Choosing Card for Image Quality

When I built my new system a few months ago, I spent more time choosing a graphics card than any other component.

The reason was that I wanted the best possible image quality for my system but couldn't care less about playing games. Everything I researched talked about things like frame rates and other criteria that seemed to be only related to games and not to producing the finest image quality on my 24" NEC monitor.

I eventually bought a GIGABYTE GV-RX387512H Radeon HD 3870 512MB. Generally, I'm happy with it except that when I display slide shows I see what I guess to be aliasing problems. Since I'm a neophyte in this regard, can someone explain to me what criteria is important for displaying movies and slideshows and for digital image editing with Photoshop?

My system consists of a GIGABYTE GA-X38-DQ6 motherboard, CORSAIR 620W power supply, Intel Q6600 processor running at 3.0 GHz, 4GB of CORSAIR XMS2 DDR2 800 (PC6400) memory, NEC Display Solutions LCD2470WNX-BK 24" 6ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor 500 cd/m2 1000:1 and other top quality parts.

The OS is 32-bit Vista Ultimate.

yeah, bad idea. The slide show program doesnt use AA, thats why. Same thing with itunes coverflow, its not 3870 fault. u dont game but u bought that card, i dont understand why. i have 8800gt on 2053bw @36% brightness, 75% contrast and it looks amazing, try looking at nation geographics website, its full of amazing images around the world that will show your monitors ability to show accurate colors.

Okay, that program does not utilize anti-aliasing okay? Movies don't need AA because they are films, not generated images. Your problem really isn't a problem, but a annoyance. It would be resolved if the software developer adds anti-aliasing functions which all video cards support. Try a different slide show program. Who the heck cares about image quality anyways, any modern GPU will have identical image quality. It's all in the monitor.

Actually, the problem is not so much the equality of the GPU, which by the way is not a given, but also the supporting circuitry such as the 2D filter stages, etc. Although the nVidia based cards have improved significantly over the last few years, their filter design was atrocious. The best quality cards for photo editing and text work used to be the Matrox cards, although some of the ATI cards were close. Things have evolved over the last few years, and the LCD monitors with digital input tend to mask a lot of the differences due to the sub optimal quality of most of them. A good quality display such as the Samsung 245T or 275T will make a difference, however you may see some lag or blurring on the large monitors, a function of the large number of pixels vs the rise and fall rate (GTG).

The Samsung 245T and your NEC LCD2490WUXi are actually quite different.

The 245T uses a S-PVA panel, the 2490 uses a H-IPS panel.

H-IPS has a wider vieiwing angle than the typical S-PVA. S-PVA tends to wash out (fade to white) sooner than a H-IPS panel starts to shift to a reddish / purplish hue. Additionally all variations of VA panels tends to experience more "crushed blacks" than the higher end IPS panels.

I'm not sure how to explain it but during transitions from one slide to the next, a pattern which I guess could be called a moire pattern shows up. I suppose it's aliasing artifacts. It's possible that the problem occurs when I create the slide show. BTW, this problem also shows up when using a DVD player to watch slides on a 36" Sony TV.

Someone earlier asked why I bought a 3870 and it was because I'd read more than one feedback that said what you have said, nVidia cards were optimized for gaming.

I have checked my monitor and it appears to be fine.

Bud