Best 2D Video Card

[sblake]

I am getting ready to build a new system. It will be an ASUS A7V133 board with an AMD 1.2MHz 266FSB. I do not play games. Primary use is business apps, some Adobe graphics apps and surfing the net. I don't think I need a high dollar card but want a good one with good refresh rates.

What would you recommend? Thanks.

 

[Raspewtin]

Matrox. I think their at G550 now. Best 2D

 

[Shmorq]

The Matrox G450 is a perfect fit for you. It's very cheap too... at least under $100. I personally use this card myself and while I don't have any other vid cards to compare it to at high resolutions, I can't see how the images can be any clearer.

Hmmm... didn't know the G550 is already out.

 

[LXi]

Matrox G450. Or ATI Radeon LE.

 

[Mem]

Definetly Matrox .

 

[MGMorden]

Matrox G450 would do best for you. The G550 is about to come out but it doesn't do a whole lot more (little better 3d performance, which you probably don't care about). The G450 should do fine though. The Radeon's are also good and (don't kill me for saying this) but I recall Anand saying that the Trident AGP cards had pretty good 2d despite completely lousy 2D. I guess I'll test that theory pretty soon (my Trident 9850 AGP is going into a Linux box I'm building).

 

[Rankor]

<< Trident AGP cards had pretty good 2d despite completely lousy 2D >>



So, that (pretty) much cancels itself out, right ?

Lightning strikes twice in this similar post.

 

[sblake]

Sounds like Matrox G450 is the way to go. Is these the one with dual head display. Do I need 32MG or is 16MG good enough?

 

[bozo1]

The G450 is dual head and go for the 32M flavor. Even comes with a cable that will let you use the 2nd monitor port to output a composite or S-Video signal to run to a TV if you wish. The G550 will be coming out soon but I haven't seen a date for it yet. (Matrox usually hypes their new cards many months before they are available and they just started hyping the G550.)

 

[cchan]

It really depends what resolution you want to run. If you have a 21&quot; monitor and you want to run 1600x1200 at 32-bit colour at 85Hz, then I would go with the 32MB. If, however you only have a 17&quot; monitor that you only plan on running at 1024x768, 16bit colour then 16MB is more than enough. (And as other people have pointed out, you won't get dual head on the 16MB card.)

 

[Noriaki]

Definately Matrox G450 (possible a G400 if you can get one cheap and second hand).

The G450 comes in Single Head or Dual Head versions.
16MB of RAM is enough to run both heads at 1600x1200x32bit.
You'd really only need 32MB for gaming.

But if you want to go above 1600x1200x32 you'll need more than 8MB per head. Besides the 32MB version isn't that much more expensive, so you might as well get the 32MB Dual Head Version.

Who knows you may get a 24&quot; monitor one day and actually want to use 2048x1536x32


G450 vs G400, the G450's second display is a little more powerful, but the G400 is a little faster in gaming. But since you don't care about that, I'd go for a G450. The only reason I mention the 400 is that it's a little older you might be able to find one cheap for less.

But the G450 is pretty cheap already.

Also others have mentioned the Radeons, they also have very nice 2D, and are also good 3D cards. But even a Radeon LE probably isn't much cheaper than a G450-DH. So I'd go that way if I were you since you don't care about the 3D performance of the Radeon.

 

[SleepyGuy]

hehe, i got one of those Trident Cards... the 9750 AGP... 4mg of ram... ok 2D and super cr@p 3D, ran well with the Voodoo2 back when...

 

[MGMorden]

<<

<< Trident AGP cards had pretty good 2d despite completely lousy 2D >>



So, that (pretty) much cancels itself out, right ?

Lightning strikes twice in this similar post. >>



Sorry, I meant good 2d despite lousy 3D.

 

[MGMorden]

<< hehe, i got one of those Trident Cards... the 9750 AGP... 4mg of ram... ok 2D and super cr@p 3D, ran well with the Voodoo2 back when... >>



I've got the 9850. It had the crap 3d too. The only game it would run in 3d was Mortal Kombat 4. Everything else it was too slow. Some games (like Wing Commander: Prophecy) even said during the setup that the card was too slow. I'm about to pop the card in my Linux box I'm working on though. It's not a performance box (I'm going to be using a Via C3 processor) so I really don't care about the 3D performance.