Which Graphic card?

[josho]

I second the recommendation for the Matrox.

If you have no need to calibrate two monitors, the standard cheap Millenium G550 is more than sufficient. I bet you won't see a diff between this and the Parhelia for Photoshopping. The other question is, are you using a CRT or LCD panel with DVI needs?

IM using both CRTs.
Wondering the Matrox Parhelia is PCI express?
I had a frenz intend to sell me that MSI card for just $300. Im just wondering shall i take it or to pour the money on Matrox. :embrass:

Josephteo548- yah PCI express. Yes it is. Thanks.

Firefox- im not a hardware hardcore as you do. lol. :sweat:

 

[sammy888]

IM using both CRTs.
Wondering the Matrox Parhelia is PCI express?
I had a frenz intend to sell me that MSI card for just $300. Im just wondering shall i take it or to pour the money on Matrox. :embrass:

Josephteo548- yah PCI express. Yes it is. Thanks.

Firefox- im not a hardware hardcore as you do. lol. :sweat:

Just a note.... how hardware hardcore you are is one thing. How much of a graphic artist are you in that you are trained well enough to see and appreciate how much difference you can get out of this Matrox card. I know alot who can't tell the difference between this Matrox and the older version like the G450 or 550 or any other good middle priced cards. And there is also another thing you need to consider, what kind of CRTs are you using? The best too to compliment that card? Pixel dot on the screen is crucial too. Are you using something good like the Sony Trinitron CRTs which are very much "the" CRT with Dot Pitch of 0.24 mm unlike other cheaper CRTs which usually are about 0.26mm. It can make the difference with how the proportion and screen ratio when viewing your picture. Also how flat are your CRTs and also the size of your CRTs. If I bought a card like that I would buy for example a 19-21inch CRT of any good brand that uses the Trinitron tube in it.

My advice if you are not using as a good a monitor to compliment that card, I would say go for the MSI your friend want to sell it for $300. PCI express slots are very fast (and very new technology...abit too new for me to be sure if it is not buggy) but that type of card only makes sense if you are a gamer and you need a super fast card & IO interface like the PCI Ex that soakup as much bandwidth to pump billions upon billion of high resolution texture bitmap layers to build the 3D game environment to your screen as you play the game. 2D does not need that much bandwidth power.

Now unless you are intending to play high frame rate 3d Games and will be investing in larger and better CRTs monitors in the near future....I would think the Matrox Parhelia card can be passed on. SVGA Cards like any techology parts gets obselete quickly. What is the return investment on it? The Matrox Parhelia has been around quite abit in IT life span terms. If you really want to get the Parhelia, get their cheapest level version it will be more then enough if you intend to only drive up to 2 CRTs.

Matrox Parhelia 512GPU with 128mb ram is already SDG$659 with the 256mb ram being SDG$999. (you could get a Nikon VR 24-120mm lens!!)

I think the Matrox Millenium P650 or P750 at $305/ $399 ( I think the PCI Express version price) and of course you can still get about as good performance for abit low price from Radeon or Nvidia too.

Read about it here:http://www.matrox.com/mga/workstation/3dws/products/mill_pseries/p650.cfm

Just something to think about bro....

I go through all this stuff everytime I build a PC for myself or someone..you want to get the best parts and you may have the money for it but..some time it can be overkill or not worth paying so much more if it will be under use. Just an expensive card will not make things better. There are numerous factors that need to be "upgraded" along with the card to give you the performance you want or think you might need.

 

[Yappy]

Actually, I managed to push my Geforce DDR 64MB to beat even the Matrox G450 in terms of image quality... Unfortunately, the card died on me after about 2 years... LOL...
Hacked my card into a Quadro Pro and did the image quality modification (removed the low-pass filter on the output stage).
That mod improved the image quality tremendously..
Guess that's what they mean by "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys". Cheap components vary too much from specifications and affect the low-pass filter hence limiting the bandwidth.

Edit: Managed to find the old pictures of my crazy little mod..

Too technical. Catch no ball!

Yappy & happy

 

[Firefox]

Too technical. Catch no ball!

Yappy & happy

In laymans' terms, not everyday is Sunday. Like today is saturday (ok, bad joke). You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

You buy a cheapy videocard, don't expect good quality components on it. The components (especially on the output) will affect the quality of the image.

What I did was to remove these cheap components so they don't reduce the resolving power of the card. Hence, I was and am, able to get good image quality that's at least comparable to Matrox cards for a fraction of the price.

The catch: If I fail, the card is destroyed. Simple as that.


Edit: If anyone's interested, I can post a largely simplified guide for the mod next week. Just did it on my Geforce 4 MX440 for fun.. LOL..

 

[kahheng]

OT: I wouldn't advise doing so on CD players. The caps on the output are there for a very good reason. (I do audio modifications, BTW)
They're to block DC. Without the caps, if there is significant DC on the output, you'll potentially fry your speakers/ headphones.
I'd recommend using good caps like Cerafines or Blackgates or Hovland Musicaps or a combination of them to replace the crappy stock caps instead.
Alternatively, if you're sufficiently apt at electronics, try to design a DC servo circuit to remove DC on the output and you can then remove the DC blocking caps safely.

Well, thanks for the advice on that.

