l out of its 2D parts(digital to analog converters and capacitors- results in fuzzy/less sharp images). ATi and nVidia parts are both clearly inferior to Matrox in terms of quality of display when you start pushing in to the upper resolution limits. It isn't just the $35 board I'm talking about either, the board I linked you to has a better 2D display for what you are looking for then any of the $500 ATi or nVidia parts. Dual monitor management is also much easier with Matrox parts then it is with ATi(which can be a bit of a PITA), although it is comparable to nVidia.

Edit-

Forgot to mention, feel free to poll the member of this forum. The most well versed here will all tell you that Matrox is the best choice for 2D. We argue about ATi and nVidia mainly as this tends to be a forum for 3D enthusiasts.

Damned straight. THESANTINI, you're running dualhead for poker - I'm drawing the natural conclusion that you'll be spending a lot of time in front of these monitors. You want to give your eyes the easiest time possible. Even a used G450 will suffice - just make sure you get an AGP model. The only nV/ATi card's I'd suggest would be their workstation lineups (Quadro/FireGL) as they've got the better hardware needed to provide crisp 2D at high res.

Conclusion - Matrox, all the way.

- M4H

Radeon 9xxx and GeForce FX/6 are basically FireGL/Quadro cards with disabled OpenGL features (or the other way around) so they should have the same 2D/3D quality, right?
Anyway, I say either get a Matrox or go with Zebo's advice (if you want a cheap solution)

For 2D quality it's the RAMDAC chips that make the difference, not the core itself. Since a little fuzziness is "acceptable" on consumer cards, they use lesser/slower chips there, but in the workstation side everything has to be razor sharp. Since Matrox quit trying to cater to the consumer-level after the G400MAX, they just toss the highest-grade chips on everything.

- M4H

 

[Tiamat]

Not to stir things up more, but Matrox has been known to provide the best 2-D imaging in the normal price range. 3-D will be lackluster, but 2-D is excellent.

Is it worth extra $$? That depends on your monitors. If you have top of the line NEC/Mistubishi that can do 85hz at 2048x1536, I would highly recommend getting the matrox. If you have generic or old 21" monitors that do 2048x1536 @ 75hz or less, you may not need the matrox as the CRT would limit your image quality right off the bat.

 

[skene]

I had an old matrox G400 and a pair of 21" sun monitors running at 1600x1200 with no problems. I tried a couple of the dual display setups mentioned actually. I had a radeon 7500 as a dual setup, but it had issues running two screens at such a high resolution. I also had a PCI videocard for one screen and the radion for the main one, and that worked pretty well but the PCI card couldn't go to high enough resolution.

After all that, I'd say a matrox card is definetly the way to go if you're only using 2D apps. I picked up my G400 used for $40, used it for a year, then sold it for the same. The down side to it is it can only run one monitor at 2048x1536 and the other at 16x12, or both at 16x12.

Make sure your monitors are good though, the SUN monitors I had were both old and one had the red shifted by 1 pixel making it a real pain. It's probably out of your budget range, but finding a card with dual DVI output and DVI LCD screens would provide the cleanest picture....but that'll cost an arm and a leg.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Superior dual monitor management and superior DACs. You push any vid card to 2048x1536 and you are stressing the he!l out of its 2D parts(digital to analog converters and capacitors- results in fuzzy/less sharp images). ATi and nVidia parts are both clearly inferior to Matrox in terms of quality of display when you start pushing in to the upper resolution limits. It isn't just the $35 board I'm talking about either, the board I linked you to has a better 2D display for what you are looking for then any of the $500 ATi or nVidia parts. Dual monitor management is also much easier with Matrox parts then it is with ATi(which can be a bit of a PITA), although it is comparable to nVidia.

Edit-

Forgot to mention, feel free to poll the member of this forum. The most well versed here will all tell you that Matrox is the best choice for 2D. We argue about ATi and nVidia mainly as this tends to be a forum for 3D enthusiasts.

