...wicked


What I think is gonna be more important is your actual monitors. I've got 2 17" running 1280x1024 and X1 is significantly more real-estate hungry than 8.5.3. 

What's a little bit of a downer (and perhaps some marketing-speak) is that there's no other software I use (Live, Vegas, Reaper, Sound Forge, etc) that is forcing me towards an upgrade path for my displays yet. If you factor in the "need" to upgrade displays, GPUs, and X1 itself we're talking a ton of dough. Granted that benefit gets to be shared by all other programs, but I wouldn't otherwise have been entertaining that upgrade right now.

I have a single 24" 1900x1080 monitor right now and I don't really need dual monitors, since my work is very much based around the track view. I'd like a higher resolution (like 2560x1600 or 2560x1400) screen, but those are hella expensive. I hope just a graphic card upgrade will make me happy this time around.
 
Sven

I just went from an ancient Nvida Quadra 540 to an Nvidia PNY Gt240 1G DDR3 and the difference in Windows 7 x64 performance went from 3.7 to 6.2. This is PCIe card and the other stuff in my sig.

Cost was $75.00 or so although I could have done better online, local store had it in stock.

Seems to work very nice for the price.
I'm running 2 LCD monitors 1440x900 and 1680x1050

I'm not a gamer BTW.

Well, as a current Matrox card user I have to chime in here.  I have the exact card mentioned by Kev999 - the 690 PCIe. (128Mb VRAM). Ran 8.5Producer in WinXp (32bit) no problems, and have now switched to Win7 (64bit) and X1 Producer.  No problems so far, and yes, it looks great.  Running dual LCD monitors.  The Matrox cards do not support Aero however and because of this and their price I probably wouldn't buy it again.  But just so people know, if you have this card (and don't need Aero) it seems to be working fine in X1.  Seth - is there a specific situation where SONAR X1 Producer might utilize 1Gb of video ram?  Just curious - thanks

djtrailmixxx

koikane

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk
]

Oh, and FWIW the cards I've got in my systems are 2 x AMD HD4350 1gig (fanless and dual DVI) and also 2 x nVidia 8600GS 1gig (fanless and dual DVI). They both run X1 exactly the same.

Good to see some recommendations. My card is definately not fanless and is a bit old as well. Can somebody that is a bit more tech savvy help me with a reccomendation for a new video card.  A link to my mobo's info is http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/desktop/bdb/dg33fb/feature/index.htm.
My computer specs are below.
 
The most confusing part to me is if the card will work with my mobo. Any help would be great. I need to have a dual output as I currently have two monitors.
Thank you,

Good News, you're motherboard should be able to support any of the currently sold PCI express cards as they are backwards compatible with PCIe 1 spec slots. Go to newegg.com and serch for a card that is silent, has 1 GB of ram and requires no additional powersupply connections. Also, you should consider your monitor connection type. If your monitors have DVI or HDMI connections, it is best to use those over VGA, it just looks better. here is a search that I did that has cards that should meet your needs (no nvida/ati bias in search i swear): http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709+600029795+600007779+600007856&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
 
 

Thanks DJ,
Can a few of you look at the following links and let me know which one you reccommend.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102876
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121384
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161314
 
Sorry so cheap, most money in the house is heading to the North Pole at his time and I do not mean Peter.
 
Thanks,
 
 

koikane

djtrailmixxx

koikane

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk
]

Oh, and FWIW the cards I've got in my systems are 2 x AMD HD4350 1gig (fanless and dual DVI) and also 2 x nVidia 8600GS 1gig (fanless and dual DVI). They both run X1 exactly the same.

Good to see some recommendations. My card is definately not fanless and is a bit old as well. Can somebody that is a bit more tech savvy help me with a reccomendation for a new video card.  A link to my mobo's info is http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/desktop/bdb/dg33fb/feature/index.htm.
My computer specs are below.
 
The most confusing part to me is if the card will work with my mobo. Any help would be great. I need to have a dual output as I currently have two monitors.
Thank you,

Good News, you're motherboard should be able to support any of the currently sold PCI express cards as they are backwards compatible with PCIe 1 spec slots. Go to newegg.com and serch for a card that is silent, has 1 GB of ram and requires no additional powersupply connections. Also, you should consider your monitor connection type. If your monitors have DVI or HDMI connections, it is best to use those over VGA, it just looks better. here is a search that I did that has cards that should meet your needs (no nvida/ati bias in search i swear): http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709+600029795+600007779+600007856&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
 
 

Thanks DJ,
Can a few of you look at the following links and let me know which one you reccommend.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102876
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121384
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161314
 
Sorry so cheap, most money in the house is heading to the North Pole at his time and I do not mean Peter.
 
Thanks,
 
 

Any of those cards will work fine, as always, read the reviews on newegg, they sometimes indicate a bad batch of hardware related to a manufacturer. Newegg will give you good support in any case. Go with the latest tech when possible... DX 11, PCIe 2.1...that way when you upgrade the rest of your rig later, you will reap the benifits. Dont worry about cheap in this case, just try to get the device that will support your monitor needs. If you dont game, these cards will be more than enough to support your for many years.

koikane

Can a few of you look at the following links and let me know which one you reccommend.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102876
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121384
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161314
 
Sorry so cheap, most money in the house is heading to the North Pole at his time and I do not mean Peter.
 
Thanks,

I personally would go with the first one on your list. It supports Direct X 11, it's the cheapest after rebates, free shipping, and Sapphire usually puts out a good card. Make sure your monitors are compatible with it's output jacks. As a matter of fact, unless someone posts something horrible about this card, I think I'm going to get one myself, although it kills me to give up my Nvidia card. :)

Bub

koikane

Can a few of you look at the following links and let me know which one you reccommend.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102876

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121384

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161314

Sorry so cheap, most money in the house is heading to the North Pole at his time and I do not mean Peter.

Thanks,

I personally would go with the first one on your list. It supports Direct X 11, it's the cheapest after rebates, free shipping, and Sapphire usually puts out a good card. Make sure your monitors are compatible with it's output jacks. As a matter of fact, unless someone posts something horrible about this card, I think I'm going to get one myself, although it kills me to give up my Nvidia card. :)

Wow, good to hear I may get through this upgrade on the cheap!

One cool thing about the first option from Newegg up there is that it's only a single slot card. That might not matter if you don't have any other PCIe/ PCI cards in your system, but if you do it could make a difference.

SvenArne


I'm noticing that certain aspects of X1 (most notably the console view as well as the inspector) are noticably more sluggish than before. But then again my graphics adaptor is the oldest part in my computer (from 2005, I believe), so it might be time to upgrade. Which cards would be recommended to take full advantage of the new graphics enhancements?

Sven

Sven,
 
Just purchased a VisionTek ATI Radeon HD5450 for $80 US. Got an Aero rating of 4.0 which is good enough for an $80 price point. 512MB DDR3 with a core clock of 650 MHz. Have no issues with X1. Running Core 2 2.66 Processors with 4GB memory and Windows 7 64-bit.

Using onboard ATI 4200 with dedicated 128mb on an ASUS M4 AM3 board in conjunction with a PCIe ATI 4500 512mb to drive 3 monitors. Had issues with stuttering graphics on X1.

Here's the good bit, I was able to overclock the onboard graphics from 450mhz to.....900mhz, passively cooled, no fan required, gets better...assigning 824mb of system RAM to the same chip in the BIOS shot my graphic performance index up to 6.4 from 3.2, even better, X1's graphics now run silky smooth.

I am a happy bunny...