recommendations for driving 2560x1600 dvi?

supercool

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Jan 4, 2006
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Anticipating the 3007wfp's: anybody have suggestions for video cards that can drive 2560x1600 DVI? Mostly for a movie-watching and coding workload (gaming not so much).
 
The ATi X1300, X1600, X1800 and nVidia GF7800 have at least one dual-link DVI that would support that resolution. Also ATi have a cheap AGP solution in the R9600Pro Mac/PC edition which has at least dual link TMDS DVI port. Also there will be AGP versions of the X1300 and X1600 in the near future.

I would say as long as you aren't interested in gaming with the latest titles, then the ATi X1300 for PCIe or R9600P M/P card for AGP would be your best choices.

For light to moderate gaming then the X1600Plain, Pro or XT (X850XTPE for AGP since they have one dual-link TMDS usually) Many X1600 cards have 2 dual-link TMDS thus being able to drive 2 of those panel, but check if you're interested in that because I'm not sure which ones do and don't or even if there is a set model (like Pro and above or something).

If you were into serious gaming, which you say you are not (so this is for other people's benifit) then the GF7800 and X1800 series cards would be best, with the X1800XL and X1800XT support the 2 dual-link DVI ports.

I would also say that the X1xxx cards would be best for the video watching and encoding;

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_catalyst_5.13_video_quality/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/aiw-x1800xl_14.html


Hope that helps.