 

[kahheng]

In laymans' terms, not everyday is Sunday. Like today is saturday (ok, bad joke). You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

You buy a cheapy videocard, don't expect good quality components on it. The components (especially on the output) will affect the quality of the image.

What I did was to remove these cheap components so they don't reduce the resolving power of the card. Hence, I was and am, able to get good image quality that's at least comparable to Matrox cards for a fraction of the price.

The catch: If I fail, the card is destroyed. Simple as that.


Edit: If anyone's interested, I can post a largely simplified guide for the mod next week. Just did it on my Geforce 4 MX440 for fun.. LOL..

Would love to see the mod diagram or pics thanks buddy!

My current PCI card mod is to put in USB pin headers on a USB/Firewire combo card by replacing the standard USB sockets with pins. It's an easy one since the pin spacing/sequencing is as the sockets' pins are. This is to allow me to plug in my chassis front USB ports again. The motherboard USB headers were 'stolen' by a Silverstone card reader.

 

[erwinx]

if you're using DVI, is the lowpass filter mod relevant? or is it only for VGA out?

 

[Zerstorer]

OT: I wouldn't advise doing so on CD players. The caps on the output are there for a very good reason. (I do audio modifications, BTW)
They're to block DC. Without the caps, if there is significant DC on the output, you'll potentially fry your speakers/ headphones.
I'd recommend using good caps like Cerafines or Blackgates or Hovland Musicaps or a combination of them to replace the crappy stock caps instead.
Alternatively, if you're sufficiently apt at electronics, try to design a DC servo circuit to remove DC on the output and you can then remove the DC blocking caps safely.

IIRC, Elna Cerafines and Rubicon Blackgates are only available as electrolytics and are used mainly in powerline filtering. Is the branding now extended to polyproplene caps as well?

 

[Firefox]

if you're using DVI, is the lowpass filter mod relevant? or is it only for VGA out?

It's relevant for DVI-I (analog) but not DVI-D (digital).

 

[Firefox]

IIRC, Elna Cerafines and Rubicon Blackgates are only available as electrolytics and are used mainly in powerline filtering. Is the branding now extended to polyproplene caps as well?

OT:
They're electrolytics. Most CDP's use large value e-caps on their output anyway. So a monkey-see, monkey-do replacement would be easiest to perform without needing much electronics knowledge.
Some people prefer to replace with film caps.
Some prefer to couple the e-caps with film caps..
It all depends on what sound you want to achieve. For me, I just redesigned the output stage a little and swapped out the Silmics (Silmics too laid back & BG's too harsh) for Cerafines.. Fine enough for me... Not to mention various other mods to other parts of the player.. Looks like franken-player now..

 

[Zerstorer]

OT:
Electrolytics on the output stage? Now that would be peculiar. I've never seen electrolytics used in any of the direct signal stages, since electroylics are polarized and will blow when exposed to an AC signal, not to mention the inherently bad phase characteristics. If you did indeed see blackgates in the output stage, then they might not be electrolytics but other caps branded as blackgate(hence the question above), probably polyprop or some other film cap, unless there's some new developments I'm not aware of, I'm out of touch for quite some time.

Direct type for type swaps would be fine, but messing around too much may not be advisible for your component's health. Personally, Hovland Musicaps are prohibitively expensive for modding, might as well buy a better component with the money.

 

[Firefox]

OT:
Electrolytics on the output stage? Now that would be peculiar. I've never seen electrolytics used in any of the direct signal stages, since electroylics are polarized and will blow when exposed to an AC signal, not to mention the inherently bad phase characteristics. If you did indeed see blackgates in the output stage, then they might not be electrolytics but other caps branded as blackgate(hence the question above), probably polyprop or some other film cap, unless there's some new developments I'm not aware of, I'm out of touch for quite some time.

Direct type for type swaps would be fine, but messing around too much may not be advisible for your component's health. Personally, Hovland Musicaps are prohibitively expensive for modding, might as well buy a better component with the money.

OT:
Not really.. The line signal is positive w.r.t. ground. So when you see the specifications of a cdp, an unbalanced output usually lists as 2v RMS. Hence, it's minimum potential on the signal pin is ~+1.414v and maximum ~+3.414v. Since it's always positive, you can orientate an e-caps +ve terminal towards the output stage and the -ve terminal towards the output sockets.

 

[Zerstorer]

I see, in such a case it would be applicable.

 

[Firefox]

For those interested in the low-pass filter mod. (Image Quality Hack)

My guide is here: http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=126894

 

[Yappy]

In laymans' terms, not everyday is Sunday. Like today is saturday (ok, bad joke). You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

You buy a cheapy videocard, don't expect good quality components on it. The components (especially on the output) will affect the quality of the image.

What I did was to remove these cheap components so they don't reduce the resolving power of the card. Hence, I was and am, able to get good image quality that's at least comparable to Matrox cards for a fraction of the price.

The catch: If I fail, the card is destroyed. Simple as that.


Edit: If anyone's interested, I can post a largely simplified guide for the mod next week. Just did it on my Geforce 4 MX440 for fun.. LOL..

Hi...

Do you remove the components competely or do you do a replacement?
Puzzle.... :dunno: :dunno: :dunno:

Yappy & happy