I'm building another desktop. This is not a gaming system (though some video does cross my path), it's primary focus is as an application development platform. The thing is based on a SuperMicro two CPU motherboard with a couple intel multi-cores, 16GB RAM, a hardware RAID, and CentOS 5.6 (64bit). To this mix I would like to add a solid dual-head graphics card. Something that will support a couple HP LP2465 monitors (not new but functioning well). Speed of rendering is not my biggest concern, stability and "real estate" (the monitors are 1920x1200 and I want all of it).

I've looked a little at the Matrox items and started researching nVidia, but would like to hear opinions from those "in the know".

thx,

UPDATE: The motherboard, though a solid performer, may have just made this trip unnecessary. It has a quirk that I hadn't considered before. It has several PCI-X slots (64-bit @ 133MHz) but only one "PCI-Express 1 (x8) on a (x16) slot". Does that seem a little strange to anyone else? Not that there is just one PCI-E but that it will fit a x16 board but will only support x8 connections...

Whatever you do, don't go anywhere near the Matrox P series cards: they'll cause you nothing but grief.
See for example: http://forum.tuxx-home.at/viewforum.php?f=2&start=0

I bought one of these a number of years ago, just after they were released, based on the reputation of the old G series cards. Ohh well, live and learn.

Evo2.

---------- Post added 2011-06-14 at 17:20 ----------

Whatever you do, don't go anywhere near the Matrox P series cards: they'll cause you nothing but grief.
See for example: http://forum.tuxx-home.at/viewforum.php?f=2&start=0

I bought one of these a number of years ago, just after they were released, based on the reputation of the old G series cards. Ohh well, live and learn.

Evo2.

Matrox cards arent worth it anymore. The cheapest of the PCIe cards I can find is a matrox M9138, which is over $500 US. The 'P' series dont seem to be avaible here, or if they are there are so few stores with them that I've never seen one on sale. Its a pity matrox isnt a mainstream video card manufacturer anymore. They were never that fast, but had great image quality.

If you were after a matrox for image quality, ATI/AMD cards are generally considered to have a slightly better image quality than nVidia.

As for which cards.....really, that depends. I know you've said that you are not building a 'gaming' system. What games you do play might have an impact on the card you choose.

If its just older games, or not graphically intense games, even a low end card should handle them well.

Pretty much all cards are dual-head these days. You shouldnt have any major problems with 1920x1200 x 2 even with very 'low end' cards, but I'd probably go for something a little better than the lowest cards. These are the cards I'd be chooing between-

AMD- 5550, 5570, 5670, 6570, 6670, 6750.
nVidia- GT220, GT240, GT430, GT440.

You could spend more and get a 'gamers' card (GTS450+, 5770+). If you arent gaming, all those cards will do is eat a bit more power, and createa bit more heat in your case. It wont make any difference for desktop use.

Thank you for your advise. Just today I was told that a "ATI FireGL V7350" would do nicely, but I've not had any other feedback. What do you guys think?

Sorry, no. Bad idea. I wonder why somebody told you that?

FireGL V7350 is pretty much a ATI X1800XT. Support was dropped for the ATI cards made before the Radeon HD seires a few years ago now, so with newer distros the FireGL V7350 will only work with the open source drivers.

I had a quick look, just to see what [prices I could find for the FireGL V7350, and I was seeing $350+ US. Not that bad compared to the original price of over $1500, but still, its a lot to pay for a 5 year old card with no linux support....

BTW, ATI/AMD 'fire' cards, and nVidia 'quadro' cards are made for 'professional graphics workstations'. They are typically just standard radeon or geforce chips, the main difference is the drivers (though they are likely to be downclocked a little compared to the base radeon or geforce versions).

After a little more research, I think a "Diamond ATI Radeon HD5770 1GB dual DVI" card is close to the mark... Assuming that the driver issues have been fixed up.

personally i would recommend an Nvidia GeForce card, Nvidia seems to have the best support for Linux, at least in my experience, i have had much better luck getting all the fancy features out of an Nvidia card than ATI cards my dell laptop has an ATI card that isn't supported by their proprietary driver, hence the s-video out plug on the laptop is just decoration except in windows.

Alright, how about something like "EVGA GeForce GTX 460 2GB GDDR5 PCIe"? Though, I am now trying to track down something in the motherboard docs that concerns me a little. Tucked away in the MB specs was "PCI-Express 1 (x8) on a (x16) slot" which implies that though the card will fit physically it will not perform properly... If that proves true, then this whole operation is going to be put on hold until I can afford a decent motherboard. budget issues as always ;-)

That's true, but I doubt it would be a big issue unless you play a lot of 3D games.

