Topic: Video card (Read 3049 times)

svein · « **on:** March 17, 2006, 03:14:10 pm »

I'm going to get a new PC and had hoped to use my current Matrox 650 card, but all the good main boards has switched from AGP to PCIe so I'll have to get a new one.
I've been happy with Matrox so far, but recently switched from CRT to LCD screens. I was pleasanly surprised that the P650 card supported dual DVI with res up to 1920*1200 (which is the res of my largest screen).
I'm considering getting a new P650 card, but it's fairly expensive for the (almost nonexistent) 3D performance, and from the picture at the Matrox site it looked like they've added a fan to the PCIe version of the card.
So now I'm wondering. As long as I use dual DVI connections any fairly new card that support this should be good enough? I've read this http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/29/the...ion/page15.html article on THG, so I understand that all cards with DVI-support is not equal. The test is almost 1.5 years old though so I'm interested in any comments on more recent cards.
What I'm looking for is a fanless card able to drive a 20" (1600*1200) and a 24" (1920*1200) both with DVI-connection and of course good image quality. I'd like to be able to profile both, but that's not an absolute requirement. I don't play any 3D-intensive games, but I'd like it to be adwquate for using Vista when Microsoft release it.

61Dynamic · « **Reply #1 on:** March 17, 2006, 03:39:56 pm »

It sounds like you already know the criteria for a video card. The only thing that I can recommend beyond that is that you make sure it has 128MB of vRAM so you can have all the pretty effects in Vista (otherwise Vista will run just fine as XP does sans-effects).

No one will be able to tell you if one DVI card is sharper than the other short of running a test like shown on Tom's. Whether there will be a noticeable difference if there even is one between cards is debatable. The Tom's article measured real differences but failed to mention if there was any real-world difference. As in, can you actually see a difference on a good display between those cards? I've never heard of any and to be frank, I think that article makes an issue out of a non-issue for a vast majority.

Gabe · « **Reply #2 on:** March 17, 2006, 03:50:27 pm »

Quote

What I'm looking for is a fanless card able to drive a 20" (1600*1200) and a 24" (1920*1200) both with DVI-connection and of course good image quality. I'd like to be able to profile both, but that's not an absolute requirement. I don't play any 3D-intensive games, but I'd like it to be adwquate for using Vista when Microsoft release it.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This is a bit of a tricky problem -- not so much for the dual-DVI connections, but for the fanless/PCI-E requirement.. I can't seem to find any fanless PCI-E video cards, actually!

I think what I would do is pick the PCI-E video card that's in my price-range and then take a look at the silent cooling options available from [a href=\"http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/code_list.asp?page=2&code=013&cate=]Zalman.[/url]

They're top-quality products with excellent support, and with the exception of a handful of cards, they have a cooler that will fit just about anything. Highly recommended

svein · « **Reply #3 on:** March 18, 2006, 02:41:33 pm »

Thanks for the input. As 61Dynamic noted the THG article doesn't really say much about the effects on the image of the differences measured. That's why I hoped some would have more info.

Finding cards that fit my requirement isn't particulary difficult. A search at a hardware site with the options: Dual dvi, fanless and PCIe gave this list:
Asus Extreme AX800 Silencer
Asus Extreme N7800GT TOP SILENT
Gigabyte GeForce 6600 GT 256 MB GV-NX66T256D
Gigabyte GV-RX16T256V-RH
PowerColor Radeon X700 Pro SCS 128MB
PowerColor Radeon Bravo X700 256MB
PowerColor SCS X700XT

There's also a 6600GT card from Asus without fan (but I'm not sure if it will support dual DVI). 6600/6600GT seem to be a good compromize between price, performance and a not too large heatsink, but Nvidia got some negative comments on DVI support in the article linked in the first post, and in a similar article at Anandtech (even older).

61Dynamic · « **Reply #4 on:** March 18, 2006, 02:51:00 pm »

I've never heard of PowerColor before. I'd stick with Asus or Gigabyte as they have a more solid rep.

Author Topic: Video card (Read 3049 times)