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  1. #1
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    Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    I want something form photo (but not video) editing

    Image quality is very important, but speed less so

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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    When it comes to visual quality, if you are using a DVI input (which you almost certainly should be), then the actual image data is sent in a digital format, which means that there shouldn't be any difference in image quality between cards.

    Any modern graphics card should be more than powerful enough to support basic photo operations (things like smooth dragging, highlight overlays).

    One thing to be aware of: photo software increasingly has options to use the graphics card for actual image processing (things like Gaussian Blurs, etc). A more powerful graphics card may therefore give you performance increases in some areas.

    I think ATI are generally slightly better value than NVidia right now, but Nvidia have a bit more traction with people like Photoshop when it comes to GPU accelerated processing.

    How much were you thinking of spending? Also, do you know what the wattage of your PSU is?

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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Addendum: if you're looking at displays with > 8 bit colour, what I posted above is incorrect. On the other hand, the only such display I know of (HP DreamColor) costs around £2000, and if you're considering such a display, you should definitely check with the supplier about suitable graphics cards (and possibly OS I'm not sure many versions of Windows will be able to use > 8 bits per component).

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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    It largely depends what you're using the card for. Modern, high-end graphics cards have more powerful processors than most pc chips. Any graphically intensive app can shift a lot of the processing off to the GPU, leaving the CPU for other work. This can produce notable improvements in Vista (with Aero enabled) or using any sort of complex graphics program. You notice a huge difference when dealing with any sort of compressed or encoded video (eg DivX); the card's processors do most of the decompression and decoding. But the real impact is with games, where the graphics processing is critical.

    So, the first question is, what sort of content will you be using it for. If it's just for messing around with photos, then you don't need anything particularly high-end (but a bigger card, with more on board ram will make your life happier). If you want to watch video content (especially blu-ray), then you should think a little higher end. If you want it for casual gaming, go to the middle of the range. If you want high-end gaming, you might start thinking about dual-cards.

    The first question is what sort of output do you need - this will be both the resolution and connection for your monitor (eg DVI, DVI-I) and other outputs (mostly HDMI for full 1080p output). Also worth thinking about dual output cards; this can be really useful for graphical editing (eg you can hold the active layer in one screen and the completed preview in another).

    The third question is about noise and cooling. Graphics cards can do a lot of work, so need a lot of cooling - which usually means a noisy fan. This doesn't bother some people, but it annoys me. If you're going for a really high-end card, then you need to worry about airflow in your case. You can get fanless cards, but these are generally more expensive and you can't get the real top-end cards without a fan.

    Anyway, the best reference site I found was Tom's Hardware. They publish a "best for price" list each month, as well as reviews of new cards, periodic roundups, and you can find big comparison charts as well.

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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff332 View Post
    Any graphically intensive app can shift a lot of the processing off to the GPU, leaving the CPU for other work.
    Depends what the graphics are. Rewriting graphics apps to use the GPU is still relatively new in the image processing world, so you may well find a particular operation doesn't support GPU acceleration. And some graphical operations are still more efficient on CPU than GPU anyhow. (I say this not to be pedantic, but because some people upgrade their GPU and then complain that some plugin doesn't actually run any faster).

    Anyway, the best reference site I found was Tom's Hardware. They publish a "best for price" list each month, as well as reviews of new cards, periodic roundups, and you can find big comparison charts as well.
    The problem with typical PC card reviews is that all the "image quality" discussion will actually be talking about "3d rendering quality", which I expect Philsmove isn't worried about. And 90% of the rest of the discussion is about 3D performance, which again, I expect Philsmove isn't worried about.

    Although HD playback is a potential factor to consider, I agree, even though Phil didn't mention it in his wants list.

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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Thanks

    I am getting a better picture

    I am go back to profession photography but only part time, so I am on limited budget

    I am looking at abig lap top (desktop replacement)

    An all in one

    Or may be a smaller lap top with a separate monitor

    Budget UNDER £1,200 including VAT

    Yes I know the advantage of a separate tower but I need something I can move from room to room

    I am going to wait for windows 7 before buying

    Yes I know I should transfer to a Mac but I am so used to windows on don’t want to change

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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Quote Originally Posted by philsmove View Post
    Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    I want something form photo (but not video) editing

    Image quality is very important, but speed less so
    If you are working with photographs what you need is a system that matches the image on the screen exactly with the image as captured and as will be printed. Beyond knowing that this is out of my zone of expertise. I would suggest joining a digital photography forum.

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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    The big issue with laptops is that the displays generally suck for high fidelity colour reproduction.

