What Video Card do you use?

chi_red

chi_red

Well-known member
Hi,

What graphic card do you have in your computer?
What do you think is the best card for a dual monitor system, video editing and graphic/photo editing for under 400 dollars?
By the way, I rarely plays games on my computer, but I want to able to hook up two 22  inch monitors to it, and run them at 1600X1200/85HZ)

Here are some graphic cards I am looking at,

1. ATI All in Wonder 9600 ($150. cheap and good game card, dual VGA or one VGA + TV,  it has no fan, quiet running computer!!, but i hear it runs very hot)

2. ATI All in Wonder 9600 XT ($220, it has more quiet running fan than 9600 PRO, and faster. I hear 9600 Pro is very noisy)

3. Matrox Parhelia 128MB ($?, Matrox graphic quality, WYSIWYG, Triple head etc.)

What do you recommend and what do you use?

Thank you
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

In my old rig I used a G2 (G500) Matrox card it worked great. I would look into the Matrox Line of cards.

In my current box I am using the ATI Radeon 9800XT (256MB / 8xAGP) With the Matrox RTX 100 Xtreme Pro. The dual display configuartion works great, plus the bonus dongle to external monitor is a welcomed bonus :)
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

I use Nvidia. Works beautifully. Big range of prices but plenty of great cards for under $200. A general consensus seems to be that you won't get a bigger bang for your buck than with a 256MB GeForce Fx5700.

Personally, I'm about the spend the extra bucks for a 5950.
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

Thanks GWPGearWorx and David Jimerson,
and
come on people,
help me out~ :'(
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

I use a ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder. It is an older card and works great. It is in a P4 2.4 Ghz with 1GB Ram. The ATI cards are power hogs and need a 300W power supply, but heat hasn't been a problem. I leave the system running for days at a time without incident.
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

Not sure if were talking about PCs or Macs here, but I use a Radeon 9800 128 in my G5 with no complaints. Also, I've heard from mac that Motion reccomends a 9800 chipset or greater. Something to keep in mind. . .
-t
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

Yes, Apple's forthcoming "Motion" uses the texture memory of the video card to do all it can do in real time so a faster card with more memory will have advantages there.

As far as on the PC side, what type of card to get really depends on what you want to do with it. Most consumer video cards are made more for the gamer these days, and many NLEs have gone the software-only (or proprietary hardware) route, and therefore make more use of the CPU than the video card.

On the other hand, post-fx programs such as After Effects and 3d apps like 3d Studio Max do benefit from the power of a graphics card. However, they really only benefit from cards that have good OpenGL support, which you will mostly find in workstation-class video cards; rarely in consumer cards.

In most cases, for straight NLE work, getting one of these new video cards is really a waste. If all you really want to do is drive dual-monitors, pick yourself up an ATI 9200 or nVidia fx5200 dual-head card with 128mb RAM for $50. I've built systems with lesser cards than these that drive 6 LCD monitors no problem.

If OpenGL support is important to you, do some research on cards that have workstation-class power. I haven't looked into workstation video cards for some time, but even back then, there were some consumer cards coming down the pipe that did have some of the OGL power of their workstation-class (read: $1K+) bretheren.
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

Thanks everyone for really helpful advices.


Seems like most cards are AGP 8X thesedays.

I suppose AGP 8X is twice as fast as AGP 4X.

Is there really a huge difference between 4X and 8X?

I guess there might be some difference in playing games, but how about NLE, graphic works? Does it really matter for non gamers?
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

AGP 4x will be more than adequate for current NLE.. They're working a new PCI bus thats much faster than any AGPs and they're looking to that as the solution for future HD editing. If you don't care about gamig. the Parahelia cards are great for NLE and light-medium 3D graphics...
 
Re: What Video Card do you use?

I have a Geforce (cant remember the exact model) thats a 128mb...

Ill be springing for the 256mb hopefully by the end of summer.
 
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