Best GPU 4 2D biz app. FireMV2200, Q NVS 280 or Matrox

[garyhope]

Suggestions and opinions please on the best multi monitor 2D GPU for business applications, stock and currency trading. No gaming, just 2D stock and financial charts. It would be with ASUS A8N5X with AMD X2 3800, 2Gig Ram.

The ATI FireMV 2200 has 128 Ram, the PNY Quadro NVS 280 has 64 Ram and the various Matrox cards have 64 Ram also. The prices are about $150-200. Matrox is supposed to be great for 2D text and charts but more expensive.

Is 64 Ram enough for 2D dual monitors? I thought there was a NVS 285 card with 128 Ram but I'm having a hard time finding it.

And what a ATI Fire GL5000. I think it works with dual monitors but is about $300.

Any compatability problems with the 5X board, AMD and these cards?

Thanks all.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Matrox is supposed to be great for 2D text and charts but more expensive.

It is but you're not using them for serious 2D fidelity work so they all will look pretty similar at that level. Where Matrox excels is in their multi-monitor support. However, if you get a 3rd party app like UltraMon, then you get most of the same benifits and a few more, and it works on all 3 platforms.

Is 64 Ram enough for 2D dual monitors?

Yes, for what you're using them for, as long as you're staying within the Typical XP/Win2K/Server2003 type platform, VISTA will need more if you want to enable the 3D side of things, but will still let you work in 2D.

In fact you probably could get away with running 2 two cheap 16mb PCI cards or one PCIe + one PCI.

It's nice to have everything in one card, but not necessary. There is even a GF6200 out there somewhere that supports 4 monitors, but I can't remember where I saw it, that may be your cheapest all in one solution.

For quality and ease of use I'd go with Matrox, for price I'd go with a 2 card solution using UltraMon.

And all cards will have problems with different platforms to varying degrees, but I haven't heard anything special about your MoBo and any of them.