PC hardware forum: Which video card for digital photo's ?

The monitor would be more important than the video card. John

IF you have cash to throw around buy yourself a Nvidea geforce 6600GT with 128mb ram. That is an overkill, and only around $200AU. you would do fine with anything upwards of a geforce 5200 for editing - but I recommend grabbing a new display at the same time - dell or Apple's flat panels are nice if u have a lot of cash, but if not just get a flat screen CRT from Samsung or somebody.

Things to look out for without getting yourself buried in specs:

Video Card: GPU clock speed - most GPU are 300-600mhz. The 6600GT is 1000mhz I think - not sure atm. 128mb ram would be fine, u could even scrape by with 64 - go no lower though.

Monitor - Refresh rate isn't really important for what you want, but be on the lookout for things like colour fidility. If you can get an LCD over a CRT as they are 1) much better for your eyes, and 2) Take up less desk space, so you have somewhere to put your camera.

It is more important to have the correct monitor than the video card. You must remember that what you see on your monitor is not exactly how it will appear printed. You can feasibly get by with any cheap video card. I think that your needs should be met within the $150.00 US range. Try a NVidia 5700 LE or ATI 9800 series card.

You are just using this for 2D so great calculations of polygons isn't an issue. From what I have read of the past few years is that ATI is going to give you better images but nvidia is going to give greater speed. Going with one of their top end cards is overkill for what you are using it for. ATI X600 is great and not too expensive.

I have had really good luck with fairly cheap cards for video editing. I find the most important thing to be the software that you will be using to edit with. you can get very good software quite reasonably, I reccomend Photoshop elements unless you are a real techie, than I would go with the full Photoshop program, it is spendy but well worth it. The monitor issue is not all that important either if you use the right software you can calibrate any good monitor to work very well. here is a link for a very good card at a great price. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=14-170-065&DEPA=0

* For still digital editing you need two things:

1. True color fidelity video card that support 32-bit color pallette at the highest horizontal refresh rate comparable with your monitor. 16-bit color pallette is acceptable.

2. 17" or larger monitor that support 32-bit color at the color pallette size you want (32-bit); the screen resolution you want (1024x768) or larger; the smallest dot pitch that you can afford to buy; and the highest supported horizontal refresh rate at the screen resolution and color pallette size you want.

Video card works in tandem with your monitor. Don't waste your money buying a high-end video card when your monitor can only support low-end resolution.
Check the specification of your monitor before buying video card.

Horizontal refresh rate of 75 HZ or higher is strongly recommended if you were to spend alot of time editing pictures. Higher rate may be required for some people who're more sensitive to "flickering screen". Higher refresh rate (horizontal) helps reduce eye straint/fatigue.

First, find out the size of your monitor (14", 15" 17", 18", 19", 21", etc.).

Next, find out the horizontal refresh rate of your monitor at the 16-bit color pallette and screen resolution of 1024x768 and at 1280x1024 resolution.

Repeat the above step with 32-bit color pallette, if applicable.

You should see a table similar to this:
------------------------------------------
Monitor Screen Color Horz
Size Resolution Pallette Refresh
Rate
==========================================
17" 800x600 16-bit 120 Hz
17" 1024x768 16-bit 90 Hz
17" 1280x1024 16-bit 75 Hz
17" 800x600 32-bit 85 Hz
17" 1024x768 32-bit 72 Hz
17" 1280x1024 32-bit 60 Hz
17" 1600x1280 32-bit 55 Hz
===========================================

Next, for your monitor size, select the highest color pallett bit, the highest screen resolution you want to use (I strongly recommend the minimum of 1024 x768 for 17" or larger monitor, and the maximum of 1280x1024) and the highest horizontal refresh rate. Write this info down.

Now you're ready to buy a video card that is best suite your monitor from budget perspective and technical perspective.

Additional Consideration:

It's often easier to find video card driver for various OS platforms from major video card manufacturer than from lesser known and "cheaper" video cards. So depends on which OS you run, weight this factor accordingly in your buying decision.

Microsoft's newer OSes include supports for major video card vendors, thus saving you time to look for the driver each time you install Windows or update your system.

PS: The headings for the columns in the table was messed up in this posting system. They are (from left to right):

1. Monitor size
2. Screen resulution
3. Color pallette
4. Horizontal Refresh Rate