What's the right card for the job?

June 2, 2006 7:45 AM

I'm about to buy a Dell 2405FPW LCD. The max resolution is 1920x1200, and it's got D-SUB and DVI inputs. I'm going to have to buy a new video card. What are the advantages of each connection, and what video card features should I be looking for?

The PC's onboard video won't support that resolution, so I'll need the new video card. I've got PCI (not Express) and AGP 8x slots available. Good Linux support is a major plus. Aside from emulation, I don't play games. I do, however, occasionally edit video. And if at all possible, I'd prefer a fanless (or quiet, anyway) video card. That seems like a lot of requirements. Please help.

posted by box to computers & internet (12 comments total)

The XFX Geforce 6600GT is a good lower-range card that will drive it just fine and has dual DVI outputs. It's not fanless, but with Expertool you'll generally never hear it if you aren't playing games.
posted by kcm at 7:55 AM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

DVI's much better than D-SUB, right? But if I don't anticipate connecting a second monitor, is there any benefit to having dual DVI outputs?
posted by box at 8:01 AM on June 2, 2006

Don't know for sure if this applies to your screen, but I have a Dell 2001FP and video over DVI looks much better than the same resolution over D-SUB.

With D-SUB I got a "screen door" effect where it seemed like I could see the borders between pixels. I didn't see that with DVI.
posted by de void at 8:11 AM on June 2, 2006

I'm running a 2405 off a Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 fanless card and it seems to be working fine. It's not the fastest card on the planet, but it's more then adequate for general use. They don't do an AGP version of this card, but ATI does. It's not fanless, tho.

You do need a fairly good card to power this monitor: it's a lot of pixels to throw around. For gaming, you would need to go higher (such as an X1800 or NVidia equivalent; probably one of the 7900s). Definitely go for the DVI connection. It's purely digital, so the picture will be sharper and have better color as it's not getting converted from digital to analog and back again. And don't forget that Dell has just launched the 2407FPW. It doesn't look all that much different to the older model, just a slightly better response time. The 2405 is a good deal right now: $750 for a 24-inch monitor.
posted by baggers at 9:12 AM on June 2, 2006

The 2407FPW has HDCP support, the 2405FPW does not. FWIW I occasionally play UT2004 just fine at native res on a 2405FPW and 6600GT 128MB.
posted by kcm at 9:21 AM on June 2, 2006

I can't give you specific recommendations, but if you're not a gamer all you really want is a cheap card that can do dual DVI. You want DVI definitely; much better signal. You want dual because some day you might decide to add a second screen.
posted by Nelson at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2006

If you look around on the web, you'll find that many people prefer the 1905 to the 1907. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2407 was a step backwards as well.

Do your homework on the issue.
posted by Kwantsar at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2006

I concur with the above. I have a 2001fpw (native 1680x1050) running on both a linux box and a windows box. For the linux machine i've got a basic nvidia card with dvi out, something like this one.

For linux, nvidia is really a must since ati doesn't have good (if any) linux support. For linux, DVI is also really important as it helps with the auto-detection of modeline and whatnot, which makes configuration easier. For windows, the card doesn't really matter as long as it's got DVI output.

The card i linked can handle any everyday task you want to throw at it - i can't speak about video editing since i don't do it. You can just move up in the nvidia line if you want for more performance.
posted by escher at 11:08 AM on June 2, 2006

I have a 2405FPW running under Linux at work. Definitely get an NVIDIA card (their proprietary drivers are much better than ATI's) that will do DVI, the D-SUB input is really bad looking. My distro didn't automagically pick the right modeline (actually none of the distros we've tried so far have), here's the Monitor section you'll need:

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "Monitor0"

    HorizSync   30-81

    VertRefresh 56-76

    Option      "DPMS"

    Modeline    "1920x1200" 161.75 1920 2020 2052 2184 1200 1202 1208 1235 -hsync -vsync

    DisplaySize 513 321

EndSection

posted by togdon at 11:50 AM on June 2, 2006

I too have a 6600GT 128MB and it seems to work fine with my 2405. I heard the usual stuff about D-SUB looking worse than DVI, but I still can't really tell the difference, to be honest.

Do not let the fact that it has dual outputs turn you off, it's an uncommon-but-not-rare feature on video cards these days, as far as I can tell. I only use one of the outputs, ever.

As for gaming with it, works fine, I've been playing Half-Life 2, FarCry, WoW, etc, at the native 1900x1200 with medium to high settings without any real problems (surprisingly). This is with a 2-year-old system as well (AMD64 2800+/1GB RAM/etc).

Finally, if you use it with a KVM switch, be prepared for some irritating quirks, like it settling on a scrunched-up display or the wrong resolution, after switching machines. Not a deal-breaker but something worth knowing about.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 2:48 PM on June 2, 2006

you don't need the newest card or even an ultra-powerful one.

using this monitor for the last 10 months with gentoo and a radeon 8500 (what a great, inexpensive, classic, and still-powerful card!). and more recently an onboard X300 (yes that is 300 not 1300) as well. in both cases the x.org ati drivers are more than sufficient as I don't game with it but do watch video all the time. never bothered with the binary ati drivers.

dvi bandwidth is limited to 170mhz unlike the analog. which can have disadvantages. also, with compressed movie files that looked near-perfect over analog, I am seeing much jpeg blockage over dvi.

wouldn't mind getting a via chrome s27 once drivers stabilize for it, via have been the most decent about open source support lately, even considering some of their sheer idiotic blunders vs licensing.

and yes, get a fanless/passive card if you can -- much quieter, one less thing to break down etc.

honestly an older fanless radeon 9200 or 9600 would be fine. but a fanless ati average X card would be fine and probably cost something like $50-80.

careful 'cos some of the newer cards have massive heatsinks which will block the pci slot closest to it.

the component inputs of the dell are also quite nice -- I still use my dvd player instead of the computer as the video quality is a bit better that way.
posted by dorian at 5:30 PM on June 2, 2006

I have the 2405, excellent monitor, not a single problem. Radeon 9600 is fine for my general (non gamer) use. AutoCAD looks great on this screen if your into that type of thing.
posted by vaportrail at 7:28 PM on June 2, 2006