Upgrade-is it worth it?

[jaycup]

My computer (Gateway) is now over three years old. I am considering upgrading the Graphics Card, currently Voodoo 3DFX 3000, with a Crucial Radeon 8500LE. I do not play games but I do a lot of Photographic and Graphic work. Would I see a benefit with such an upgrade or would I be wasting my money. This would be stage 1 of upgrading my System, next up I want a new CPU/Mobo combination. All views gratefully recieved.

[bigjackusa]

For working with 2D photos, a new graphics card will give you zero - minimal gain in performance. You would see the greatest performance boost by running Win2k or Winxp and upgrading your ram to 512mb. Photo files are often very large. When you manipulate them it helps if you have enough ram to: run Windows, run your photo app, hold the original file, and have amount left over that is equal to the origional file size for the modified file to occupy as it is created. If you don't have enough ram for all of this, Windows will be swapping data back and forth to the hd, slowing things down considerably. The video card hardly comes into play at all in the whole process.

[RDR]

for your Graphic work - the ATi card will probably give you better 2D IQ....but we may be spitting hairs here.

[bigjackusa]

I would think that any improvement that could be garnered from a new card could be gotten with a Matrox G400 ($18us @ computergeeks.com).

[jaycup]

Thanks for all the positive response, I obviously don't want to spend money needlessly. One thing I would like to know is, I have been trying to calibrate my Monitor using the Gamma Tool in Adobe Photoshop and I end up with a very light coloured XP Desktop and I think this is caused by my inability to increase the contrast on my Monitor (it is set on maximum). Is the Contrast Setting a function of the Monitor or of the Video Card. The answer to this will have a bearing on whether I should upgrade or not.