Photo Editing and Graphics Card

[MitaDC]

Ok I am building a comp for my teacher (see here ). She is going to be using the computer for a lot of photos....what graphics card would u guys recommend. Has to be a good one cuz I have to have it at my house for a couple of weeks and u know I need to try it out..... you know to make sure everything works but anyway I was planning on getting a 9600 Pro but I was wondering if maybe a 9700 pro or a 9800 pro would be better. I still have like 400$ left without graphics...so I could get a good graphics card or go with the 9600 pro and get a better CPU and RAM what u think that I should do?

[NDC]

Well, since it's going to be for just 2D graphics, just about any mid-end and above will be just fine. Matrox G-series were the best as far as sharpness and color accuracy goes. However, newer generation of Nvidia and ATI do just as well from my experience... Like I said, because you're doing 2D graphics, nothing fast is needed...

[tony_j15]

Agree with NDC. You could save her a bit of money and get a lesser card. You dont need these fancy shmancy DX9 cards for pictures. You could go as low as a ti4200(if the comp aint never gonna be used for gaming). If she is doing photoediting, the more cpu and ram, the better.

If she's going to play no games, go with a Matrox Parhelia or Millenium G550 or something. There's really no reason to throw a bunch of cash at a gaming card if you don't need it. The Matrox cards still have unrivaled 2D quality for desktop use. Well, in my opinion. My G400 still looks better on the desktop than my 9500 Pro.

[Kruzin]

Absolutly a Matrox card.
Parhelia is still pretty pricey (though I love mine). I'd go with a P650 or P750 Millennium (based on the Parhelia core), since there's no gaming involved.
G series cards are pretty dated, but still great for photo work. The big advantage of the P series is that they do 10bit gigacolor, and there is a gigacolor plug-in available for PhotoShop. (plus their unequaled 2d display, and best multimonitor support around)

[MitaDC]

Well there is like a little gaming involved but I think that it is only like the Sims and stuff like that. Nothing that needs good graphics. Would those cards work for that too??

[Kruzin]

Sure.
G series cards can't do T&L, but are still playable in most games.
P650/750 don't do too great in the latest high intensity FPS games, frame-rate wise, but will play anything (you just need to turn down details in the graphics-heavy games).
Parhelia will handle any game out there. I just came out of playing JK3:Jedi Academy with details cranked to full, at 3072x768 surround gaming mode.

[MitaDC]

Where is a good site to get these cards......at like newegg or somthing. Never heard of them b4

[Kruzin]

www.shopmatrox.com has them, but if you look around at other on-line stores, you can probably find better prices.

[MitaDC]

Hey what would be a sufficiant amount of Ram for these cards. They r pretty expensive especially the Parhelia!!