Help me pick graphics cards

[drjones]

I run 3x monitors on my personal work PC.

I've got an i7, 12GB, and dual NVIDIA GeForce 8600GTS.

I'm really not happy with the graphics performance - the cards have a hard time with 1080p video.

Sometimes I'll throw a movie or music vid on one of my monitors while I'm working, and these cards can't handle it.

I do ZERO gaming, I just want something that will perform better overall and play 1080p video flawlessly for my 3x monitors.

What cards do I need?

Thanks!

 

[jmitservices]

Have you checked your motherboard specifications? Most decent boards should let you run 3 monitors.

 

[MichaelBits]

Those the old 256mb video cards?

Any modern graphics card with 1GB of ram will do HD video.

 

[TAPtech]

yeah that's sort of surprising, I would think you would have plenty of juice from those two.

Maybe look at a quadro instead. Typically the workstation cards are better at rendering lots of pixels at lower frame rates, whereas the gaming cards render less pixels at higher frame rates.

 

[Vicenarian]

HD6770/7770 should do the trick for about $100... as long as it has three outputs.

 

[cypress]

Whats your budget? I Got this card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127782

Had it for about 3 months now. Got it as my birthday gift to myself. I just do light gaming but mostly just surf the internet and stream 1080p shows. It has been an excellent card. Zero problems.

 

[drjones]

Have you checked your motherboard specifications? Most decent boards should let you run 3 monitors.

You mean with the native on-board graphics? I don't think I've seen many mobos with 3x video outputs - they pretty much all have two, but I can't recall seeing any with three.

 

[drjones]

yeah that's sort of surprising, I would think you would have plenty of juice from those two.

Maybe look at a quadro instead. Typically the workstation cards are better at rendering lots of pixels at lower frame rates, whereas the gaming cards render less pixels at higher frame rates.

I would also think so, but nope.... I think there's some sort of bug or something with Win7 - I also had to disable the pretty themes, otherwise on my third monitor there was a strange & noticeable lag / stutter even on very basic web pages.

I think I posted about it here & someone told me it was a known issue with Win7 and the aero themes.

Not sure that's accurate now that I think about it as my CPA runs 4x monitors with full Aero & everything and it all looks flawless.

 

[LifelineIT]

Based on this month's review at Tom's Hardware, I've decided on an R7 260X or an R7 265, depending on the prices on the day I decide to buy. There are many versions that ship unlocked and overclocked.

 

[JARISOCS]

Based on this month's review at Tom's Hardware, I've decided on an R7 260X or an R7 265, depending on the prices on the day I decide to buy. There are many versions that ship unlocked and overclocked.

My buddy has the 265 2GB and it can run some of the gfx intensive games we play pretty well considering the price. I would assume 1080p video wouldn't be an issue.