Posted by Brian Matthews on September 29, 2007 at 5:36 AM
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a graphic cards for photo editing. Most tend to be for 'gamers'. I have used Matrox cards previously but they seem to be hard to find for PCI E. Any ideas? Or does it not really matter/??
Cheers
Brian
Posted by Outdoor Lens on September 29, 2007 at 2:18 PM
Brian,
From the last time I checked around it seemed that there wasn't much in the way of photo editing specific graphics cards for the PC. All of the 3D functionality needed for games has little impact on the types of things you'd do when modifying photos. I think even the low-end video cards will do just fine these days unless you need something to drive a very high resolution monitor. Too bad really since it'd be nice to have a souped-up video card take a load of the main CPU. Might even save us from needing to upgrade hardware so often.
Posted by Gene Lugo on September 29, 2007 at 7:50 PM
Matrox historically has made really good hardware but their software tends to lack the consistent quality and sturdiness of their cards. Most any graphics card with at least 64 mb ram will do - all you need is enough memory to drive your monitor to the resolution color depth and refresh rate you desire - I like 1280x1024 and use a 21" monitor, and I have no problem displaying this at 85 hz and 32 bit color depth using a 128 mb card.
Leave the Matrox and other coprocessor cards for demanding high rate video (gaming, video production, etc)
Brian, I agree with you that the Matrox graphics cards are generally sharper than most gaming cards. Unfortunately, finding them is extremely difficult. The last time we upgraded our hardware, I ended up ordering them directly from Matrox. We currently have the Millennium 550 cards. The web site was
What most people do not realize is that the sharpness of a graphics card does not depend on how fast images can be displayed. A step function input, such as a "square" wave, results in some overshooting with electronics which must be dampened. The dampening factors cause a tailing off off of the video signal which then causes the blurring.
I remember many years ago in the early 90's a PC Magazine columnist commenting how it suddenly occurred to him that the high end video cards he was reviewing were poor for reading text. He compared them to his home computer which had a Matrox card and was "razor" sharp.
There may be other brands of high end graphics cards which are also available. Though having to order directly from Matrox and paying full price, I was please with their service.
I agree regarding high end video cards. Unless you are doing things like gaming, 3-D CAD, or digital video editing, these cards are overkill for imaging work. A 128 or 256MB card will be quite sufficeint for photo imaging work in PS.
For best performance in PS, the key things for photo work are available RAM (at least 2GB), a decent video card, a calibrated monitor, and (preferrably) a hard drive to use as a dedicated 'scratch disk' for PS.
Only things to add to what has been said - if you're even remotely thinking about upgrading to Vista in the next year to 18 months, then check that it matches the Vista requirements for memory & has a driver available.
Also, if you're thinking of using it for presentations (such as slideshows), you might want to get one with a decent 'gaming' spec - some of the slideshow presenters use hardware acceleration for their effects - the better the graphics card, the smoother the transitions between slides.
Discussion
5 repliesI was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a graphic cards for photo editing. Most tend to be for 'gamers'. I have used Matrox cards previously but they seem to be hard to find for PCI E. Any ideas? Or does it not really matter/??
Cheers
Brian
From the last time I checked around it seemed that there wasn't much in the way of photo editing specific graphics cards for the PC. All of the 3D functionality needed for games has little impact on the types of things you'd do when modifying photos. I think even the low-end video cards will do just fine these days unless you need something to drive a very high resolution monitor. Too bad really since it'd be nice to have a souped-up video card take a load of the main CPU. Might even save us from needing to upgrade hardware so often.
Leave the Matrox and other coprocessor cards for demanding high rate video (gaming, video production, etc)
http://matrox.com
and they have a PCIe card at
http://matrox.com/graphics/en/cadgis/products/pseries/p650pcie.php
What most people do not realize is that the sharpness of a graphics card does not depend on how fast images can be displayed. A step function input, such as a "square" wave, results in some overshooting with electronics which must be dampened. The dampening factors cause a tailing off off of the video signal which then causes the blurring.
I remember many years ago in the early 90's a PC Magazine columnist commenting how it suddenly occurred to him that the high end video cards he was reviewing were poor for reading text. He compared them to his home computer which had a Matrox card and was "razor" sharp.
There may be other brands of high end graphics cards which are also available. Though having to order directly from Matrox and paying full price, I was please with their service.
For best performance in PS, the key things for photo work are available RAM (at least 2GB), a decent video card, a calibrated monitor, and (preferrably) a hard drive to use as a dedicated 'scratch disk' for PS.
-PB
Only things to add to what has been said - if you're even remotely thinking about upgrading to Vista in the next year to 18 months, then check that it matches the Vista requirements for memory & has a driver available.
Also, if you're thinking of using it for presentations (such as slideshows), you might want to get one with a decent 'gaming' spec - some of the slideshow presenters use hardware acceleration for their effects - the better the graphics card, the smoother the transitions between slides.