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Ben Edelman 2003-07-27 10:20
I need dual DVI video card, for 2D purposes only (business apps), and don't want to spend more than necessary. The new Matrox P650 seems like the obvious choice -- seemingly the cheapest dual DVI card on the market -- so I was surprised to find it essentially absent from this forum (only one hit using the search function) not to mention Google (no real reviews present there either).
Anyone have experience with this card? Looks like it's now shipping from Matrox and afew of Matrox's distributors, for $169 . Seems to have all the usual features -- 1600x1200 support in digital mode, dual DVI with indep resolution support, dual independent hardware video overlays.
http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/mill_pseries/p650.cfm
Ben Edelman
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ecarlson 2003-07-27 15:10
See recent threads about dual-DVI cards. There are a bunch, and some are less that the Matrox card.
- Eric www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Ben Edelman 2003-07-27 17:39
Thanks.
I read http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum/messages.asp?Topic=2820&tmpl=UltraMon . It offers mixed reviews of the ASUS V9180 (pro: cheap. con: old chipset, little RAM), positive of the V9520 (my own take: crazy looking card, requires fan which may say something negative about thermal design & future noise / power consumption), also ATI Fire GL X1 (no commentary in the thread; my own take: surely expensive b/c in ATI's workstation line), and an unnamed MSI NVidia card (maybe http://www.pcboost.com/store/viewitem.asp?idproduct=7386 which I found as top result for google search on "msi dual dvi" -- $195, otherwise not so clear from that pcboost site).
Then there's http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum/messages.asp?Topic=2909&tmpl=UltraMon -- which suggests a $350 Matrox Parhelia (more expensive than necessary).
Edit-Find in the topic listing, using term "DVI", yielded no other obvious results going back 3 months.
So -- This board definitely offers some leads. But this topic isn't as well fleshed out as most others I've been interested in over the years -- hence my request as to others' first-hand experiences here.
Ben Edelman
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Drew 2003-07-28 00:32
Ben,
I have also recently been searching for a dual-dvi video card, however, from what I understand of your needs it does not need to be too much of a high-performance card.
If you have not done so already, check out the following link:
http://www.appian.com/products/?page=typhoon
It details the specifications of the Appian Typhoon video card that uses the ATI Radeon VE chipset to drive dual analog or DVI monitors using either an AGP slot or PCI slot. It also features 64MB of DDR RAM.
I have seen this card listed for as much as $250 and for as little as $170 (both AGP and PCI versions). If you do a search by the model name at the usual gateways (pricegrabber, nextag, etc.) you should get a listing of vendors. Alternately, I believe their website lists some vendors.
If the Appian card is not powerful enough, check out the following link:
www.gainward.com
Follow the "Product" link, then under "Product Series" choose "Gainward FX Power Pack!". Under "Chipset" choose "GeForce FX 5600". Under "Model Name" choose "Gainward FX PowerPack! Ultra/780 XP 256MB Professional". This will detail all of the specifications of the card.
I have seen this card listed at www.googlegear.com for $185.95.
I hope this helps in your search.
The higher performance of the two is obviously the Gainward card, but if you need a PCI bus connection, then the Appian card may suffice.
Unfortunately, there are very few dual-dvi cards that offer medium to high performance without costing too much. There are even fewer cards that use a PCI bus connection, but if all you need is two monitors, then either of these two cards should suffice.
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Brett 2003-07-28 02:22
Someone wrote:
>and an unnamed MSI NVidia card (maybe >http://www.pcboost.com/store/viewitem.asp?>idproduct=7386 which I found as top result for >google search on "msi dual dvi" -- $195, >otherwise not so clear from that pcboost site).
Take a look at that sight and the picture they have posted its not DUAL-DVI, from the picture it has a blue output (VGA) and white output (DVI), which is the standard card.
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ecarlson 2003-07-28 10:35
> positive of the V9520 (my own take: crazy looking card, requires fan which may say something negative about thermal design & future noise / power consumption)
Fans are pretty much standard on high-performance video cards these days.
- Eric www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Ben Edelman 2003-07-29 15:14
Excellent additional information at http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum/messages.asp?Topic=3000&tmpl=UltraMon, including a link to the incredibly helpful list of dual-DVI cards at http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=995763&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=
Ben Edelman
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Drew 2003-07-30 00:11
If you have a cool $1,000.00 for the newest ATI workstation card, check out the following link:
ATI Fire GL
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Hank vB 2003-08-23 10:31
You might try Ebay for the Matrox G450 or G550 in a dual DVI. Price is $75 or less on the average. They are great cards, but are essentially unaccelerated for 3D. You'll have to look through a few because most were dual VGA. Matrox has been well thought of for workplace desktop cards, but they are not up to 3d Gaming, Also think about the fact that these are Parhelia derived chips and are NOT DirectX9. With the rumors about the next version of Windows needing DirectX9 video cards, you'll want to consider that too.
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Ben Edelman 2003-08-27 10:06
I ended up getting an Appian Typhoon AGP, dual DVI connections via a bundled Y adapter. ~$150 from buy.com. Easy installation.
The card initially only wanted to send a signal to the primary monitor and would only send it a 1280x1024 signal (would display weird wavy lines on screen when I specified 1600x1200). Then I made my smaller monitor (1280x1024) primary and larger secondary, and all was well.
Appian's software has a rotate feature, but apparently only for W2K, not for XP. So I'm using Pivot which is working fine.
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