What graphics card for Aero and 2 monitors?

[Nigel Molesworth]

I'm planning to get a new motherboard for a Core 2 Duo soon, so I'll
have to wave goodbye to my trusty Matrox Parhelia.

I use 2 1280 x 1024 monitors to expand the DeskTop to 2560 x 1024, so
I need a PCIe graphics card that will feed them both, and
independently (so dialogs don't pop up in the middle, unless this has
now been fixed)

I also want to use the Aero interface, so I want something that
supports this, although I'm otherwise not that fussed about the
ultimate 3D experience as I rarely play games.

Can anyone suggest a dual-head card?

 

[JW]

Are you going to be using an NTSC or HDTV tuner card? I ask since using two
moniotrs and an HDTV tuner card recquires a pretty powerfull card such as a
7600GT?

 

[Nigel Molesworth]

Are you going to be using an NTSC or HDTV tuner card?

I've got a PAL tuner card (I'm in the UK) which works on our Digital
TV system, but it isn't HDTV.

 

[JW]

If you are not planning on an HDTV tuner in the future then a ATI X1300PRO
or an NVIDIA 7600GS would be a good choice then instead.
If you do plan on an HDTV card in the future you will need a graphics card
that also has decoding support for H.264 since you are in Europe.
An NVIDIA 7600GT or an ATI X1600Pro is then a good choice.

 

[Chris]

I just installed an ATI X1300 and can attest to it running quite nicely. It
comes with a digital to VGA converter to you shouldn't have any problem
hooking it up and running it in standard definition. DO NOT LOAD THE CD
that comes with the card. Instead, go get the updated Catalyst installer
from ATI on the ATI web site. The new drivers run fine with Vista, Aero
Glass and all. I did however, have to do the registry "hack" that is found
elsewhere in this newsgroup to get Aero Glass going.

HTH,

Chris

 

[Nigel Molesworth]

If you are not planning on an HDTV tuner in the future then a ATI X1300PRO
or an NVIDIA 7600GS would be a good choice then instead.
If you do plan on an HDTV card in the future you will need a graphics card
that also has decoding support for H.264 since you are in Europe.
An NVIDIA 7600GT or an ATI X1600Pro is then a good choice.

Thanks for the info.

Will all of these directly run 2 DVI-D monitors OK?

I'm also keen to make the new PC as quiet as possible, any thoughts?

 

[Dominic Payer]

2 DVI-D monitors need 2 DVI outputs, and not all manufacturers provide them,
even when the GPU will support them: you need to look carefully at the
particular model's specifications.

The reference design of the 7600GS is passively cooled, which is the
quietest option, but some manufacturers use fan cooling. You can use a third
party graphics cooler to silence any card.

 

[Guest]

Hi Nigel,

I recently installed a GeForce 7300 GT which has dual-DVI and no fan. I was
able to get Aero glass with Vista RC1, so I know it's capable, but last night
I updated to RC2 and I lost Aero. I have been trying to get it back with
different driver versions and the hacks suggested here, but no luck so far. I
did find one driver version that gave me back aero glass, but then it
wouldn't let me enable the second monitor. I'll probably fool with it some
more today.

I also have some strange pixel artifacts that keep appearing along the
bottom of my screen... actually, my trying different drivers has been more an
attempt to get rid of that than to enable Aero again, but both would be nice!

 

[Nigel Molesworth]

I recently installed a GeForce 7300 GT which has dual-DVI and no fan. I was
able to get Aero glass with Vista RC1, so I know it's capable, but last night
I updated to RC2 and I lost Aero.

I've now bought a Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT GV-NX76T256D-RH,
thanks for all the help. Any tips on where to get Vista drivers?

I'm currently downloading RC1, where can I get RC2?

 

[DCR]

USE THE DRIVES THAT COME WITH VISTA.
nVidia's web drivers do not support hardware acceleration and you will not
be able to use Aero Glass.