Dual Monitors... Which card to buy??

[Ph00]

I want to run a pair of 19" monitors on my system.. which AGP card would be a good choice. I dont need any insane $1000 graphics board, but i dont want a piece of crap either. any reccomendations?

 

[Vegito]

no games - matrox g450/550 - currently using it on dual Sony G500 21", high refresh at 1600x1200

game - ati 8500 - dual does not work as well as matrox - in fact sux for now even with appian

appian - expensive sux in games and slow

 

[Rand]

No games- Matrox G400/G450/G550

High end gamer: ATi Radeon 8500

Mid-range gamer: ATi Radeon 7500

low-end gamer: Any dual-head supporting GF2 MX400.

 

[ouzome]

Forget the games and just get the G450

 

[Mattlock]

Forcesho,

I was looking at your rigs and I was wondering what speed (fsb) your tnt2 ultra is running. I have an Abit BE6 board with a PIII 700. The multiplier on that board is 2/3. Currently I am at a 870 on the CPU but not sure if my TNT2Ultra will handle me going to 933 on the CPU.

thanks,

Mattlock

 

[Dazex]

If you want the best Dual, you have to go Matrox. Nvidia and ATI both have their dual solution but they don't compare to Matrox. Matrox has little features that makes the whole dual experience better than the rest overall.

However, if you must have gaming performance, then the ATI might be the route to go. But I think of it this way. The difference between Matrox 3D gaming and ATI is like the difference between ATI's dual vs Matrox. Get the ATI for gaming, get the Matrox for dual.

I am currently running a G450 on a Win2K box. It works great with independent monitor resolution.

 

[CStroman]

Just add a pci video card to your system.

 

[Dazex]

CStroman is correct. You can always explore the option of adding a second PCI video card to the mix. The only thing I have to caution is, though you get dual monitor capability, you lose out on some of the features such as DVDMax, Clone, ability to shoot a window to the secondary monitor via hot keys and a host of other items. There are programs out there that may enable you to have these features, but I don't know.

Perhaps get a G450 PCI. Yes, they made a PCI version of the card. However, it is only fully support on Intel system. Supposely, the busmastering on a non-Intel motherboard causes instablilities. I would like to go this route myself in the near future.