Looking for a (cheapish) card with 2 x DVI out and...

Hi

I'm looking for a cheap to middlish (upto GB£80?) card PCI-E with 2 x
DVI out...

Must do 1920 x 1080 (most do now).


It's for general use in my work PC (Dell Optiplex 745 - 2.4GHz dual
core, 2GB RAM) and needs good HD1080 playback, good OGL performance and
a bit more welly than my present card...


I have an ATI Radeon X1550 128Mb card at present which is about adequate
but only has one output; I do a lot of testing of HD displays and need
the second DVI out.

I have been trying an nVidia Quadro FX1300 which does 1080 out and has 2
x DVI outs; it works very well with Autocad and Rhino 3D BUT struggles
to play HD1080 movies.

What's available with 2 x DVI out with a bit more horsepower than the
FX1300 and doesn't cost a leg? 9600 / 9600GT?


TIA


Guy

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:50:51 +0100, Bigguy <bigguy36@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi
>
>I'm looking for a cheap to middlish (upto GB£80?) card PCI-E with 2 x
>DVI out...
>
>Must do 1920 x 1080 (most do now).
>
>
>It's for general use in my work PC (Dell Optiplex 745 - 2.4GHz dual
>core, 2GB RAM) and needs good HD1080 playback, good OGL performance and
>a bit more welly than my present card...
>
>
>I have an ATI Radeon X1550 128Mb card at present which is about adequate
>but only has one output; I do a lot of testing of HD displays and need
>the second DVI out.
>
>I have been trying an nVidia Quadro FX1300 which does 1080 out and has 2
>x DVI outs; it works very well with Autocad and Rhino 3D BUT struggles
>to play HD1080 movies.
>
>What's available with 2 x DVI out with a bit more horsepower than the
>FX1300 and doesn't cost a leg? 9600 / 9600GT?

Most cards that can handle HD video tended to be much pricier than
your £80 limit. OTOH old CPU can also bottleneck it, what is your
current CPU?

I have no problem running 1080i on dual core AMD 5000+ when I still
had 7900GS, about $100 back then, can probably find for $50 used
nowday. Some model do offer dual DVI out but they do not support HDMI
if you planned to have HDMI TV in the near future.

Bigguy wrote:
> Hi
>
> I'm looking for a cheap to middlish (upto GB£80?) card PCI-E with 2 x
> DVI out...
>
> Must do 1920 x 1080 (most do now).
>
>
> It's for general use in my work PC (Dell Optiplex 745 - 2.4GHz dual
> core, 2GB RAM) and needs good HD1080 playback, good OGL performance and
> a bit more welly than my present card...
>
>
> I have an ATI Radeon X1550 128Mb card at present which is about adequate
> but only has one output; I do a lot of testing of HD displays and need
> the second DVI out.
>
> I have been trying an nVidia Quadro FX1300 which does 1080 out and has 2
> x DVI outs; it works very well with Autocad and Rhino 3D BUT struggles
> to play HD1080 movies.
>
> What's available with 2 x DVI out with a bit more horsepower than the
> FX1300 and doesn't cost a leg? 9600 / 9600GT?
>
>
> TIA
>
>
> Guy
>


You are on the right track: The 9600GT has Pure Video 3 which is the
latest HD decoding circuitry for NVIDIA. ATI's equivalent is UVD
(Unified Video Decoder).

This link shows some CPU load comparisons between PV and UVD.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showd...=3047&p=6&cp=5

With a dual core CPU and a Pure Video 2.0 or 3.0 card, you can easily
watch a HD movie one screen and have plenty of CPU (and GPU) left over
for the other screen.

The 9600's also have robust OpenGL 2.0 support (as robust as the
Forceware drivers can be and some have OpenGL 2.1 support such as the
9600GSO) and are in your price range.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127362

That card linked above has everything you need, including 2 DVI and a
game thrown in at $110USD...use it as your baseline, as you can find
cheaper cards with better performance with a little bit of searching.