    This review is probably worth looking at: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=569

    My inclination would be to go for the "laptop with external screen" approach: for display quality I've heard very few complaints about the DELL Ultrasharp series, but they are fairly expensive. The cheaper panels generally use TN panels which aren't great for colour reproduction (I believe all laptops use TN displays).

    Although as a first step, just go to a computer shop and see what you think of the screens. Even though I work in computer graphics professionally (programming side), I'm fairly happy with my crappy DELL Vostro display for normal use, including looking at photographs. But then again, I'm not actually that fussy.

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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Now posting on the laptop, and I realise the (slight) flaw in what I suggest above: in general, the external output on a laptop is going to be VGA rather than DVI, which might reduce the final output quality.

    Having said that, I used VGA output to a 1920x1200 monitor for years without being able to notice a difference, but as I said, I'm not that fussy.

    You might seriously want to consider getting a static desktop PC and a laptop. I doubt it will be any more expensive getting a fairly powerful PC and a cheap laptop than it would be to get a single fairly powerful laptop.

    [We have seven PCs/laptops at home, so you can probably tell I'm not great at single-PC solutions!]

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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    .

    You might seriously want to consider getting a static desktop PC and a laptop. I doubt it will be any more expensive getting a fairly powerful PC and a cheap laptop than it would be to get a single fairly powerful laptop.
    Thanks

    I must have a reasonable quality lap top for checking and showing photographs away from home

    In the winter, it gets too cold to work in the office at home, so I want something I can move about the house

    How do check if my current desk top is VGA or DVI,

  11. #11
    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Quote Originally Posted by philsmove View Post
    Thanks

    I must have a reasonable quality lap top for checking and showing photographs away from home

    In the winter, it gets too cold to work in the office at home, so I want something I can move about the house

    How do check if my current desk top is VGA or DVI,


    Socket on the left (blue with 15 pin holes) is VGA, socket on the right (white with 24 pin holes and +) is DVI.

    I'm not sure all DVI socket have exactly the same arrangement of holes, but it should be pretty easy to distinguish VGA from DVI none the less.

    As far as "desktop v.s. laptop": the thing is that a RAW image from a DSLR may be something like 60MB in size, which is demanding both on disk and processor if you might want to do substantial image processing. Even a fairly high end laptop is easily outperformed by a moderately cheap PC - you can get a quad core desktop with 4gig of ram and 1TB hard drive for under £400. (PC hard drives are also faster than laptop ones - the motors spin faster).

    On the other hand, the most powerful PC in the world does you no good if it's in a room you don't want to use in the winter.

    My personal feeling is that you can get a "decent" laptop with dual-core processor for about £400 (probably less). I'm not sure you can get a significantly better laptop for under £1200 (it will be better, but maybe 20% better, while the desktop is more like 80% better). So to me, a quad core desktop and "decent" laptop might make more sense than an expensive laptop.

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    Registered User Magic Hans's Avatar
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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    Now posting on the laptop, and I realise the (slight) flaw in what I suggest above: in general, the external output on a laptop is going to be VGA rather than DVI, which might reduce the final output quality.
    ...
    Just last month a developer from a local software company came in with a laptop with a DVI port!!! Which I (and he) had not seen before!! I think it was a DELL ... but not sure, and quite possibly very expensive.

    Further web searching found me this Laptop DVI adapter.

    I'm promising nothing, but it might be worth looking into, if you want to go the laptop option. It looks like a USB adapter for a DVI monitor.

    Good Luck!!

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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    With windows 7 about be released I am about to part with some hard earned cash

    I am looking at

    Acer Aspire 8935G-904G50Bn Laptop

    64 bit watnot

    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 (With my limited buget I seem to be stuck with
    VGA )

    The Dell equivalent is at least £650 more

    and a Mac, more than twice the price

    when funds allow I intend to add a Del 30 inch (2,560x1,600) monitor

    But I cannot work out if the HD 4670 will work on this

    I know I should get a desk top, with something like a Nvidia 7800 GTX but at the moment, I can only afford one new computer and has to be a laptop

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    Re: Does any one know of a guide to choosing a graphics card?

    Quote Originally Posted by Magic Hans View Post
    Just last month a developer from a local software company came in with a laptop with a DVI port!!! Which I (and he) had not seen before!! I think it was a DELL ... but not sure, and quite possibly very expensive.
    Only just noticed this - I've had an ACER laptop with a DVI port for 3 years, and it wasn't that expensive then. AS DF said though, in reality, people with normal eyes will not see much of a difference between DVI and VGA.

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