Video Card Ideas for My DAW?

[indytone]

Current Setup:

ATi Radeon 9700 Pro
WinXP Home
2 Gig RAM
Pent 4 2.8ghz
(2) M-Audio Delta 66 w/ Omni box
Tons of hard drive space
Viewsonic 171s Monitor with Digital and Analog Input

Cubase SX3
Reason 2

I have had my computer for eons it seems. I've had my M-Audio cards for even longer. That said, my video card has been giving me trouble over the past year and I'm finally fed up enough to where I want to replace it.

I currently have an ATi Radeon 9700 Pro that is many years old. The issue I have is that it loses sync with my monitor. For instance, I can be in the middle of working on something and then *poof* the monitor goes blank and shows a message (generated by the monitor) stating "analog 1: no signal".

This forces me to reboot and hope it doesn't happen again, which it does pretty randomly.

So, I'm wanting to chuck this dinosaur and get something to replace it. At the time I bought the ATi card I was playing a lot of games on my PC. Now we just use it for Photoshop, Recording, and Internet access.

Given the applications I intend to run and the fact that my monitor takes both analog and digital input, what are some options out there I should look into that won't be overkill or break the bank? I have heard to stay away from any cards that use a turbo cache as that borrows from the RAM, which can be an issue when recording.

[moody07747]

I got the Nvidia Gforce 860GT for $100 from newegg and like it, there are a few better products for a little more however for the price its a very nice card.

I play games such as Half-Live, Record with Cakewalk Sonar Producer 7, and do a lot of video editing. The card is running great even with Adobe Premiere CS3 however my 2.20GHz single core AMD processor is holding me back...

[jefesq]

If it's just for recording you don't need a gamer card. You might want one that has the possibility of upgrading to more than one monitor though.

I think I've got a Matrox something on mine upstairs.

Given what you've said, if your board is old, you might want to redo that first. New PS might help. Tiger Direct, CDW. Every couple of years I redo mine and recycle it to the wife for web surfing and othe in consequential stuff.

If it's just an every now and again thing, I'd go mid-level with something. Try the question on the Q base forum. Sonar's usually helps me with my stuff, since I have that.