I am about to buy a new motherboard/cpu, this particular one:

MachSpeed MSNV-939 Motherboard CPU Bundle - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Processor 2.0GHz OEM

link: MachSpeed MSNV-939 Motherboard CPU Bundle - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Processor 2.0GHz OEM at TigerDirect.com

I know next to nothing about video cards, but it seems this MoBo doesnt have a video/monitor output so a video card is going to have to be bought for it. - This actually is no big deal for me, as I am planning to get a dual monitor video card, so I canm ustilize two monitors on my pc.

My main question is, how important is the amount of MEGS and Bitrate? I wont be using this PC for gaming or anything requiring hefty graphics, the PC is dedicated to music (recording, production, mastering, etc). Will a higher amount of MEGS be worth the extra money for this scenario? i.e. give me more CPU towards the music appliccations?

If so what would be a reccomended standard to get by? 64megs> 128megs???

I am hoping to find something no more than 50$ to work smoothly, if this is possible, any help would be great.

Second question is, would I simply be able to use two video cards for two monitors, which would allow me and my budget to at least have one working monitor and eventually upgrade to a second card for the second monitor when I have the cash? or am I better off with just one dual monitor video card???

I am plannng to order my motherboard this weekend, and will be going crazy having it set up without a video card istalled so I can use it, so I would really like to get the needed infor for this and order it all this weekend. Thanks.

*edit: I was also wondering if getting a video card that simply has a DVI port as well and using an adapter to a second CRT monitor would have any pros or cons with price and performance?

Hi Scorpios,

If your not gaming, then high spec video card really isn't important, and anything over 128mb would keep me happy if I was in your shoes.

For $50, you could have a NVidia GeForce 6200 (poss a 6600) or ATI 9250. All of these cards will have dual VGA outputs to use on two screens. These will provide you with high resolution, high colour quality, movies and even enough for minimum 3D gaming if you decided to.

Madmonkey, thanks I checked out both videocards, though they all seem to have one VGA and one DVI output... will this work the same as two VGA outputs if I use a DVI - VGA adapter?

Also, the motherboard I just ordered has a PCI express slot, so I am wondering if a PCI express video card would be better to use than standard PCI?

I had my eye on this one that is PCI express, opinions welcomed:
Visiontek Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory 128MB DDR Supporting 256MB with HyperMemory PCI Express DVI VGA TV Out Low Profile Video Card VTK X300256PCIE at TigerDirect.com

my motherboard has 4 pci slots, and so far only one that will be used for my soundcard, so having the extra PCI slots is no problem, I do recall reading that using more PCI hardware can cause sound problems with my sound card and music/recording applications.

yes. PCIe 16 is like 100x faster than standard PCI. i would reccomend a Geforce 7300GT, or a 7600GS or GT. and you heard right, all of the PCI slots are on a single channel, and all have access to only 133MB/s of bandwith that are shared between all the slots. the PCIe slot is much faster and is on its own channel connected direcly to the northbridge

AW_3_3 Thanks, I am looking through tiger direct, the 7600 is a bit over my price range, and they only have a 7200GS or a 7300 LE will one of these still work for my motherboard?

Also, would like to be certain I can still hook up two CRT monitors to these video cards.

Thanks

Much prefer Geforce to Radeon Scorpios, better in terms of quality. Those cards will work as long as they are PCI-Express as opposed to AGP. And finally, yes these graphics cards will support two monitors. Most (such as ASUS) even come with a DVI - VGA adaptor.