Dual Head Card
 

I've got to get a dual monitor card and only have about $150 and most of what I've read has been to get an ATI 9200 or 9600 w/ 128mb. My question is that when I research both of these on newegg there seems to be about 10 versions of each card. Any suggestions here on what exact model number to get? Thanks for any suggestions.

Pretty much any graphics card which supports 32bit, with 32MB Ram will do for editing. However if its for gaming that is a different issue.

You might want to do a search on google for reviews on the cards you are after.

I currently use a Matrox G450 dual head card.

Cheers,

...and I use the Matrox G550. Both will be in your price range.
I've never had any problems with mine - running Avid or Premiere.

Robin.

Thanks for the advice. I'll check them out.

I like Nvidia cards over ATI cards for dual monitors. The difference is that ATI does not allow a taskbar on both monitors. I have not used nvidia's dual mon implementation a lot but I will tomorrow. From what I've seen of ATI, I don't like their drivers. One of the quibbles is that on my computer, right clicking the ATI icon causes the second monitor to refresh.

On newegg I would go for the previous generation nvidia cards (anything Geforce4) because they're cheaper and they actually have better 3d performance, but are not DX9 compliant. ~$50 off newegg.com Make sure your card can do the right outputs!!! Some DVI connectors cannot be converted to do VGA

The current generation Nvidia cards are the FX5200.

2- matrox is good too, but expensive unless you get it off ebay.

nvidia/ati blows matrox away in terms of 3d performance.

I'm using the Matrox G450 card in two editing suites without any problems. They are excellent cards.

I do have an extra, too if you'd want to make an offer. It has 32megs of ram...

jhart3 at hotmail.com

I was using a GeForce FX5600 128MB before, worked perfectly and without any hitches. If you NLE has any OpenGL implementation too, you can use the "gaming" power of most DX9 and other gaming cards today. I've taken the route of the pro cards as I also need the extra oomph when compositing or when I need to do any heavy OpenGL stuff. nVidia Quadro FX3000G = nuclear performance boost. Avid loves it as well as Combustion and Maya.

I can't recommend the 9200, but the 9600 is quite okay. I've always stuck with nVidia as they've never let me down on pro apps.

Matrox is very accurate and very very stable, but is a bit more expensive. They excel in multi-monitor setups. I've never been let down by nVidia though with regard to multi-monitor setups.

I forgot to ask the most important thing: what are you using your system primarily for? Editing? Compositing? 3D? There's a myriad cards to consider, but one will exactly fit your needs... so tell us what you'll use it for :)

I'm using it for editing with Premiere. A lot of the cards suggested are just 32mb. Isn't that pretty low?

<<<-- Originally posted by Kent Metschan : I'm using it for editing with Premiere. A lot of the cards suggested are just 32mb. Isn't that pretty low? -->>>

Not really.

Editing does not take up huge resources on the graphics card unlike video games, and compositing programs, thats why 32MB will do. If you have the money, or want to play games on your NLE (I would not suggest it) then buy a more capable graphics card, with 128MB or 256MB of on board RAM (Like the ones Julian has suggested).

Cheers,

ED

I got to play with the Nvidia FX5200. On a minor point, I like their drivers/software. They do not seem bloated and make it easy to change the colors on your monitors. You might even be able to calibrate a CRT to be closer to a NTSC monitor. I'll see if this is possible, although I don't have a blue gel to help. I don't think this is possible with ATI, although it should be possible with the Matrox Parhelia (see the dv.com review).

2- In "horizontal span" mode, both your monitors appear as one to winXP. Your taskbar is spread across both monitors in this mode. However, this mode is kind of annoying. All dialog boxes by default open in the middle of the "screen", which centers them on the gap between your two monitors.

3- The mode you probably want to use is twinview (nvidia) or the ATI equivalent. Both monitors can have independent resolution and refresh rates. 2CRTs with different refresh rates will interfere with each other.

In this mode, you will need Ultramon to get a second taskbar. Ultramon is a great little utility.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

I map F1 in Ultramon to switch windows between monitors.

4- Apparently some Nvidia cards cannot do dual monitors with its DVI and VGA outputs- only between one of the monitor outputs and S-video. Do some research to see if this is the case. http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon...NvidiaDualhead

5- For compositing, some programs can take advantage of video card acceleration. If you do not see yourself compositing in the near future then I would buy a card now and upgrade later on when prices drop and video cards get better.