ati vs nvidia for dual screen display

[alastair84]

Which has the better/more features for dual screen display?
or are they the same?
i'm thinking of buying a cheap graphics card for my Dad who only surfs and uses office, but he said he wanted 2 screens.
Also any recommendations for GFX for this? it would have to be PCI-e and i'm prepared to pay about upto £50 ish for it

 

[Chronictank]

If you are just web browsing doesnt make a difference
However the nvidia doesnt do full screen mirroring at all on the 8800 series, and can only render 3d on one screen at a time.
The best you can do is run extended desktop and expand the thing you want to play in the second screen
The picture quality of the desktop a tv is also better on the Ati(personal preference though)
You also cant for example (like on the ati) play something in media player and have it playing in full screen on the second screen

My other minor gripe is that they removed the extended toolbar from the nvidia drivers, you get a blank screen on one screen and the full windows desktop on the other, not sure what its like on the Ati i cant remember

If your not concerened about the performance the Ati drivers are far better for a dual monitor setup, if you want game performance your probably better with a 8800

Note this is based on a 1800xtx/1950xtx against a 8800 GTS 640Mb

 

[Supertaff]

I run a 8800GTS to power a 24' @ 1920 * 1200 and a 19' @1280*1024 without any problems.

Though would agree with chronis as to the limitations of things like the tool bar. Though I believe there is payware out there that you can use to get around this.

If I'm gaming though I do tend to disable the second screen so as to not get any issues as a nmber of games have problems with the second screen not showing anything or having an app on it e.g. web browser, but that might even be config or drivers issues as well.

Cheers

Taff