Graphics Card

[scientificlee]

I'm looking to purchase 2 LCDs within 30 days.
One of the requirements I have for the LCDs is that they have both DVI and analog inputs.
That said, I'm still undecided on what graphics card I should get. Money is an issue.

I originally thought I should purchase a Matrox p750 and have both monitors in DVI mode.
But I'm begining to wonder if I'm getting good value for the money. The p750 doesn't retail for less then 235ish. Both Nvidia and ATI produce cards at a faster rate thus lowering the prices on their previous generation cards. On the surface some of the older Nvidia and ATI cards seem to be on par, at least performance wise, with the p750. The big catch being that neither Nvidia or ATI offers dual DVI cards for mass market.

I'm somewhat set on dual DVI because of my previous experience. I have a Nvidia geForce4Ti in one of my boxes. One of my LCDs is connected to the DVI port and the other to the analog. I've gotten used to, but will never forget, the color difference between the two monitors. I've swapped the monitors around and I still get the same results.

Can anyone shed some light on the subject and offer recommendations?
Thanks

*I'm not a huge computer game player. In fact the only computer game I played in the last 3 years is Civ 3. Let's just put it this way; have you heard of a game called Half-Life? Well I didn't until it was already 2 years old and I still haven't played it.

 

[Sideswipe001]

Then go with the Matrox card.

nVidia and Ati market to a differet audience, unelss you grab a Quatro or FireGL card. Matrox is made for the non gamer. They have the best 2D, and will probably serve you better overall than any "gaming" video card.

 

[scientificlee]

Thanks.

 

[poppyq]

Geforce FX 5600 with dual dvi

Geforce FX 5200 with dual dvi

Geforce FX 5600 with dual dvi

Don't tell him there aren't any dual dvi cards unless you look yourself

Those above range in price from $120 to $220

 

[MDE]

List of Dual DVI cards

 

[SSibalNom]

I'd go w/ the matrox as well. if your not really gaming you might as well have the best 2d. I'd avoid nvidia altogether, the 2d is terrible on nvidia cards.

 

[Boogak]

Why not the Matrox P650 for $169 instead? According to Matrox's Website, the primary difference is triple head support on the P750.

 

[alkemyst]

yeah like others have said 2d = matrox, gaming look elsewhere, but gaming is not a 2 monitor sport yet

however, I have found most don't need what they think they do.

Impressive you only have posted 7 times since 2002 though

Good luck in your search

Å

 

[trix9000]

Originally posted by: SSibalNom
I'd go w/ the matrox as well. if your not really gaming you might as well have the best 2d. I'd avoid nvidia altogether, the 2d is terrible on nvidia cards.

Yea ok expert, the 2d is terrible on nvidia. Probably something you heard from the net somewhere, off of some site. Im sure all the nvidia cards have crap 2d, since being made by nvidia they all have the same ramdac, right?

Its the idiots like you who pretend to know things about comp's , but in reality know nothing , you are just an echo repeating something you heard elsewhere.

Nvidia cards are made by different manufacturer's, so the quality varies, the various generations of nvidia cards have different 2d quality.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: trix9000

Originally posted by: SSibalNom
I'd go w/ the matrox as well. if your not really gaming you might as well have the best 2d. I'd avoid nvidia altogether, the 2d is terrible on nvidia cards.

Yea ok expert, the 2d is terrible on nvidia. Probably something you heard from the net somewhere, off of some site. Im sure all the nvidia cards have crap 2d, since being made by nvidia they all have the same ramdac, right?

Its the idiots like you who pretend to know things about comp's , but in reality know nothing , you are just an echo repeating something you heard elsewhere.

Nvidia cards are made by different manufacturer's, so the quality varies, the various generations of nvidia cards have different 2d quality.

So who are you really on AT?

 

[trix9000]

Just hope that in your decision , you take into consideration that Matrox a p750 wont beat a geforce 2 gts frame rate wise in most games. Its a low budget card, primarily meant for video editing and stuff like that. If you were serious about editing video you would be using a mac and final cut pro. Its just another budget card for businesses, using adobe photoshop and pagemaker and things like that. You will get no gaming pleasure from the card. you can problaly get a g4 quadro with dual dvi for not too much money.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: trix9000
Just hope that in your decision , you take into consideration that Matrox a p750 wont beat a geforce 2 gts frame rate wise in most games. Its a low budget card, primarily meant for video editing and stuff like that. If you were serious about editing video you would be using a mac and final cut pro. Its just another budget card for businesses, using adobe photoshop and pagemaker and things like that. You will get no gaming pleasure from the card. you can problaly get a g4 quadro with dual dvi for not too much money.

