Graphics Card - are they all the same???

[matthias_leuenberger]

I have read through many of the threads on the irdel PC for digital

image processing but can't seem to find an answer for this question:

How important is the graphics card in your PC? Are there differences

in image quality or are they actually all the same? I understand that

there are differences in speed (I'm not a gamer).

 

If I want to do serious Photoshop work, what graphics card should I

buy?

 

Thanks for the advice.

[reginald_lewis]

well to be honest if you look at it the card really doesn't matter aslond as it can at least display 32bit color and the resolution you wish to use. Because photoshop is a 2D program so you won't be using the 3D accelerator for doing your photoshop work. I have don't photoshop work on a old 2mb ISA cirrus logic card with no problem

[Jochen_S]

Guten Morgen! I don't know if any American will answer. Use

 

http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/

 

before you create the next headline.

"video card"...

I'm no computer expert. The sysop at the printshop where I work told me don't worry about video cards, as long as they provide maximum color and a high resolution. An other point is your monitor will be to small, so look for a setup enabling you to use a 2nd one for all these photoshop tooltrays. As far as I know you could both use a high end card with 2 outlets or a mediocre one for the picture and an other rather old one fitting into the other kind of slots for the trays. But we haven't tried this yet.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Probably good for the salesguy; who like the myths that a high-end card is required. One of our main P4 Photoshop boxes has 2 gigs of ram; and a 10 year old 2meg PCI card; that cost me several hundred long ago. We used this rig for making calendars this fall; that are about 400meg each; and have many dozens of layers. We had a PCI DDR 256meg video card in the rig for awhile; it made no difference; plus it wouldnt work with some of our old dos programs that make direct calls to the video card. This is a dual boot computer.<BR><BR>Here we have about 19 computers; about half have photoshop. About three have high end video cards; to 256megs. They work WAY better with games; less alien artifacts; better; more realistic bullets. <BR><BR>The graphics card myth is abit old. It got restarted again when integrated video started to hog abit of the low end office box stores computers. Usually this was the first 64megs max. Early integrated video was poor; today it works way better. <BR><BR>You might as well go outside and burn some money; than waste cash with a gamers card for photoshop. Make sure you have the correct video drivers for your computers. Many; many folks find that the gamer card fixes their video problems; since the driver came with the card. A poor settup might have older drivers. <BR><BR>The office box stores are basically committing fraud in lying to the public that a high end card is required for photoshop. A neighbor has a high end 256 meg card in his P4 3.0 ghz computer; that is choked off with only 256 megs of ram on the motherboard. The twit sales guy should have sold him more ram; instead of the high end card; for photoshop usage.. The neighbor bought the box just for photoshop; this is what the salesguys are pushing. I wonder if there are decent spifs from the card makers on each card sale the salesmen does?

[jack paradise]

In the past, each time I upgraded my video card, I had better video display. However, things may have gotten to the point where this no longer holds and that for except the lower priced cards, they may all produced excellent display.

 

Look for a card with a configurable look up table (LUT) or are they all configurable ?

[scott_eaton]

For 2-D imaging that does not require heavy CAD/OpenGL support, such as typical Photoshop functions, any basic $40 ATI/Nvidia/Matrox AGP card will work fine. They'll all pretty much support any rez you can throw at them. Even my Athlon machines with integrated GeForce 4's have no problems with Photoshop.

 

The differences you see in some video cards are the quality of the digital/analog converters, which do degrade over time. I've otherwise found little difference between the cards in terms of display quality other than some that by default have digital enhancements enabled for viewing DVD's etc. Normally I just turn that junk off because it screws with color managemement.

 

The newer video cards you see are mostly 99% performance for gaming and total over-kill for desktop imaging. Still, stick with a decent Nvidia/ATI/Matrox AGP card vs some generic unbranded thing purchased for cheap. You've likely got an AGP slot, and it's there for a reason.

[m_rten_svensson1]

I do not use PS as often as most people here, so I will not comment on image quality, others do it better.

But, my advice is to make sure you have enough ram on your card to support high resolutions at a high refresh rate.

Also, try to find a card with passive cooling. Fans make noise, heat and in the end they break.

 

A cool thing about videocards and windows is that if you got an old PCI-card laying around you can often use it as a second videocard to connect more monitors.

At the student union (Ultuna Studentk岬 Uppsala, Sweden) where I am administrator for our network, we got a computer with a matrox dualhead and an S3 PCI-card. We use 3 monitors.

Windows can support 10 monitors with different settings (resolution, refresh rate).

 

Good luck

[Matthew Currie]

I haven't shopped for graphics cards for a long time, but I know that the basic way that VGA and its derivatives works means that the graphics card and its software do make some guesses about how a color will be shown on the screen. Back in the early days of 16 million color cards, this could result in two cards giving noticeably different palettes for the same material. I had a couple of different cards in my old 486, and the difference was immediately apparent. As I say, I really don't know how applicable this is any more with high quality cards, but the other day my stepson was playing with a DVD drive in his low-end Dell (with on-board integrated graphics) and found that although the overall color looked all right, subtitles that were yellow on any other computer came out olive green on his. Clearly something in the way video was processed was quite different.

[markrinella]

I think the D70 actually uses components from the N75 which costs only $200 compared

to $340 for the N80. If you are worried about the N80 build, the D70 will be no better.

[michael_beckmann]

All current VGA cards are more than fast enough for this purpose.

 

If you use an analog monitor at high resolution, you might want to choose a Matrox. They usually have somewhat better signal quality at the analog output than most others. If you use an LCD monitor via digital DVI interconnect, then this is not an issue. You could use pretty much any decent brand product.

 

Another important product property is the number of outputs. You may want to buy something that has two equal quality outputs, just in case you realize that working with two monitors is convenient for you. (I'll put in another vote for Matrox here, but any other brand product might work just as well.)

[emre]

<blockquote> Clearly something in the way video was processed was quite different.</blockquote>

Yes... it means both of you do not use calibrated monitors. Buy a cheap graphics card, by all means; it's the monitor that matters.

[jamiew]

While I understand you are not a gamer, you still should pay for at least decent 3D performance. Only because 3D requires good performance, and everything you do will be much better. While not your only choices currently your two best options are nVidia and ATI. Each of these companies make a low mid and high performance card. ATI also sells their cards under their own name, but you can buy 3rd party cards that are just as good and quite a bit cheaper. Expect to spend about $70 to get oen of these cards. It will meet your needs now, and most likely as long as you own your computer.

 

As for two monitors.. go for a larger monitor first.

[david_bridge]

Echoing most of the above, I think you should save your money and put it towards a crt calibrator. I downgraded my ATI to a $32 (CDN) matrox because it supported the resolution (1280 x 960) that I wanted (ATI did not). To my eyes photos (and text) looked slightly sharper on my Samsung 900nf, but maybe just wishful thinking!

 

Good Luck!

[jamiew]

While matrox cards are good, I do not reccomend getting one on a new system. The current low end ATI (my preference) or nVidia cards are steals.