What would be a good cheap graphics card to power a new 24" LCD as it's native resolution (widescreen)? I have an old matrox from the stone ages (dual head card) that I know won't power it. Also could I power both a 24" and a 19" lcd off of this new graphics card? -Guru
If you have an "old Matrox", then is it correct to presume you have an AGP mobo? That being the case, you could use an Nvidia Quadro NVS 280 AGP card you could pick up on eBay used for $20-ish. You'll have to run in VGA though, as its max DVI res is 1600x1200. If you want to run DVI at native res in a 24" (1920x1200), you'll probably need a new computer with a PCIEx16 slot.
I had been using a old Matrox G450 64MB PCI card for the past 2 years to run a Dell 24" at 1900x1200 (which is the native resolution) and a Viewsonic 20" at 1600x1200 at the same time..so depending on which Matrox you have...it might be able to run a 24" fine. Just upgraded to a ATI Diamond Stealth 512MB x1550 which works just as well and will be able to run a 30inch (dual link) whenever I feel like upgrading. Don't expect to be able to run any new games with the x1550...but it runs relatively cool and works great in Vista.