Graphics card advice

With no knowledge what so ever I am attempting to assemble the components for a PC for mainly Photoshop and Rawshooter work. It will also be used for Internet and copying DVD's & CD's etc. Little or no gaming.

So far I have...

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939)
Gigabyte K8NF-9 nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-032-GI)
1gb RAM (not sure what make or speed yet)
Antec case (not sure which yet)
Hard drive... I want to make do initally with the 80 gig Western Digi that I have already. The first upgrade would be SATA Hard Drives.

I have no idea where to start with the Graphics Card. Obviously I don't game so it doesn't have to be high end but it needs to perform well as far as Digital Imaging goes.
The monitor will be 19" CRT Aperture grille.

I would appreciate ideas re graphics card.... Thanks David...

The advice I received was to get a cheap Matrox card, and get one with a DVI out if you plan to upgrade to a flat panel later.

Tim's advice above is particularly appropriate for your case,. as it turns out the very best cards for 2D applications like photoshop.. are not very good for games,. and vice versa.

The best card for the job at hand is Matrox. You can get a new one.. but if you can find a low budget G400 or G450 in old stock or refurb/system pull you'll save a lot and get all the benifits.

Is this the one...

http://www.microdirect​.co.uk …ductID=5690&sou​rce=Kelkoo

If so am I right in assuming the "Interface Type = PCI" means it's compatable with the Gigabyte motherboard I suggested (PCI Express).

PCI express is a very new interface,. and I do not think you can use Standard PCI cards in them..

the Card you list above would be best in an AGP formfactor,. but I do not think that PCI Express Mobos tend to have an AGP slot....

For a PCI Express board you'll need the very latest bleeding edge video card...

Matrox has only recently released PCI E cards,..

Here's one;
http://www.matrox.com …/millennium_p65​0_pcie.cfm

I noticed the Lb sign in your link... so I'm assuming UK,

http://www.matrox.com …mideast_afr/uk/​mailuk.cfm

Tim,
Is this the graphics card that Kev was trying to steer you towards when choosing your Graphics card recently.

http://www.komplett.co​.uk …DA-48DA-9BA1-03B0D58EDEA7

In this thread

https://photography-on-the.net …d.php?p=451056#​post451056

photoshop doesnt utilize graphics cards, its more cpu dependent. since you have a rather sweet pc setup, i'd suggest a nvidia 6600 pci express. its fast in case you want to play any of the latest games, and should tide you over for a few years, in addition to having good 2d image quality. here's a link to newegg, who imo have the best shipping.
http://www.newegg.com …sp?submit=prope​rty&DEPA=1

mapollo wrote:
Tim,
Is this the graphics card that Kev was trying to steer you towards when choosing your Graphics card recently.

http://www.komplett.co​.uk …DA-48DA-9BA1-03B0D58EDEA7

In this thread

https://photography-on-the.net …d.php?p=451056#​post451056

I've no idea, I can't remember sorry. He recommended overclocking his video card, and I remember seeing a more recent post that it got fried, so I don't recommend that.

For PS you don't need a great 3D card, just get a cheaper Matrox like CDS said.

Any Video(graphics) card is better then a intergrated Video card. But try to get a 256 MB so it will save you on ram use.

video card ram is only used to that extent on 3d accelerated video games and other programs that use the vid card. programs like photoshop and other general photo programs dont use it. you should be fine with a 128 (thats the 'norm' video card memory these days) and i wouldnt suggest getting that geforce turbocache, it basically uses your system memory instead of having its own. just buy as much regular ram as possible (1 gig is a good start) and your 3000+ should be good (until the dual processors come out ). also, as for hard drive usage, if youre using primarily to store and process pics, i would suggest buying a second 80 gig hd to set up raid 1, which your motherboard should support natively.

For that motherboard you will want PC3200 RAM. And get two 512Mb sticks as it supports dual channel memory. Just make sure both are identical. The manual will tell you what slots to install in to enable dual channel.

The motherboard does not have an AGP slot so you will have to get a PCIe graphics card.

It has issues with the A01 and A02 bios revisions. If it ships with either of these grab A03 from the Gigabyte site.

The board will actually handle RAID on PATA drives (either 0, 1, 0+1, or JBOD) so I wouldn't bother with SATA drives. In current computers the bandwidth on a PATA drive isn't a bottleneck anyway so the slim increase from SATA isn't yet that big a deal.

As a previous poster said, avoid Turbocache (found on some GF6200s)/Hypermemory (found on some x300s) version of graphics cards as that is a marketing term for 'we steal your system memory'. Other than that, if you really really don't want anything to do with 3D stuff then any card will do. My Dell server has 2Mb of onboard video RAM and I've never has a problem with it!

Much of what is being said here is half right...

That is that 3D video cards with boatloads of RAM and gaming performance will not improve your Photoshop environment one iota.

But this does not mean that all cards are created equal where 2D and photoshop are concerned.

Indeed,. the advances that Matrox made in there PCI Millenium cards nearly ten years ago have yet to be equaled by any other consumer level card. Matrox's overall image quality has allways been and remains to this day,. far ahead of the rest of the pack.

I have a 128MB Nvidia Geforce 4 TI 4600 in one PC but the PC that makes my Sony FW900 24" Aperure Grill CRT look best is a Matrox,. indeed a lowly 8MB PCI Matrox makes that monitor look better. Also the RamDac gets you higher refresh rates. Filters like Gusian Blur in PS do use the 2D acceleration that cards use,. and none better than the Matrox.

To back it up here's a small sampling of the common knowledge that has been historic to graphics pros in the know for a decade.

http://www.computerpow​eruser.com …ATROX&bJumpTo=T​rue#MATROX
Skip to the bottom of the article....

http://www.computerpow​eruser.com …dList=MATROX&bJ​umpTo=True
http://www.computerpow​eruser.com …dList=MATROX&bJ​umpTo=True
http://www.computerpow​eruser.com …dList=MATROX&bJ​umpTo=True
http://reviews.cnet.co​m …html?ord=creati​onDate+asc
http://tech-report.com …/matrox-p750/index.x?pg=1
http://ecoustics.audio​review.com …00/PRD_82155_14​69crx.aspx

And one of the last times this topic went around;
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=31709

in response to the above post, i'd have to agree with the fact that matrox did make cards with excellent 2d. however, i'd also venture to say that both of the major video card makers, nvidia and ati, have both caught up in image quality, and both also offer better driver support and waaaaay superior 3d acceleration. anyway, the 2d image quality will not matter at all if your monitor isnt good enough. i dont know if youre going to buy a new monitor as well, but if you are, that should be your #1 priority above all else (pixel pitch, color reproduction especially). ram, and cpu just make editing faster, but the monitor will determine how good the image quality really is as well as how accurately it will reproduce the image.

Also, i happened to run across this page just now. if you have the money to blow on a dual opteron setup, this shows you what it can do with digital image processing:

http://www.firingsquad​.com …_dual_opteron/d​efault.asp

I am in the planning stages of building an almost identical box. One card which I have read high recommedations for for 2D imaging is the Sapphire Radeon X300E which is for PCI-Express. Or you could use the Gigabyte MOBO which uses the nForce 3 chipset and AGP video input if you want to go with a Matrox card.