dual outputs for basic office and home theatre tasks?

[bauerbach]

designing a computer, but well; last built 3 years ago, and with technologies pace, may as well have built an abacus.

so, the situation. NEVER play video games. not to say I want a completely worthless video setup. but duel 500$ cards, not nescessary.

2 displays, 1 monitor, 1 DLP projector. it'll act as an office computer(word proscessing, email, ect) and also as a Home theatre hub that will record, play(to either projector or monitor, or both? dual tuners?), and transmit to other systems, HDTV and more.

the latter is what Im really concerned with.

trying to decide if Im better off with a single high end card like a V7100 or 2 X1900GT?

I dont know if the X1900GT support crossfire, so if they would work at all for this purpose.

or if I should go nvidia SLI setup?

what would you guys suggest for a system needing to run 2 monitors; but nothing too intense on either?

 

[Bobthelost]

Well i've got a computer that does the same, although i've only got dual LCDs to pay with. Onboard graphics is enough for that. The advantages to plug in cards are as follows: Harware decoding of movies (not an issue, h.264 doesn't stretch my semperon 3000) and dual DVI outputs (the best onboard i know of give a DVI out and a VGA out.)

In short, there isn't much point in getting a seperate card if you can live with one of your outputs being VGA. If that's a problem then i belive you can use both IGP and a PCIe card at the same time, even the cheapest PCIe card has at least one DVI port. So you'd have one from the IGP and one from the card.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Why do you think your simple needs will require anything like the top-end 3D performance of a single high-end card, let alone DUAL cards? An old Radeon 9600 would technically handle your needs, although the HDTV quality might not be great.

SLI and Crossfire are only needed for improved performance with 3D graphics tasks. They won't help at all with just displaying video no matter how high a resolution it is. And no video card will help with just recording video.

Depending on the type of connection your monitor or DLP uses, or your HDTV, dual DVI may or may not be important. Many video cards these days come with component output connectors for use with a dedicated video-out port on the card.

 

[bauerbach]

well, this is a gift for the parents. (no Im not 13, I wish). not the kind of gift where I pay for it, but I offered to build it for them. problem is, my father is stubborn, and I could tell him all about a 100$ video card, but he wont want to hear it. he's of the school where $$$=quality.

at the same time, should he ever decide to boot up a game(as unlikely as that is) I dont want the computer to jump out the window. who knows what he might decide to do. part of the challenge of this little project.

basicly Im designing a computer to run almost anything. and to do it all quickly and most important, stable.

Im now thinking X1900XT single. 330$ is a reasonable medium, dual DVI for him, and have no problem running whatever he might manage to throw at it.

 

[Bobthelost]

You're still thinking too high, a 7600GT is plenty for an occasional gamer. If he's not a techie type then perhaps a few white lies would be in order "No dad, those cards aren't compatible" "No, excellent parts but they aren't used except for online gaming" "The graphics card isn't important untill you've got a top end CPU."

Or just use the race car annalogy. A X1900XT if a F1 race car, expensive, fuel inefficent, bloody useless for the weekly shopping run, needs a new engine after every race and all round stupid as a household car. Getting a top of the line mercedes costs a fraction of that and does everything you need and more. (ie he's already spending enough money to get him into the top of the range gear, it's now just being wasted on the wrong sort of part)