Best card and monitor for 2d?

[LanceM]

I do 90% of my work in programs such as Flash and Photoshop, along with a lot of audio stuff. Aside from that, I stay online all day. I don't really play many games on my PC (if any on PC at all, since we have a GC, Xbox and PS2), so it's not a huge factor.

Any suggestions for a video card that's great for 2D? I'm looking to spend the price equivalent of no more than a 9600XT or maybe 9800 Pro 128mb. Absolutely no higher in price.

How about a 15-17" flat panel? I'm looking to spend $450 at the very most, hopefully a little less.

Thanks in advance!

 

[LanceM]

Looking back at prior topics, everyone seems to keep saying "anything matrox".

So I'll make this ammendment: what current card that is 3D capable is known for the best 2D?

 

[nick1985]

do you game at all?

if the answer is no, get a matrox video card.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

That's something i would like to know. The best gaming card for 2D work. I'm going digi-cam soon

Some have suggested a Matrox pci card as well as a gamming card in the AGP slot.

 

[Insomniak]

Bitboys, no question.

 

[Blastman]

In the latest Viperlair reviews they assessed 2D quality and the retail ATI 9600XT?s overall 2D has the highest rating so far. It was rated even higher than even the Matrox ? 1 ... 2

 

[ShoooterMcGavin]

Originally posted by: Blastman
In the latest Viperlair reviews they assessed 2D quality and the retail ATI 9600XT?s overall 2D has the highest rating so far. It was rated even higher than even the Matrox ? 1 ... 2

I'm not so sure about viperlairs 2d testing. I think results could be subjective. But at the same time I don't think I've seen a good 2d test performed by reviewers.

 

[Schadenfroh]

anything matrox

 

[BenSkywalker]

If you are using a LCD- anything with a DVI out.

If you are using a CRT- Anything Matrox

Can't help you with the monitor suggestions- is the work your doing going to print or consumed in a digital fashion? If it's print, LCDs color balance is screwed up so you may want to keep that in consideration. If not, then pick up a LCD and pair it with pretty much anything with a DVI connection(make sure you go with a DVI cable too if you go LCD).

 

[batmanuel]

Matrox has always been good, but if you look at what they have available, it looks pretty grim. Looking at newegg, in the under $200 range you basically have G450 and G550 series cards that were GeForce 2/3 contemporaries and have only 32MB of onboard RAM. And from there you jump up to the Parahelia series in the $200 and over range. There would have to be a dramatic increase in 2D visual quality in the Matrox cards to justify picking the Parahelia over the 9600XT. The basic G550 for around $100 might be okay, but it still seems a bit low on memory, while the G450 seems too out of date to even consider it over the nVidia and ATi products in the same price range.

I'd say go for one of the Radeon 9600-series cards. ATi has always had good 2D quality (plus if you use a flat panel with DVI-in, you are bypassing the digital to ananlog conversion that causes most of the fuzziness at higher resolutions anyway). Also, ATi has some very nice hardware acceleration built into their cards for DVD and DivX playback, which is a big plus if you ever watch any video on your PC. (Which I do a lot more than I used to, now that I've found that I can pull down a lot of my favorite TV shows using BitTorrent if I forget to tape them).