Video Card for photograpy

[ooeDBone]

I'm building a new rig for a buddy who is a photographer. He is only concerned about image quality obviously. I know this can be a somewhat subjective question... but, between nvidia, ati and matrox, who would you recommend for a pure photo editing workstation? Further more, which specific card would you recommend? Or if you could point me to some resources that would also be excellent.

Thanks as always Anandtech community!

 

[Munky]

All modern video cards have good 2D image quality, unless maybe some of the really cheap ones that have the vga output connected to the board by a cable. Matrox is believed to have slightly better 2D image quality, but their cards cost significantly more. The real question is - what kind of monitor does he have? A mediocre LCD with horrible color accuracy would be bad for photo editing no matter how good the video card is.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: munky
All modern video cards have good 2D image quality, unless maybe some of the really cheap ones that have the vga output connected to the board by a cable. Matrox is believed to have slightly better 2D image quality, but their cards cost significantly more. The real question is - what kind of monitor does he have? A mediocre LCD with horrible color accuracy would be bad for photo editing no matter how good the video card is.

Agreed. I was amazed at the difference between Analog and DVI. For 2D just get a good name brand card, but the monitor is far more important now a days.

 

[ooeDBone]

Yeah, roger on the quality of monitor. I believe he has a real nice NEC CRT and he is also getting a Dell widescreen LCD. So we'll be going DVI on that bad-boy for sure.

 

[tfinch2]

Make sure to get the displays properly calibrated.

 

[ooeDBone]

So any of the newer cards in the 100 dollar price range will do? No one really has any preferences?

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: ooeDBone
So any of the newer cards in the 100 dollar price range will do? No one really has any preferences?

Even less than 100 will do.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: munky
All modern video cards have good 2D image quality, unless maybe some of the really cheap ones that have the vga output connected to the board by a cable. Matrox is believed to have slightly better 2D image quality, but their cards cost significantly more. The real question is - what kind of monitor does he have? A mediocre LCD with horrible color accuracy would be bad for photo editing no matter how good the video card is.

Agreed. I was amazed at the difference between Analog and DVI. For 2D just get a good name brand card, but the monitor is far more important now a days.

Depends on the analog output quality of the graphics card. I had graphics cards where the analog quality was really good and you can't tell the difference, except in games where analog would have more ghosting. On the other hand, my current graphics card sucks in the analog department, and the 2D analog quality is horrible.