I usually use Matrox cards for my photography/Photoshop use, but they are becoming hard to find and I don't want to spend 500. Is there another card that would be good for Photoshop image quality/NO Gaming for about or under $200?
New PCIe card for photography
- Thread starter JMPHOTO
- Start date
dual link dvi is a SINGLE dvi port that offer more bandwidth than dvi. unless you need to support a 30" dell display you probably don't need it.
Really. I would think that any recent ATI/NVIDIA card would do. Something from the X1K or 7 series, respectively.
Definitely. The recent generation cards all have excellent 2d, especially if you are going over DVI - though I still prefer VGA driving my 21" Trinitron for Photoshop 
Radeon X700 or GeForce 6200 would be enough if you don't game at all. Get a 128MB version for under $50 and be happy
If you need to run a big LCD monitor (over 1600x1200 native resolution), then a 7300 is a good choice because it has two DVIs, one dual link, and one single link.
~MiSfit
Radeon X700 or GeForce 6200 would be enough if you don't game at all. Get a 128MB version for under $50 and be happy
If you need to run a big LCD monitor (over 1600x1200 native resolution), then a 7300 is a good choice because it has two DVIs, one dual link, and one single link.
~MiSfit
Originally posted by: themisfit610
Definitely. The recent generation cards all have excellent 2d, especially if you are going over DVI - though I still prefer VGA driving my 21" Trinitron for Photoshop
Radeon X700 or GeForce 6200 would be enough if you don't game at all. Get a 128MB version for under $50 and be happy
If you need to run a big LCD monitor (over 1600x1200 native resolution), then a 7300 is a good choice because it has two DVIs, one dual link, and one single link.
~MiSfit
I agree. I bought this Sapphire card, with ATI's X550 chipset on it, recently for a machine I'm gonna be building just to do Photoshop and some other basic graphics apps (like Illustrator, PowerPoint, etc.). I researched the heck out of cards (including Matrox) beforehand and settled on this one.
One caveat: If you anticipate using a lot of memory (like having a lot of photos open at once or doing multi-tasking while running Photoshop), try to avoid getting a card with "hypermemory." You prolly know what that means, but if not, it means the card will sometimes 'borrow' RAM from your computer to supplement its memory requirements (poor explanation, but hey, I'm tired
).Another thing I like about that Sapphire card is that there's no fan on it to fail or start buzzing loudly a year or two down the road. (Notice how much of the card is covered with a big heatsink instead?
) It has a 2-year warranty too. If you don't need to drive a huge monitor or two digital monitors, it's a very nice 2D card just to do Photoshop and other non-gaming apps. And the price is right, so you won't be too heavily invested if you decide to "upgrade" a year or two from now or something. EDITED Wednesday nite: My previous link (to the card I bought) has mysteriously disappeared from Newegg's site, so I've replaced it to another vendor's link to the same card. In case anyone's wondering.
OP never stated he needed dual link DVI. From the "ever need to run 2 monitors" I'm sure you can infer he was meaning 2 DVI ports.
What about this one from Sapphire. Looks like dual DVI, I could not find anything about hypermemory.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Well, it's your money (and no offense
), but with that card you're paying significantly for Crossfire functionality when you said you don't game. (Crossfire is only for gaming.)You're also paying for dual DVI, which is cool if you anticipate needing that in the near future, but you could certainly find a dual-DVI card without Crossfire for a LOT less than what that card costs. That card you linked to also has a fan on it, and I'll bet it's prolly pretty noisy (most are). If you don't care about a loud card, or the potential for fan failure a year or two down the road, that's your call.
I doubt if you'd see any difference whatsoever between that card and the one I linked to if you're just gonna use it for Photoshop or other 2D apps. Even motion video (like from the Web or watching DVDs) will be perfectly fine with a card like the one I linked to. But it only has one DVI port, along with a VGA port, as opposed to dual DVI ports.
Not trying to shoot you down -- just pointing out what I see. Good luck.
Heh heh ... well, unfortunately I don't have time to do your shopping for you.
I did take a quick, cursory look at Newegg's offerings a minute ago and I didn't see any with dual-DVI that don't also have other features you don't need (like Crossfire or TV tuners, for example). I didn't spend the time to dig deep on the site, however.Another way you could go about this is to look at the various card makers' sites, find the card you want, then use Google or PriceGrabber.com to find a vendor selling it at a price you like. That's how I usually go about these things. If I were you, I'd look at sites of Sapphire, eVGA, HIS, PowerColor, and Gigabyte to start with. They all make cards with ATI chipsets, which I like and have had good luck with. I'd think at least one of those companies prolly makes a dual-DVI card without Crossfire or other 'extras' you don't need to pay for. You could also look directly at ATI's site (which is now part of AMD's site since they bought ATI). You could also check out nVidia's offerings (I'm just not as familiar with their cards & chipsets as I am with ATI's.)
Then again, how much is your time worth? You might be better off just spending the $140ish (w/tax & shipping) on that Sapphire card you linked to before rather than spending hours scouring mfgrs' Web sites to find the perfect card. That card will do the job for you, it's just a little pricey for what you need. And it has a fan, which may or may not bother you. It's up to you.
Neither are dual-DVI, though, if that matters to the OP. And I don't think either would perform any better than the $60ish card I linked to when it comes to Photoshop. Gaming, sure, but not Photoshop or any other 2D apps. Just my opinion.
Originally posted by: Ken90630
Neither are dual-DVI, though, if that matters to the OP. And I don't think either would perform any better than the $60ish card I linked to when it comes to Photoshop. Gaming, sure, but not Photoshop or any other 2D apps. Just my opinion.
Bah, forgot about the dual-DVI
Perhaps thisthis then?
Ken is right though, you won't notice much of a difference between this, and a $60 dollar card for Photoshop. In my opinion though, you might as well get a decent midrange card in case you do decide to go dual monitors, and other possibilities such as gaming/3D rendering apps and whatnot. Better to spend it now other than realize you may need a more powerful gpu later
Keep in mind that Photoshop CS3 does supposedly offer GPU acceleration for some functions if you run it on Vista. The OP probably isn't planning on upgrading his OS at this moment but there's no point in completely gimping him with a sub-$40 card if a $60-$70 card might also fulfill his current needs and give hime some opportunity to take advantage of future GPU-accelerated apps, some of which are already available on XP.
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