Dual head graphics card advice...

[BliarOut]

Anyone have any recommendations?

I'm looking for a dual head adapter for a graphics machine... It'll probably run a 17" and a 20" monitor and as it says, it's for a machine doing graphic design.

[RobDickinson]

Any special requirements?> 3d, dual DVI , best image quality, HDCP?

ATi , Nvidia and matrox all have candidate cards from cheap to expensive.

[BliarOut]

Image quality needs to be good.. He's looking at using a tablet as he doesn't have sufficient control of detail work with a mouse.

[greenlandy]

Go for one of the nvidia ones Rob. If you want me to delve deeper into this for you drop me a txt.

[RobDickinson]

uh, which doesnt have anything to do with the graphics card..?

If its purely for work/business/art then prehaps a matrox dual head, they do em in pci, agp or pci-e from 60-150 quid.

If for much else gio for an Ati dual monitor card unless you want top gaming performance then go for an nvidia 8800 series which is slightly better than ATi's cards for 2d imagery (Ati are better than the rest of nvidia on 2d).

[BliarOut]

greenlandy said:

Go for one of the nvidia ones Rob. If you want me to delve deeper into this for you drop me a txt.

Good man.... How's you know what going?

[greenlandy]

Slowly trying to convince SWMBO !!! A few glasses of wine and I'll be my own one man band

You man needs one of these www.nvidia.com/page/quadronvs.html comes in all variants

Edited by greenlandy on Wednesday 29th November 21:59

[BliarOut]

Get her drunk... I like your style

Just want to avoid recommending a lemon as I'll have to support whatever's recommended.

[ThePassenger]

Quadro's tend to be the best Nvidia can do, designed more quality than gaming so they tend to be, in some cases, slower at doing D3D work (but make up for it in OpenGL which is good if your in AutoCAD, 3DS and the like all day). Kind of ironic that you design all the models for a D3D game in a program that uses prefers OpenGL... but there ya go.

If your man has to have the absolute best display possible mating a high end Nvidia card to something like an Apple Cinema display would be a good idea. With Apple's being all over the 'arty' world they tend to splash out and get exact colour profiles done and have their displays certified by the right people.

I understand Dell make use of the same physical panels but I'm unsure if they've gone through the same testing and come with the colour profiles, which might explain them being cheaper.

[khushy]

Matrox - IMHO - are the best and on eBay are going for peanuts!!!

I have used a Matrox card with 4 monitors for about 7 years now.

Khushy

[_dobbo_]

khushy said:

Matrox - IMHO - are the best and on eBay are going for peanuts!!!

I have used a Matrox card with 4 monitors for about 7 years now.

Khushy

I've got a quad output matrox card here at work, but try to get it to do 3D in any useful way and it chokes badly...

[rich1231]

a 20" and a 17" monitor will not really push any of the current Nvidia 8800 cards or a 7950 GX2.

Im using Dual view at home now and its brilliant!! 7950GX2 22" and 19"

[aldi]

The bottom end Quadro cards are really not that great at 3D, certainly nowhere near what their pricetag would suggest if you were comparing to standard gaming cards. Quality/solidity is good though. I supplied 7 of them for AutoCAD work a couple of years ago and had no complaints. Matrox were allways the daddy at dualhead and high image quality stuff, but they're quite pricey for a decent one. HTH.