Graphic card advice PLEASE

[kirbinster]

I am going to be building a new system and would like some input on what graphics card to get and how much memory. Performance is more important than cost --- but only up until a point

[wannabephotographer]

If money is no object then get a Nvidia Quadro or Geforce 9000 series card. Here's a little more info on what it does and why it matters. Adobe Photoshop CS5 - NSIST ON NVIDIA

You can also go with ATI 5000 series.

Personally I wouldn't spend more than $70. Unless you're a gamer or using it for CAD, you won't see that much of a difference.

I just got CS5 and I'm going to get this card. Newegg.com - ASUS EN9500GT/DI/1GD2/V2/A GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

[kirbinster]

Thanks. What made you choose the ASUS card? How does it compare in price to the Nvidia you suggested? Does it perform as well?

[wannabephotographer]

ASUS is a major manufacturer of motherboards and when I built my own computers I found them to be very reliable and easy to set up.

Nvidia is the actual chip maker, like intel except for graphics. Brands like ASUS, HIS, ZOTAC, EVGA, Sparkle, XFX, Gigabyte use Nvidia chips in their video cards.

Are you actually building this computer? Please reconsider if you actually are going to do this. It takes a long time and it's not as easy as it seems to build one that runs really well and lasts for a long time. I used to do this until I realized that I'll never build a computer as efficient and low cost as Dell or HP.

What I do is buy a Dell on sale and replace the memory and video card. I've must have bought over 10+ dell computers and have never had one fail on me, not even a hard drive crash.

[kirbinster]

Yes I have had several ASUS MB and have been very happy. I think I am going to build, as the quality of Dell and HP have gone downhill in the last few years. The current box I have is an HP that I got a great deal on at Costco. I think I can get a better system if I put it together my self. Some suggested a company called mwave.com that you can buy parts from, but for something like $80 they will actually build and test the system for you -- that might be my best option.

The problem I have with Dell is everything is proprietary. Also I want to go with high end stuff like triple channel ram and you don't get that in the off the shelf stuff.

[wannabephotographer]

I don't think Dell has gone downhill at all. I prefer them to any other manufacturer. I'm not sure by what you mean when you say they use proprietary components. They do a lot of testing of all the components they use so they have a very low failure rate. After all, every computer that fails is a huge set back when your gross margins are only 17%.

Mwave is a reputable company so that's ok if you farm that out to them. It's still going to cost a heck of a lot more for very little real world improvement. The computer geeks will tell you you need top of the line this and that but from my experience unless you are playing games or doing CAD, it just doesn't pay to spend more than $700 bucks on a computer.