You lost us at mentioning a 'MAC' was the only solution.....

 

[DWW]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: trix9000
Just hope that in your decision , you take into consideration that Matrox a p750 wont beat a geforce 2 gts frame rate wise in most games. Its a low budget card, primarily meant for video editing and stuff like that. If you were serious about editing video you would be using a mac and final cut pro. Its just another budget card for businesses, using adobe photoshop and pagemaker and things like that. You will get no gaming pleasure from the card. you can problaly get a g4 quadro with dual dvi for not too much money.

You lost us at mentioning a 'MAC' was the only solution.....

ROFL

 

[trix9000]

I didnt say the only solution, I said if you were a serious about video editing. The video editing PC software is a joke compared to FCP4. Its like comparing a big wheel to an ATV.

Dont speak up about something you dont know anything about.

 

[SSibalNom]

Originally posted by: trix9000

Originally posted by: SSibalNom
I'd go w/ the matrox as well. if your not really gaming you might as well have the best 2d. I'd avoid nvidia altogether, the 2d is terrible on nvidia cards.

Yea ok expert, the 2d is terrible on nvidia. Probably something you heard from the net somewhere, off of some site. Im sure all the nvidia cards have crap 2d, since being made by nvidia they all have the same ramdac, right?

Its the idiots like you who pretend to know things about comp's , but in reality know nothing , you are just an echo repeating something you heard elsewhere.

Nvidia cards are made by different manufacturer's, so the quality varies, the various generations of nvidia cards have different 2d quality.

this might be why then... but i've never had a nvidia card w/ decent 2d, original gf 256 ddr, a gf2 mx, then a ti4200 by appolo).. so i'm not just an echo, I just have had bad 2d everytime I've had one, it's idiots like you, who are just assholes

 

[mbackof]

I have an Asus Ti4200 128MB and I'm very happy with the 2D. Its on a cheap 17" CRT. So I cannot see your point that NVIDIA 2D is terrible. My wife has an ATI 9600 NP and the 2D looks great on a 17" CRT. Both are running 1024x768xTrue Color @75. Maybe the 2D DVI is terrible? What resolution and what monitor size causes them to be terrible?

 

[drag]

On old Nvidia cards 2d quality was indeed very poor compared to other cards that were new at the time. Probably like the gforce1 and earlier ones, And TV-out was especially poor. (beleive me it sucked compared to ATI stuff.)


But Nvidia cards are fine nowadays. Otherwise you wouldn't see them being used in the G4 mac workstations. Those are very commonly used by graphic artists, especially 2d photo editing, layout and creation. Apple knows that they pay attention to what they use.


Right now Nvidia is just as good as anything else out their. However, Matrox goes the "extra step" and don't cut any corners like ATI and Nvidia do, you just go and look at any review of Matrox cards, especially Parhelia/

Which is why even the older cards are still kinda pricey, they just used premium parts whenever they could, and Nvidia and ATI concentrated more on the GPU and memory bandwidth for high 3-d performance while using budget peices on the rest of the card to keep the price down. And those parts go obsolete and get cheap quickly.

Not that most people would notice the difference, definately. You would have to use high quality monitors (probably ones more expesnive then the entire computer) in a side by side comparision. Then when you saw the difference you would just go "oh" and shrug your shoulders. (Probably, never done it myself. But the difference won't matter so much for most people.)


Parhelia is actually pretty neat. The new 256 meg is a high-end card and is actualy TRIPLE head output on a single card. Which is fun for games, because you don't have the line down the middle, generally were the crosshairs are.

You could do stuff like have a nice big 21 inch monitor for you main display with a 17 inch LCD display for reading text, VNC sessions, performance/network monitoring and monitoring logs. Then you could have a nice big screen TV for watching DVD's, playing games, and watching TV on.

They also have a PCI version, so you could combine the PCI version with the AGP version and get 4-5 monitors.

They also have a "Matrox QID" which is designed for public displays and can support 4 monitors out of a single AGP card.

 

[SSibalNom]

Originally posted by: mbackof
I have an Asus Ti4200 128MB and I'm very happy with the 2D. Its on a cheap 17" CRT. So I cannot see your point that NVIDIA 2D is terrible. My wife has an ATI 9600 NP and the 2D looks great on a 17" CRT. Both are running 1024x768xTrue Color @75. Maybe the 2D DVI is terrible? What resolution and what monitor size causes them to be terrible?

The short time I had a ti4200 I had an appolo (running on 19" CRT), I bet an Asus uses more quality parts, but my older nvidia cards were both built by Nvidia (both on 15" and 17" crt), which probably explains why the 2d is bad.
drag did a good explanation of why my 2d experience was bad ^^