Is there a guide for the bewildered?

[Snapshot]

Both ATI & NVidia seem to have so many different versions of their chipsets with the prices and specs overlapping between the ranges. I'm after good 2D performance for Photoshop use and photo album building. I suspect what I really need is a PCIe Matrox G650 but they're as common as rockinghorse poo and I'm not sure they're a good long-term investment for Vista. For some reason I'm more attracted to NVidia rather than ATI (possibly bad memories of struggling with ATI drivers in the past) and I was thinking about the Leadtek 7600GT card that OCUK sell for a ton. Is this a reasonable choice for my needs or is there something else I should be looking at?

Jonathan

 

[melbourne720]

7600GT should be fine, a great choice - although some people prefer the image quality you get with ATi cards. Most half decent gfx cards should run the aero toolbar in Windows Vista, and cope with 2d stuff.

Is there anything specific you need it to do, besides photoshop?

 

[Snapshot]

Thanks for the reply. I also play the occasional DVD using PowerDVD plus the usual boring office stuff. It's not really that demanding but I don't want the graphics card to be the limiting factor.

 

[pastymuncher]

Is it not the Leadtek 7600's that have been having problems?

Don't know if this is what you are after but at Toms hardware there is an interactive round up of dozens of different graphics cards. You select the cards you are interested in and select the game or program and it then shows you and compares how they perform. Have a play here .

 

[Snapshot]

I'd seen that, thanks. The 7600GT seemed to be a sensible point as it gives about a third the performance of the top-end cards.