Video card and OS selection, which one?
by Sam Carleton
on
Nov 5, 2008 at 8:22:36 pm
I am just starting to get into video editing. I have Premiere Pro CS4 and I need to build a system which will have two purposes:
1: Software development, my main profession right now
2: Explorer the world of video editing.
Right now I am working in SD but I would like to move to HD by the end of next year. I like to purchase my hardware from a local wholesaler, Winotek (www.winotek.com). They have decent prices and when there are problems I can deal with local support.
I am going to go with the CORE 2 QC Q9550 2.86 and upgrade later, 4G RAM and 3 HDs. It is my understanding that Premiere Pro CS4 will leverage the hardware in some video cards, but I don’t what exactly to look for in hardware specs. What exactly am I looking for in a video card, from the tech prospective? Can someone point me to some Adobe documentation that talks about this?
Below are the list of choices I have from Winotek, do any of the more expensive cards have anything to offer video editing? When I start to get into HD editing, I would ideally like to move to something like the Matron RT.X2 or something. My objective right now is to keep the system’s price down around $1200 today, unless an investment of $50~$123 is going to make a real difference in editing SD video.
Also, I am currently using 32-bit XP and both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista right now on multiple other machines. I would like to put 64-bit Vista on this new machine, would this be a mistake for video editing? If so, should I go with 64-bit or 32-bit XP?
Re: Video card and OS selection, which one? by TC Perchert on Nov 6, 2008 at 6:38:54 pm
Your graphics card and video capture card will be two separate cards.
Myself, I have a preference for Nvidia versus ATI. And I like XFX, I have XFX graphics cards on a couple of PCs. I don't think I'd bother with the 9800 GT - it's really 512MB memory on board, and I don't think worth the extra cost.
The Matrox RT should be a good enough capture card for you, you could also look at AJA.
Did the link you supplied go to the defaults, or are those your selections that show up? It has a 400w power supply chosen. If you are planning on adding that much too the system, you will definitely want a minimum of 500w.
Also, editing video with internal drives causes a lot of heat. Load that puppy up with some good airflow. I couldn't tell how the airflow is in that case.
TC
Re: Video card and OS selection, which one? by Sam Carleton on Nov 6, 2008 at 6:57:16 pm
I would put in at least a 500 watt power supply. So I guess I read it wrong, I thought the Matrox RT was a video card, not video capture. So is there any particular hardware feature I should be looking for in a video card? Is it OpenGL or something else? Any ideas?
Re: Video card and OS selection, which one? by TC Perchert on Nov 11, 2008 at 6:20:29 pm
There are a million different things you can look at until your eyes bleed. Just stay away from the low-end beginner cards. I like the gamer cards because they are fast and loaded with memory, but you don't need to go crazy, unless you want something to aid with your programs, like Adobe, that can use the GPU (NVIDIA Quadro CX and FX are good examples). I also like to look at the memory bandwidth as an idea if it will drive video smoothly on screen.
TC
