Rich,
As Bob said, most any current card will meet your PS needs these days, but Matrox does have a very good reputation for image quality and their cards have generally catered more to the 2D graphics crowd. However, they are not as readily available. For online shopping, I too like NewEgg and even more so for that they collect and report customer reviews which can be helpful in lieu of direct technical advice. If you need personal assistance, I’d suggest going to a local store such as Comp USA or Best Buy if you’re in the US. Just don’t let their salespersons steer your toward a pricey card.
For PS use with little concern about 3D graphics or gaming, you can get a card that will easily meet your needs while remaining inexpensive. Probably the governing factor will be the kind of outputs you need, although the supported screen resolution and rrfresh rate should not be overlooked. The majority of cards currently are dual-head, either as DVI+VGA digital/analog outputs or dual DVI. Even if you get a dual DVI card, they usuall provide a DVI/VGA adapter so that you can still drive an analog VGA monitor if that’s what you have.
Assuming a PCI Express x 16 interface to be what your Dell uses, and ruling out Matrox since NewEgg doesn’t sell their cards, here are a few choices I’d suggest you consider, the last being the card I chose for my personal system I recently built.
PNY VCG66256XPB (nVidia) GeForce 6600 256MB 128-bit DDR @ $53 <
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168141331 54#spec>
SAPPHIRE 100119L (ATI) Radeon X550 256MB 128-bit DDR @ $54 <
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168141025 65>
XFX PVT73PUDJ3 GeForce 7600GS 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 @ $120 <
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168141501 70>
XFX PVT73GUGF3 GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 @ $148 <
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168141501 85>
I know nothing about the reputation of this online dealer, Logic Circle Systems, but here is a Matrox dual DVI output card that could be compared to either of the XFX cards and will support up to a 1920×1200 display:
Matrox P65-MDDE128 Millenium P650 PCIe 128MB DDR Dual400Mhz @ $228 <
http://www.logiccircle.com/xcart4016/product.php?productid=1 7133&cat=319&page=1>
While the XFX cards don’t show a large number of reviews, at least the reviews are very favorable, but the first 2 cards have 30+ reviews and a "5" (best) rating, so I think that speaks pretty well for them. I’ve used and had no complaint with PNY video cards, have heard good things of but never used Sapphire, and thus far have no complaints about my XFX card. The Matrox card strikes me as being overpriced unless its image quality is truly exceptional in comparison to the nVidia or ATI graphics.
Hope that helps,
Daryl