Mr.E Solved! wrote:

>
> You are on the right track: The 9600GT has Pure Video 3 which is the
> latest HD decoding circuitry for NVIDIA. ATI's equivalent is UVD
> (Unified Video Decoder).
>
> This link shows some CPU load comparisons between PV and UVD.
>
> http://www.anandtech.com/video/showd...=3047&p=6&cp=5
>
> With a dual core CPU and a Pure Video 2.0 or 3.0 card, you can easily
> watch a HD movie one screen and have plenty of CPU (and GPU) left over
> for the other screen.
>
> The 9600's also have robust OpenGL 2.0 support (as robust as the
> Forceware drivers can be and some have OpenGL 2.1 support such as the
> 9600GSO) and are in your price range.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127362
>
> That card linked above has everything you need, including 2 DVI and a
> game thrown in at $110USD...use it as your baseline, as you can find
> cheaper cards with better performance with a little bit of searching.

Thanks for that... looks perfect.

Guy



FleaBay has similar offerings too;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Nvidia-Geforce...em200239347565

Unfortunately the 9600 GT only has VP2 and not VP3. The 9500 GT will be
first nVidia card to have VP3. The others are the G98 based 8400 GS
(available only in China) and the Geforce 8200 and 8300 motherboards.

9600 GT is essentially a cutdown G92.

If you need a cheap card with dual DVI and VP2 (H.264 bitstream and VC-1
iDCT) you could go for an 8600 GTs. Alternatively you could go for a 9500 GT
when it comes out at the end of this month. That will come with VP3.



"Mr.E Solved!" <Iamsingle@askme.out> wrote in message
news:K7ydnSFI18t-bhjVnZ2dnUVZ_sPinZ2d@comcast.com...
> Bigguy wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I'm looking for a cheap to middlish (upto GB£80?) card PCI-E with 2 x DVI
>> out...
>>
>> Must do 1920 x 1080 (most do now).
>>
>>
>> It's for general use in my work PC (Dell Optiplex 745 - 2.4GHz dual core,
>> 2GB RAM) and needs good HD1080 playback, good OGL performance and a bit
>> more welly than my present card...
>>
>>
>> I have an ATI Radeon X1550 128Mb card at present which is about adequate
>> but only has one output; I do a lot of testing of HD displays and need
>> the second DVI out.
>>
>> I have been trying an nVidia Quadro FX1300 which does 1080 out and has 2
>> x DVI outs; it works very well with Autocad and Rhino 3D BUT struggles to
>> play HD1080 movies.
>>
>> What's available with 2 x DVI out with a bit more horsepower than the
>> FX1300 and doesn't cost a leg? 9600 / 9600GT?
>>
>>
>> TIA
>>
>>
>> Guy
>>
>
>
> You are on the right track: The 9600GT has Pure Video 3 which is the
> latest HD decoding circuitry for NVIDIA. ATI's equivalent is UVD (Unified
> Video Decoder).
>
> This link shows some CPU load comparisons between PV and UVD.
>
> http://www.anandtech.com/video/showd...=3047&p=6&cp=5
>
> With a dual core CPU and a Pure Video 2.0 or 3.0 card, you can easily
> watch a HD movie one screen and have plenty of CPU (and GPU) left over for
> the other screen.
>
> The 9600's also have robust OpenGL 2.0 support (as robust as the Forceware
> drivers can be and some have OpenGL 2.1 support such as the 9600GSO) and
> are in your price range.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127362
>
> That card linked above has everything you need, including 2 DVI and a game
> thrown in at $110USD...use it as your baseline, as you can find cheaper
> cards with better performance with a little bit of searching.

Sharanga Dayananda wrote:
> Unfortunately the 9600 GT only has VP2 and not VP3. The 9500 GT will be
> first nVidia card to have VP3. The others are the G98 based 8400 GS
> (available only in China) and the Geforce 8200 and 8300 motherboards.
>
> 9600 GT is essentially a cutdown G92.
>
> If you need a cheap card with dual DVI and VP2 (H.264 bitstream and VC-1
> iDCT) you could go for an 8600 GTs. Alternatively you could go for a 9500 GT
> when it comes out at the end of this month. That will come with VP3.
>

Don't confuse him, VP2 and VP3 (and VP6) are not the same thing as
PureVideo2 and PureVideo3.

And none of this amounts to a hill of beans outside of a laptop running
off of a battery configuration: 5% CPU usage 10% CPU usage, 20% CPU
usage...on a dual core, trivial.