Coffee Freak
New Member
I have an older Dell Optiplex 330 machine as my design PC. I'm upgrading as much as I can to avoid having to buy a new machine. I already ordered 4 gigs of RAM (maxs it out) and am now looking into a new video card. I want to be able to run 3 monitors (I already have 3 - 17" monitors on hand, so I want to just connect them up as an extended desktop).
There is SO much information out there and most of it is in gamer GeekSpeak. Honestly, I'm a geek to a point, but this stuff is WAY over my head. I don't ever plan on gaming with this computer, so I don't need to over kill it. I just want something that will render graphics easily (Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks, etc) and handle multiple windows open with multiple programs.
ANyone with a hardware background give me some advice (that I can understand!)?
Looks like most of the video cards that handle 3 monitors are big gamer stuff that require over 450 watt power supply. Mine is 305 watt. I can upgrade it (I used to work as a PC Tech at Best Buy in the late 90's) if I need to, but I'd rather run what it has since it's MEGA quiet.
There is SO much information out there and most of it is in gamer GeekSpeak. Honestly, I'm a geek to a point, but this stuff is WAY over my head. I don't ever plan on gaming with this computer, so I don't need to over kill it. I just want something that will render graphics easily (Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks, etc) and handle multiple windows open with multiple programs.
ANyone with a hardware background give me some advice (that I can understand!)?
Looks like most of the video cards that handle 3 monitors are big gamer stuff that require over 450 watt power supply. Mine is 305 watt. I can upgrade it (I used to work as a PC Tech at Best Buy in the late 90's) if I need to, but I'd rather run what it has since it's MEGA quiet.