Video Card Noob : 2d with a sprinkling of 3d cards

[devouk]

Hi.

Here my first post after a bit of reading and wanted to know thoughts and also opinions which seem not to get covered any more.

I do a lot of work in 2d , web design, programming,etc and a bit of 3d work (maybe the odd game, but more 3d design - this is occansional though)

I am looking about thought on cards which can be recommended.

The type of cards that I use and why ?

I tend to be an ATI loyalist but have seen nvidia cards which seem to be quicker ... even last year i splashed out on a ATI / Saphire 9800 128 mb card and paid about 80 quid.. i was shocked to go in to maplins and see they had a clone card for about 40 quid.. but that was from the advice of the computer seller.

I tend to push the cards quite hard.. due to the amount of application and cut and pasting of images... i also run in high resolution and multi monitor modes (generally 1600 x 1200 in full colour) running on 21 inch monitors.

I know i probably could do with a bit more memory and my current configuration is a AMD 64 (with xp 64) (754 asus 8vn) 3000+ with a 1 GB memory , a twin stripped raid configuration of drives.. I tend to have multi browser running.. and stuff like fireworks , corel draw etc open as well...

Now i would like some opinions of other cards which are pretty cheap ... but would cater for my demands.. without waiting for screen redraws and stuff..

I just set up a clean machine with a AMD XP 462 2400+ processor with 3/4 gig of ram and nice fast drive.. with an old 64mb nvidia card.. on a msi motherboard and its seem to be a bit nippy but i wasnt running as hard i do my own...

But open to opinions and offers of all type and models..

Currently i still run with agp.. i dont know if i would notice much different with pci express...

But come on everyone with an opinion .. i would like to see what ppl can offer in old cards and mainstream current cards...

Let battle commence...

Many thanks for stopping by...

Regards

Devo:uk

 

[Aids]

so im guessing you have an 8x agp slot? well for one if your doing a lot of process hogging tasks then your processor might be considered for an upgrade. the 3000+ is a damn good processor but is getting a little old even for just the simple mans standards. For your video card i would go with a 256 mb card. Probably an ATI x800 or x850 because those are cheaper than nvidia 256 mb agp cards. At least the higher end cards from them.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Hi.

I do a lot of work in 2d , web design, programming,etc and a bit of 3d work (maybe the odd game, but more 3d design - this is occansional though)

for your type of work I would recommend something like a 512MB X1600 as a good fit. The gaming/3D performance is middling but enough to do the job, but the 2D would be great, and the large buffer size would be good for very large texture, layer, wirframe files. You probably would be OK with 256MB or less, but considering the potential high overhead for Vista it might be a good idea to be prepared for it. And when doing CAD/2D/3D work it will help keep you from shunting data back and forth between system and card should you wish to manipulate the image.
The X1xxx series also comes with a handy dual-link DVI which is nice for large panel LCDs, if you could get one with 2 dual-link DVI connectors that would be better still, but they are rarer than expected, and even more so for AGP (I haven't seen one yet in AGP).

For 2D X1600 > X800/X850
For 3D gaming X800/850 > X1600, and a plain X1600 would be closer to the X700Pro in performance, and the X1600Pro and XT would be a little better with the Pro close to an X800GT and the X1600XT being close to an X800GTO in some games and well below in others.
As for proffesional 3D apps, I haven't seen if the X1600 benifits more from it's multi-ALU design or not, but I'd expect it's performance to be close to the gaming performance, or if anything give you a surprising benifit.

The question is whether each is good enough for you. I'd still recommend the X1600 overall, I'm sure others might disagree and will give you reasons why.

 

[Aids]

yeah thats probably a better solution. 512 mb is really the better way to go for video editing, and not to mention you wont get that bad of a gaming experience out of it. I didnt know the x1600 came in 512?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

yeah thats probably a better solution. 512 mb is really the better way to go for video editing, and not to mention you wont get that bad of a gaming experience out of it. I didnt know the x1600 came in 512?

Yep, as does the X1300, and while for gaming I'd saying, they don't have the juice to use it, in this case it's about shunting layers and wirframes, etc back and forth from system to card. It's one of the few exceptions I can see 512MB being a realistic use.

He may be fine with 256mb, but considering VISTA's talk of huge memory impact (recommend 256mb even for just the OS) it makes me think, better safe than sorry, and it's really the other aspects that I like better, and for video editing the AVIVO stuff is nice too and not available on the X800 series, although he doesn't mention video editing alot of the video editng benifits play well to the other 2D stuff.