View Single Post
  #10  
Old December 29th 07, 06:06 AM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia,alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati,alt.comp.periphs.videocards.matrox
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13,364
Default Fastest graphic card for Windows workstation use (2D, not gaming)

Mr.E Solved! wrote:
Luca Villa wrote:
Thank you all for the answers.

I made an 1 hour long research and found that he top-of-the-line
graphic cards commercialized for 2D work according to NVidia and ATI
would be these:

- NVidia Quadro NVS 440 PCIe (~$400 on eBay)
quad-head
"high-performance 2D rendering engine"
MPEG-2 and WMV9 decode acceleration
source: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_30901.html

- ATI FireMV 2400 (~$400 on eBay)
quad-head
"ATI's FireMV(tm) multi-view 2D workstation acceleration cards are
designed exclusively for the financial and corporate marketplaces."
http://ati.amd.com/products/firemvseries/index.html

Finally, I found a very interesting 2D benchmark comparison between
these 2 cards and a $3699 priced Quadro FX 4500 X2 he
http://www.computerpoweruser.com/edi...01%2F07c01.asp


The Quadro FX 4500 X2 performed significantly better in all the 2D
(and 3D) tests.

Now I miss the final prove that I would not perceive this 2D speed
difference when I'm working with tens of standard Windows applications/
windows. For example every time I unlock Windows I currently have to
wait 10-15 seconds for all the windows and icons to be restored/
painted on the screen. My system has a Geforce 7300 card. I wonder if
the graphic card can positively influence this speed.



What the hell are you going on about? Every time you "unlock" Windows?
Are you posting via Babelfish?

If you are using a specialty application that requires a Quadro, you
should have half a clue more than you do. If you do not, you are wasting
everyone's time.

I say spend the $3699 and have the fastest 2d-windows unlocking
experience this side of DOS.


The OPs original posting mentions Vista. Perhaps the confusion is
over Aero compositing. If the machine was coming out of standby,
the video card doesn't have power when the computer is sleeping,
and the video card needs to be reloaded from the ground up. All those
composited windows would need to be loaded from system memory,
or even re-rendered. In my mind, that is not a "2D thing". Something
entirely different.

*******
For some "2D fun", try a benchmark like this old timer:

"WinTune 98 1.0.43"
http://comunitel.tucows.com/win2k/ad...681_30039.html

Leave just the "Video Test" selected and let it run three times.
These are my results, on a 9800Pro and a 3.1GHz P4.

Summary
RADEON 9800 PRO -
1280x1024@32bits/pixel
290±0.42(0.14%) Video MPixels/s

Video Details

AccOpt: Normal
Total video time (s): 3.6
Window open time (s): 0.0033
Text scroll time (s): 0.029
Line drawing time (s): 1.9
Filled objects time (s): 0.44
Pattern blit time (s): 0.0032
Text draw time (s): 0.5
DIB blit time (s): 0.78
Window close time (s): 0.017

Presented more for its comedy value than anything else. There was
a time when results like that mattered. It'd be interesting to see
what someone with a powerful system can manage for comparison.

I tried to find a later version of that benchmark, but haven't managed
to find a download.

Paul