Personally I prefer ATI because it has open-source 3D drivers. The performance isn't really great, but it still has 3D acceleration and (for me) it's better than having to mess with proprietary drivers.

GTX460, HD5770...both 'gamers' cards. From what you've said, I think you would be better off with one of the cards I listed above (AMD- 5550, 5570, 5670, 6570, 6670, 6750. nVidia- GT220, GT240, GT430, GT440.)

I'd go further than MTK358- x8 vs x16 will _only_ make a difference for games...and only in some places. Which board are you looking at?

With you listing a couple of intel multicores you would have to be looking at xeons (no multiCPU support for any 'desktop' CPUs past the old Pentium 3), decent hardware RAID is expensive, 16GB isnt exactly cheap. Thats a lot of money, and you are worried about PCIe x8 on a x16 slot? You'll have a lot of fun finding a supermicro board that does x16 as well.

If you want a gaming system, buy a gaming system. Dont try to make a server/workstation into a gaming system, its just going to cost you more, and the cheaper gaming system will win on framerates anyway.

You've probably been caught when ATI dropped support for all the pre-radeon HD cards. I'm pretty sure that you can get the svideo port working with some ATI cards with the open source drivers.

This is all great advise. You guys know this stuff far better than I. I'm an old school programmer --- Data munging for the most part. Suck it up, massage it a little, stuff it in a database, and generate reports. I am not building a gaming system! The closest thing to a game that I use on my system is kbounce. This is a computer for an engineer --- databases (mysql), data processing (hand written C, C++, and perl), and once in a while a web application (mostly to regurgitate information from the DB).

The system guts were originally in a rack mounted server, but have since been transplanted into a huge workstation case, redundant power supplies and all. Sure there are a couple quad-core Xeon CPUs, a ton of RAM, a 4TB RAID5, and CentOS 5.6. That stuff already works fine, however ... Dual high resolution monitors are going to make this howling beast the cat's whiskers. "Real estate" for email, other office functions, but mostly for creating and modifying code.

I'm not wedded to any particular brand or model just as long as the card supports two DVI connections and has stable driver support for linux. I would rather listen to the words of people experienced with graphics cards on linux systems than waste time (and money) trying something then having to replace it. I got caught up in one of those fiascoes years ago and not looking to repeat that mistake.

The more information the better. thanks again.

kbounce, LOL. Using desktop effects with KDE probably uses as much, if not more graphical power as kbounce does.

I havent used dual monitors much at all, and when I have its been a monitor + TV. Thats always been OK for me, apart from minor TV issues. Even with fairly old cards. From what I've heard from other people, posts online, etc. running 1920x1200x2 should be pretty easy even with the open source drivers for ATI/AMD and nVidia cards. The closed drivers have had support for dual monitors and resolutions pasrt 1920x1200x2 for years now.

To avoid things going wrong, get a card with dual DVI ports, not 1xDVI + 1xHDMI->DVI (via adapter), or dual-link DVI. Not that I've heard of any issues with dual-link and linux, just I've found that the more bits and adapters you have, the more chance of something going wrong.

Where are you going to get the card from? Its always better to asses your options, then make a decision, rather than deciding you want card XYZ-123-blah-blah then going looking for it. Its not that common to find 2 x DVI ports on the midrange cards like I was suggesting, but theres a few. BTW, great example of webistes sucking here-

http://www.evga.com/products/enlarge...P3-1431-KR&I=1

Thats the only way I could link you to the only GT430 I can think of that has 2xDVI. eVGA also do a GT440 wih thesame setup-

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInf...s%20Family&sw=

As for AMD/ATI, the only 6XXX cards I can think of that would fit are gigabyte, both 6750s-

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3862#sp

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3858#sp

I talked to a pre-sales tech twerp from eVGA who was quite dismissive of linux in general and particularly of non-gamers. I'll not buy one of theirs, thank you.

The Radeon 5770 seems interesting. Either a Gigabyte or a Diamond look pretty good. More likely the Diamond because the Gigabyte website is not working properly for me at the moment.

http://www.diamondmm.com/5770PE51G.php

(and they got a rebate deal goin' on at Fry's at least for today ;-))
http://www.frys.com/product/6074118

How do those idiots get that sort of job?

Pity, Frys actually have the GT440, and I'd take one of them for your use over a HD5770. The XFX 6670 would be the best of the AMD cards for your use, but I cant bring myself to say its the card you should get.....XFX is not a brand I like at all.

BTW, the reason why I would get the GT440 or HD6670 over the HD5770 is power consumption and heat. The GT440 is 65watts TDP, the 6670 is 66watts TDP, the 5770 is 108watts TDP.

Those power consumptions are only under full load, AFAIK, nothing you will get with a few desktop effects.
You can get an overview of power consumption for different cards here, if you are interested.