Topic Title

I'm upgrading a P4 Gateway system. I'm looking for a new graphic's card and could use some advice. Gateway suggestions started with the Radeon 9550 256 cards--local shops are pushing the e-GeForce 7600 GS 256MN DDR2 AGP card. The local Micro Center guy says that what I should look for is AGP workstation cards, of which, they were all out of.
I know it has to be a AGP card. And I want to be able to run the 2 lcd monitors--(You guys have made that look awful inviting!) I believe all the cards I've been shown have 1 dvi and 1 vga output. -- Don't they have cards with 2 dvi outs??
And just where is the cost benefit break on these anyway? I use Datacad, Sketchup, and the Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Does anyone out there feel like sharing some advice? Suggestions?
Thanks,
Rita @ Blueline

Hello Rita,

Over at NewEgg, they have a very nice search function. Here's a list of all their AGP cards with two DVI outputs, in order of increasing price:

There are 23 of them in stock They all have fans, though...and the top three or four are very expensive.

For SketchUp, you will want to try to get one with the greatest number of "pixel pipelines" -- the lowest cost one only has 4, but then they go up to 12, 24, or 20. The amount of RAM is fine on these -- 256MB or 512MB for most.

Some are "double width" cards, so the fan that cools them can exhaust the warmer air out the back of the case -- if you choose one of these, just make sure that the PCI slot just below the AGP slot is vacant.

Thank you. Is there a way to make sure which of these will work with the mother board?
Rita

Oops. The power supply recommended for the cards seems to be 400watt. This system doesn't have that. So, do I drop back to a "lesser" card ?

I use a Radeon 9550. Mine has a D15 and a DVI socket. They are made with 2xDVI, which would be a better choice. It is cheap, utterly silent, and works fine.

I bought a second one a couple of months ago. I got the mixed socket model because it appeared that I had little choice. AGP is becoming obsolete, being replaced by PCI Express, and AGP cards are, or were, a bit hard to find.

I'm sure my PSU is less than 400W, and i'm sure the 9550 doesn't need 400W.

Hello Rita,

Oops. The power supply recommended for the cards seems to be 400watt. This system doesn't have that. So, do I drop back to a "lesser" card ?

They are trying to impress (and their lawyers are in CYA mode) -- your system currently probably peaks at 150watts, or maybe 175watts, and these cards are not all that power hungry. They might be 20-30 more watts than your current card. If you have a 300watt power supply, you're fine.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page3.html

Let's put it this way dual quad-core CPU's and dual GPU (video cards) and 4GB of RAM, 2-3 hard drives peak above 400watts (maybe 420?).