Cheap PCI card for dual/multi monitors

[Bazzer Smith]

Looking for a cheap Radeon PCI card, but quite frankly I am baffled
my most of the 'techno blurb' currently my graphics are on board Radeon
Xpress
200, and I would like to know what would be a 'suitable' dual port/monitor
supporting card would be to switch to. I am not a 'gamer' I just want to use
two or more monitors without spendng a fortune. Obviously I would not want
anything which would produce a noticable degradation in perfromance, however
I don't even know if my onboard graphics is actually doing much work anyway.
(I am not to sure what they actually do anyway.) I am just a general PC
user, does
watching video or watching digital TV on my PC put a 'strain' on the
graphics card,
or would my 8 year old PC with a cheap onboard graphics perfrom just as well
(assuming it had the more powerful CPU, memory etc..of my new machine)?

Be glad if some one could point me to the appropiate model number etc..
(the model numbers are a mystery to me).

TIA

 

[James]

Looking for a cheap Radeon PCI card, but quite frankly I am baffled
my most of the 'techno blurb' currently my graphics are on board Radeon
Xpress
200, and I would like to know what would be a 'suitable' dual port/monitor
supporting card would be to switch to. I am not a 'gamer' I just want to use
two or more monitors without spendng a fortune. Obviously I would not want
anything which would produce a noticable degradation in perfromance, however
I don't even know if my onboard graphics is actually doing much work anyway.
(I am not to sure what they actually do anyway.) I am just a general PC
user, does
watching video or watching digital TV on my PC put a 'strain' on the
graphics card,
or would my 8 year old PC with a cheap onboard graphics perfrom just as well
(assuming it had the more powerful CPU, memory etc..of my new machine)?

Be glad if some one could point me to the appropiate model number etc..
(the model numbers are a mystery to me).

If you have the Radeon Xpress 200 graphics controller on your
motherboard, you have a PCI express video card slot, which is very
different from PCI. You may also see it as PCIe or PCI-E

Virtually all new cards (and since PCIe has only been shipping for less
than 2 years, they are all fairly new) have multiple outputs. Quite
often you will see a VGA output, a DVI (digital) output and a TV output
(S video). DVI is most often used for high end CRTs and most LCD flat
panels. But if you want two old style VGA outputs there are DVI-VGA
adapters.

I would recommend a card with a decent amount of Video RAM for two
monitors especially if you are going to run videos.

Something like this:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1892516&CatId=0

which is an x1300, the low end of the latest line from ATI, can easily
drive two monitors and give you decent quality, but wont break the
bank. Beware of Turbo cache which is a way of using your motherboards
memory in addition to the video cards memory - its usually a bad idea.

James

 

[Stephen Howard]

Looking for a cheap Radeon PCI card, but quite frankly I am baffled
my most of the 'techno blurb' currently my graphics are on board Radeon
Xpress
200, and I would like to know what would be a 'suitable' dual port/monitor
supporting card would be to switch to. I am not a 'gamer' I just want to use
two or more monitors without spendng a fortune. Obviously I would not want
anything which would produce a noticable degradation in perfromance, however
I don't even know if my onboard graphics is actually doing much work anyway.
(I am not to sure what they actually do anyway.) I am just a general PC
user, does
watching video or watching digital TV on my PC put a 'strain' on the
graphics card,
or would my 8 year old PC with a cheap onboard graphics perfrom just as well
(assuming it had the more powerful CPU, memory etc..of my new machine)?

Be glad if some one could point me to the appropiate model number etc..
(the model numbers are a mystery to me).

Not a Radeon solution, but the best basic dualhead card I've ever used
for general-purpose use is the Matrox G450. PCI versions can be had
off ebay for beer money.

Regards,

 

[Mangyrat]

Ok you want cheap no problem but how many monitors do you want to run is the
problem?
ok for 2 get a cheap fx5200 with 128 megs ram now if you want 4 monitors
then get 2 fx 5200's $35 for one $70 for 2.
your going to have to disable the built in video card no mater what so don't
try to use it and the new card at same time.

why do I say fx 5200's well I tried them before in a 3 monitor set up and
they worked well together with the same driver unlike my ati 9700 pro and
the ati 7000 that didn't like each other at all. for what you are asking its
the set up I would pick for my self no games just stuff like watching
movies.
now check out this site for dual monitor stuff ask any ? you have in the
forum.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

the old matrox cards were the best but they are getting hard to find and are
realy not worht it.

 

[Stephen Howard]

Ok you want cheap no problem but how many monitors do you want to run is the
problem?
ok for 2 get a cheap fx5200 with 128 megs ram now if you want 4 monitors
then get 2 fx 5200's $35 for one $70 for 2.
your going to have to disable the built in video card no mater what so don't
try to use it and the new card at same time.

why do I say fx 5200's well I tried them before in a 3 monitor set up and
they worked well together with the same driver unlike my ati 9700 pro and
the ati 7000 that didn't like each other at all. for what you are asking its
the set up I would pick for my self no games just stuff like watching
movies.
now check out this site for dual monitor stuff ask any ? you have in the
forum.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

the old matrox cards were the best but they are getting hard to find and are
realy not worht it.

Hard to find? There are about 25 G450/G550 cards on ebay UK alone
right now...some as cheap as a tenner.

Regards,

 

[Mangyrat]

I shuld have never said anything about the Matrox cards.
why in the hell would you get a G450/G550?

 

[Stephen Howard]

I shuld have never said anything about the Matrox cards.
why in the hell would you get a G450/G550?

Well, like you said - "the old matrox cards were the best"...

Elsa did a good one too...quite rare these days though.

Regards,

 

[Gilles Vollant]

Well, like you said - "the old matrox cards were the best"..

What is better on the old matrox?

 

[Stephen Howard]

What is better on the old matrox?

The dual monitor functions in 2D.

Regards,