PCI VGA cards?

lucid said:
can anyone recommend one?

Can't go wrong with ATI PCI cards. All-in-Wonder's for the top end... anything else for the bottom

Anything will work well. nVidia's TNT2, S3cards, Diamond, Matrox, blah blah
 
Actually there are plenty of ways to go wrong with an ATI card. Their driver support is notoriously bad. You might get lucky and everything will work fine or you might have some hardware/software that ATI doesnt support. And ATI is the best out of the bargain brands you mentioned.

If you want the greatest shot at compatability stick with NVIDIA cards. Definately go AGP if you have the slot. If you dont have an AGP slot then you might consider putting together a new box before you waste money on a PCI card that has been obsolete for 2 years.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Actually there are plenty of ways to go wrong with an ATI card. Their driver support is notoriously bad. You might get lucky and everything will work fine or you might have some hardware/software that ATI doesnt support. And ATI is the best out of the bargain brands you mentioned.

If you want the greatest shot at compatability stick with NVIDIA cards. Definately go AGP if you have the slot. If you dont have an AGP slot then you might consider putting together a new box before you waste money on a PCI card that has been obsolete for 2 years.

I agree with the first part. ATI products are basically crap once they are 6 months old.

I bought an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 when it had just come out. Win2000 came out later that fall and I waited close to a year for working drivers and the Multimedia Center App! Meanwhile, when the Radeon products where launched in that same time period, 2000 drivers and apps were available on the installation CD that came with the card.

ATI customer support just plain sucks!

If you want a good reliable workhorse card, go with the Matrox G450 cards. Matrox has an excellent track record for driver updates etc. The DualHead features are also appealing (2 monitors running off of one card).

The truth of the matter is that DAW's do not need bleeding edge 3D performance, so top of the line nVidia cards seem somewhat of an overkill unless you plan to play alot of Quake type games or work with 3D Modelling apps (Lightwave, 3D Studio MAX, etc..) :)
 
Since I'm a heavy gamer as well as musician I would suggest
a Geforce MX card. They have come way down in price.
I prefer the Geforce GTS(which is the one I have).

These have the nVidia chipset.
 
i just need a cheap pci card to run a second monitor (main video card using the AGP slot)
any recommendations, as in, model types?
 
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