Graphics Card For Photography Work - Does It Matter? Suggestions?

[alexw]

Does the choice of graphics card matter for doing photo processing? Does the graphics card affect the quality of the image you can get, or the accuracy or resolution you're able to use? I'm thinking of the real-world end of things, rather than expensive high-end solutions.

If so, what suggestions does anyone have for good cards to get?

I'm personally very much on the budget end of things. Unless I have good reason to do otherwise I would buy the cheapest graphics card I can find, i.e. <£50. But then thought I should check that I wouldn't be shooting myself in the foot to do so...
I could stretch to ~£100 if it were definitely worth doing so. My usual proviso: I do not game at all, nor overclock. In terms of graphics, all I would care about is photoshop type work on my photos.

I got to wondering about this in another thread, but it didn't have an at all appropriate title or location, so thought a proper thread might be worthwhile.

Thanks very much

 

[VeNT]

from what I recall,
current graphics cards are used for direct X rendering (also open GL somtimes and Glide for REALLY old ones even tho its better)
progs like photoshop don't use direct X rendering cards to do any of the work
any graphics card available today (inc onboard intel ones etc) will be ok for doing photo editing
your better off spending the money on a good screen and one of those colour correction things that checks that your display is the right levels.

photoshop would benefit more from another gig of ram, or a scratch drive (fast) rather than a £100 graphics card.
the only examples I can think of graphics cards being used are the nvidia quadro cards used for 3d rendering etc http://www.nvidia.com/page/workstation.html but they are really niche markets

 

[alexw]

Thanks, that's what I suspected.

My current computer just died in a blown PSU kind of way, so I'm putting together something new. If the graphics card survived from the old computer then I have an Asus ATI Radeon 7000/T 64MB AGP knocking about that I could theoretically use, but I'm not even sure that AGP slots are widely available on new motherboards anymore, I'll have to check.

However, it would probably be worth spending the extra £50 to get a new budget level graphics card for the new system, of the PCI-E variety. I won't bother looking at anything fancy though.

 

[Gliding_Nut]

I do a lot of photography work as both a hobbyist and for magazines. I think basically what was said above is right, I currently have two 6800GT's SLI'd for gaming and simming (my other pasion) and whilst these are more than adequate for PS7 & CS2, I didnt notice any improvements when I went up to these from my previous card.

I'm going to invest in an 8800GTS 64Mb in due course but thats more for the simming side than the photography work, HOWEVER, I cant recommend highly enough extra RAM and getting your monitor calibrated to your printer etc - these will reap benefits!

Hope this helps.