What to upgrade to from a Matrox Parhelia 256mb ?? (and sticking with CRT monitors)

I've recently upgraded to ArchiCAD 10 and Autodesk ViZ 2007, and my computer
is choking on complex models again. It's about time I got a new graphics
card as well as a new computer. The problem is that I have been using
Matrox cards for years and I don't know what to replace my ancient AGP
Parhelia with as Matrox don't have any powerful PCIe cards.

I am sticking to my Iiyama CRT monitors as large LCD screens of similar
picture quality would cost a fortune and they can't go up to the high
resolutions that these can.

The thing is that the Parhelia has particularly good colour and digital
analogue conversion, so I don't want to be disappointed with my new graphics
card. I am not sure a modern consumer GeForce or Radeon card will be the
same in this respect.

The card doesn't have to have extremely high frame rates obviously, but has
to have decent OpenGL performance. I also would prefer it to be silent, or
at least quiet. I have fitted a Zalman ZM80C-HP to slience the Parhelia.
Would I have to get something similar for the next card?

Software used:
ArchiCAD 10
Autodesk ViZ 2007 (essentially the same as 3ds max)
Sketchup (not sure if this uses OpenGL)
as well as Photoshop, Piranesi, etc

So I am thinking of:
a Radeon or Geforce card (really don't know how to make sure it has a good
DAC)
or a workstation quality card from eBay -
Quadro, 3Dlabs VP series, FireGL

Any suggestions? I don't want to spend much more than £200 ($370) including
quiet/silent cooling if needed. I'd like to spend less than that if
possible as I don't need loads of raw power.

ss.

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:23:43 +0100, "Synapse Syndrome"
<> wrote:

>
>I've recently upgraded to ArchiCAD 10 and Autodesk ViZ 2007, and my computer
>is choking on complex models again. It's about time I got a new graphics
>card as well as a new computer. The problem is that I have been using
>Matrox cards for years and I don't know what to replace my ancient AGP
>Parhelia with as Matrox don't have any powerful PCIe cards.
>
>I am sticking to my Iiyama CRT monitors as large LCD screens of similar
>picture quality would cost a fortune and they can't go up to the high
>resolutions that these can.
>
>The thing is that the Parhelia has particularly good colour and digital
>analogue conversion, so I don't want to be disappointed with my new graphics
>card. I am not sure a modern consumer GeForce or Radeon card will be the
>same in this respect.
>
>The card doesn't have to have extremely high frame rates obviously, but has
>to have decent OpenGL performance. I also would prefer it to be silent, or
>at least quiet. I have fitted a Zalman ZM80C-HP to slience the Parhelia.
>Would I have to get something similar for the next card?
>
>Software used:
>ArchiCAD 10
>Autodesk ViZ 2007 (essentially the same as 3ds max)
>Sketchup (not sure if this uses OpenGL)
>as well as Photoshop, Piranesi, etc
>
>So I am thinking of:
>a Radeon or Geforce card (really don't know how to make sure it has a good
>DAC)
>or a workstation quality card from eBay -
>Quadro, 3Dlabs VP series, FireGL
>
>Any suggestions? I don't want to spend much more than £200 ($370) including
>quiet/silent cooling if needed. I'd like to spend less than that if
>possible as I don't need loads of raw power.

If you don't get any answers here, you could try one of the CAD or AutoCAD
groups.

"Fid" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> If you don't get any answers here, you could try one of the CAD or AutoCAD
> groups.

Thanks, but I have. If you check the headers you'll see that I have asked
most of usenet.

ss.

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:23:39 +0100, "Synapse Syndrome"
<> wrote:

>
>"Fid" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>>
>> If you don't get any answers here, you could try one of the CAD or AutoCAD
>> groups.
>
>Thanks, but I have. If you check the headers you'll see that I have asked
>most of usenet.

Mea culpa. ;-)

Have you tried comp.cad.solidworks? A quick check with GrabIt shows that
group has almost 3 times the messages of the busiest autocad group.

Hi Synapse,

have you had a look on the graphisoft.com website to check out the
compatability tests for various cards?

It doesn't have every card - but it might be useful... here is the link:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/compatibility.php

Hope this helps,

Chris
=========================


"Synapse Syndrome" <> wrote in
news::

>
> 3Dlabs has left the market apparently, and doesn't have any PCIe cards
> in the VP range. So I have narrowed my choice down to the following
> cards:
>
> ATi FireGL V3400 128MB £173.79
> NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 £202.98
>
> The reviews that I have read show that the performance varies
> depending on the application due to the drivers, and some of the
> reviews seem contradictory. I don't know how noisy these cards are.
>
> I feel like tossing a coin to choose between ATi and Nvidea. Any
> thoughts?
>
> ss.
>
>
>