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My friend is studying engineering and looking to upgrade his year old HP desktop by adding a graphics card. Ive been looking into some workstation cards in the 100-150 range (his price), but I'm not familiar with the cards. He has 2 PCI-E X1 slots and 1 PCI-E X16 but Im not sure how to tell if its 2.0 or not, any tips?

I was looking at these http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 02.0%20x16

but none of them seem to support windows 7, and again Im not sure if he has a pci-e 2.0 or not.

Finally, hes been talking for a while about going from 2 to 3 monitors, would these cards be able to do that? Would it make more sense just to get a gaming card of equal price? He runs solidworks so a workstation card seems most ideal, but maybe something else would work better.


Thanks

it might be beneficial to take a look at craigslist or ebay to see whats lurking around that price range, you might find a nice upgrade, who knows?
thx v4800(based off the hd56xx cards) is by far the best card in the bunch, close enough to equivalent to your 8800gts, everything else is much slower, especially the nvidia.
the cards should all support windows 7, the drivers base what cards can or cant support it anyways, and pcie 16x is all thats required, even if its the older 1.0 spec its fast enough.
plus the gig of ram depending on the program is likely a nice thing to have.

Blazex, thanks for the response.

So, it turns out I mis understood which programs he uses. When he has to use intensive programs like solidworks he just goes to the better equipped computer lab. The most intensive thing he does on his home desktop is Autodesk Civil 3d, and while he would benefit from a workstation card the program really isnt intensive enough to justify spending the money when he could get something that would be sufficient for much less. As such Ive settled on this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102882
Its cheap, and it has eyefinity for 3 monitor functionality. I'm waiting to hear back on his decision.

Thanks!

i like how you list "tacky case | 3 fans" that's awesome....

ilcmuchas wrote:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102882
Its cheap, and it has eyefinity for 3 monitor functionality. I'm waiting to hear back on his decision.

Thanks!

I don't see that card listed as supporting eyefinity. Before you decide on a card you need to see how each of the monitors hooks up. If they are anything but Displayport you are going to need some sort of adapter I believe as the third display is supported only via DP. Depending on the resolution of the monitors as well but I don't see you spending less than $100 on a video card and get any decent performance when running 3 displays. My 5770 would lag with web video with three displays running.

Yeah, Sapphire's product page for that card doesn't list Eyefinity as a supported feature either...