video card recommendation....

[ontoy]

i'm looking for a new video card for my system. just wondering if you guys out there could recommend me some video cards. Price range up to $0 - $130. this is gonna be for video editting, since i'm not a gamer. just want to know if clock or core speed of the card is important in video editting. right now i'm looking at the ati 9600pro or the fx5600 both have a 128mg or ram.

[Panama Red]

I'd recommend a stretch of $16 and get this 9600XT from Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-326&depa=0

[Richolmes72]

From what I've seen, The Video card doesn't really make a huge difference in video editing....

Obviously if you were going to capture analog video then you'd need a video card with VIVO or a dedicated capture card but i'm guessing you've got that or will be using firewire.

Nearly all Graphics card have TV-Out so you can edit on 2 screens and can run at high resolutions giving you plenty of screen space for editing. Save yourself some money on the graphics card and spend it on areas where you would notice it more in Video Editing, like more Ram, faster proccesor... etc.

I saw no noticeable improvement in video editing when i uprgraded from my Geforce 4 mx440 (slower than what you are considering) to a Geforce FX5900XT (faster than what you are considering)

Not sure what you have already but i'd recommend something like a Radeon 9200 or 9550 128mb. Anything above that is only going to show increased performance in games really.

[kram 2.0]

Very nice catch Richolmes...I'd have to agree. I don't think the video editing part would require such 3D graphics that's found in gamer's VPUs such as the 9600 XT or 9600 Pro. You would want to looks for VIVO or All in Wonder functions though. I'd recommend the ATI All-in-wonder Radeon 9000 Pro for exactly 130 USD in place of the 9600 XT. Right now, Newegg's doing a one day sale on the AIW Radeon 9600, but that's 168 USD...a bit of a stretch.


Hope that helps,
kram

[Panama Red]

Thanx guys, every day is an education here at PCM.

[Hi Ho]

If you add a lot of effects and fancy transitions then the video card will make a difference while editing. I used to have a GeForce 2 MX in this machine and when I added a couple 3D effects and tried to watch it before rendering it was very slow and jerky.

[ontoy]

right now i have the aiw 8500dv which is broken. i've return this card twice now for warranty service and ati replaced it with a new one each time. but the problem still exist. it kind of hard to explain, the video would just show a block of vertical lines of color. i did everything i could by updating to the latest drivers in ati.com. it was working fine for about 4 months since it was replaced with a new card. it started to fail when ever i was doing some video editting stuff on my pc. then from there pc would just start-up and show some kind of error saying please reset your screen resolution to 1280x768 @60h which it is. and once the windows fully start-up it would just show those vertical lines automatically after about 5min. so now i'm just in the market to buying a regular card, cuz i don't wanna spend another $200 something for aiw card.

pc specs:
gigabyte 7vaxp
2 120gig hard drive
512 pc3200 corsair
2100xp amd athlon
ati aiw 8500dv

[Hi Ho]

What is the brand and wattage of the power supply? Going through several video cards is a sign of bad power. I used to have a cheap PowMax power supply and I went through two video cards in 5 months before replacing it with an Enlight. I haven't had a problem since.

[ontoy]

it's probably an enermax 350w power supply since the case is an enermax. i haven't upgraded it, it's the same stock power supply that came with the case. hi-ho, what kind of problem were you getting with your video card. so are you saying that my video card is not getting sufficient power.....

[Hi Ho]

I'm can't be sure but the first card I got started getting bad artifacts to the point that it looked like THIS. The second one simply died after three months. The good folks at Newegg still let me send it back luckily. Yours may not be getting enough power or it could be getting dirty or unstable power. In my case the voltages on my power supply were way off a fluctuated like crazy. Sadly most Enermax cases do not come with Enermax PSU's. You may want to check that. Many of them come with PowerUP PSU's which are bad news. I don't know the reason for this and I think it is a deceptive practice. If the one in your case is indeed a PowerUp you will want to replace it. The Enlight 360w would be a good replacement for it's low cost and high quality.

[ontoy]

HI HO,
damn man, you was right....i looked inside my computer this morning and guess what, it's a power-up psu. i'm gonna have to buy a new psu before buying a new video card, see if that will eliminate my problem. so how did you know that your psu was fluctuating. did you measure it's voltage with a meter or something.

[Hi Ho]

I looked in the BIOS and also in the monitoring program that came with the motherboard, Asus Probe.