Damned straight. THESANTINI, you're running dualhead for poker - I'm drawing the natural conclusion that you'll be spending a lot of time in front of these monitors. You want to give your eyes the easiest time possible. Even a used G450 will suffice - just make sure you get an AGP model. The only nV/ATi card's I'd suggest would be their workstation lineups (Quadro/FireGL) as they've got the better hardware needed to provide crisp 2D at high res.

Conclusion - Matrox, all the way.

- M4H

Radeon 9xxx and GeForce FX/6 are basically FireGL/Quadro cards with disabled OpenGL features (or the other way around) so they should have the same 2D/3D quality, right?
Anyway, I say either get a Matrox or go with Zebo's advice (if you want a cheap solution)

For 2D quality it's the RAMDAC chips that make the difference, not the core itself. Since a little fuzziness is "acceptable" on consumer cards, they use lesser/slower chips there, but in the workstation side everything has to be razor sharp. Since Matrox quit trying to cater to the consumer-level after the G400MAX, they just toss the highest-grade chips on everything.

- M4H

This is really interesting, so that's why Leadtek are wellknown with their good 2D quality compared to other manufacturers, because they use high quality quality memory chips.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Even a used G450 will suffice - just make sure you get an AGP model. The only nV/ATi card's I'd suggest would be their workstation lineups (Quadro/FireGL) as they've got the better hardware needed to provide crisp 2D at high res. Conclusion - Matrox, all the way.
- M4H

Are you suggesting, that there are material differences in terms of the analog display output circuitry put in these cards, between the consumer and the workstation models, that use the same RAMDACs? I would be interested in finding out more evidence of that if it's true. I've worked with many video cards over the years, and while Matrox does seem to have the highest-quality 2D output, I have to also agree that recent BBA R9xxx boards also have very excellent 2D output. If it weren't for the fact that they don't seem to support sync-on-green, I would be using my dual-head R9200 now to drive a pair of 20" Sony workstation tubes, instead of my 17" NEC multi-sync. (Also the fact that I have no room on my desk for all three anymore.)

I guess the proof would be in the experience though, and I haven't actually used this card to drive a CRT at 16x12 or higher. When I used to run 16x12 on my 19" MAG (now deceased), I was using an ATI RagePro AGP card. Hardly "high-end" in terms of 2D display output, but it was very nearly as sharp as the Matrox Mill. PCI cards that was using for the secondaries at the time. Today's Radeon cards should have much better 2D quality than that old card as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
For 2D quality it's the RAMDAC chips that make the difference, not the core itself. Since a little fuzziness is "acceptable" on consumer cards, they use lesser/slower chips there, but in the workstation side everything has to be razor sharp.
- M4H

Isn't the RAMDAC on-chip on those cards, and thus part of the core? It is on my R9200, and it claims to be 400Mhz. (Actually, older drivers say 500Mhz, have no idea why. I didn't think that the onboard RAMDAC went that high.)

I guess a side-by-side pic would show if ATI workstation cards used a seperate off-chip RAMDAC as compared to consumer cards that used the on-chip RAMDAC. That would clear up the issue for me at least.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

I think for most cards that use VGA out, it's not the RAMDAC itself, but the signal filtering that goes along with it (capacitors and other analog circuit devices).

I will say that I have never noticed an image quality problem with video cards, but I've used a Matrox Millenium w/Voodoo 1, Leadtek GF3 Ti200, and R9700pro.

All those cards were pretty good, and from what I saw, the monitor made a much greater impact than the card did.

I do know that Matrox has always had a reputation for superior 2d quality, so if that's where you will be spending your time, then maybe that's the way to go.

Conversely, you could always spend the $40 on the ATI card, and then sell it if you end up unhappy with the performance and at that time switch over the Matrox. That way, you'll have a chance to try out the less expensive card to see if it suits your need.

Perhaps you can find a B&M store nearby with a good return policy and try out the cards that way.

-D'oh!