On one of the other forums, someone asked which video card is recommended for use with Sonar. It got me wondering.
I don't know about recommendations, but which card are you using?
 
I use an MSI Twin Frozr based on the nVidia GTX 560 Ti chipset. It's overkill for audio, but I was doing 3D animation for a while and that's my excuse. My only complaint is having to disable the extra audio devices/drivers. Not a big deal.
 

I jumped over from the other thread where you had posted. Depending on system, OS, and motherboard used, the card can be constrained (laptop vs. desktop, etc.) Most cards out these days will support two monitors, but as always, research is necessary first. There is no "one size fits all."
 
When helping folks build machines I have them start with this list (GPU benchmark listing for high end GPU's) http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html  The lowest on the list is pretty slow, and the current price point is on the right... so I tell folks to start at the top and work down to your price threshold, and look at the card specs, then go from there.
 
That said (and carrying your point over from the other thread), when I built this machine (2 1/2 years ago), I went with the ASUS motherboard because of the USB 3 support, and the MB routing (will basically throw graphics data to the card and bypass the CPU). Most MB's that are newer now do this, but again is research. Another aside is this... NVIDIA owns the architecture... but individual manufacturers then build to this spec, and differences between manufacturers can be substantial. Even though the GTX 580 is still #11, the specific model I have is the "ASUS GTX580 DCII" which is incredible overkill for SONAR's "needs."
 
To the point made in the other thread about "I wish I had luck with NVIDIA"... the individual manufacturer may have built the GPU as cheaply to the spec as possible... others will go above and beyond.

What I know about video cards comes from working in 3D modeling and video editing. From what I understand, Sonar (being an audio application) isn't all that demanding, graphics-wise and certainly doesn't need the high-end specifications of a 3D powerhouse video card.
 
So, I'm really curious what research needs to be done into video cards at all, really. Perhaps I'm totally misunderstanding what you're saying, but from what I know, video cards are all pretty much equal when it comes to pushing 2D data through to a monitor. 3D engines don't enter into it since it's impossible to use them for anything of value in a DAW.
 
And it's only in the 3D engines that video cards differ these days. 2D performance pretty much peaked a few generations ago. No one even bothers talking about 2D performance any more because manufacturers all have the same performance. Even phones these days could keep up with whatever Sonar needs, graphics-wise.
 
I only started this thread to help Jinxy decide what video card he would upgrade to, if any, so show him that he has a range of choices and can pretty much pick the price point that suits him.

"My only complaint is having to disable the extra audio devices/drivers. Not a big deal."
 
????
 
 

Hmmm... trying to keep this thread on-topic is turning out to be more work than I bargained for. I'm out of here.

Your ignored. Bye!
 
 

Personally, my only recommendation would be for a passively cooled graphics card.
 
You certainly don't want any more fans inside your machine contributing to the noise level.
 
Mine is a $30 cheapest of the cheap, and I don't get any issues with it.

Funnily enough, I was speaking with one of the chaps from Scan in the UK today, as I was enquiring why Scan are not offering NVidia graphics cards in their audio pcs at present: Scan it seems have felt that NVidia's drivers have over the past few months increasingly presented conflicts in audio pcs. This was a bit of jaw-dropper for me. The same chap spoke of his personal prefs( we were speaking of an X79 mobo) for a Radeon 7870 or 7950...so my guess that an R9 would be the poodles!
Mind you, I also stress here  that I'm configging a machine that will be both DAW and imaging/vid suite, as I have to ride the 2 horses.

Awbugger, he's gone.

I have a desktop that I built about 6 years ago now, when the first Intel Core i5 chips appeared on the market. It's an i5 750, 4 core chip that tops out at 3.2Ghz with the speed step technology. It has been an awesome chip and I believe it's one of the best CPU's that Intel has ever made. Having said that, it's almost time for an upgrade and I've been looking into what is going to be my next upgrade.
Having said that, I have had three video cards through the machine since I built it. The first was an NVidia 7950GT. A brute of a card that gave me lots of video grunt, but absolutely useless as a card for sound recording, as it sounded as if a 747 was flying overhead during the quieter moments of any guitar/vocal songs. It was a card that I had leftover from a previous build and was quickly replaced with an older Radeon X300. I was happier with this card as there was no cooling fan and it could do anything required of a computer that involved sound and most graphics. It wouldn't play any games newer than 2002 but it would run Photoshop, and supported two monitors.
In 2011 I purchased an NVidia GeForce G210 made by Sparkle. Although you can't play any of the later games with it, it will do almost any graphics task with relative ease and supports 2 monitors. It is passively cooled and in my system, runs a 24" Dell monitor on DVI and a 22" Dell on VGA.
Having said all that, with my next upgrade, which I'll be building hopefully early 2014, I'm going to try the built-in graphics on either the Ivy Bridge chip or the new Haswell. I have always gone the stand-alone graphics card rather than the CPU/GPU combos, but I'll give it a try. I'm not holding my breath as I've always firmly believed in taking as much graphics load off the CPU and putting it on a card that's designed for the job.
I've found that almost any stand-alone video card will do the job for an audio setup, but I think buying a known brand, that is well made, will cause you less grief in regards to compatibility and longevity.
Hope this gives you ideas for your system. /cheers