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Best GPU for Graphics,non-gamer,Video editing?????

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by rivrbyte

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Hello,
I've been bouncing all over this forum trying to put together a new system and I'm sorry to see the same faces trying to help me,but I am not a savy,experienced rebuilder,but a redundant inquirer of this site,for all it's wisdom. I don't want to make huge mistakes on these issues of Mobo's, CPU's, and PSU's, and Coolers.

Then I noticed this string about 8600GT.....is this the GPU for 300.00? I noticed a XFX Geforce 8600GT for $160.00 on sale for $120.00 at a local electronis store...then I went online to a GEFORCE Site and saw a Fatality 8600GT for 300.00!! Probably the differene between the 256MB and 512MB card.

All this talk about the fastest GPU's. What's so confusing is I am NOT a gamer, but most of all the graphic crads like XFXGeforce8600GT and all of the other series of cards tout their card as being the blazingly fast GPU'S to date.

As someone like myself, who uses photoshop mostly everyday to edit my digital Photographs, and going to deal with Macromedia Flash,and video editing my old Camcorder tapes and possibly buying a new new Digital Firewire Video Camera, (or not) what would be the bestest GPU card for what I would need?

All I ever hear is solely about the extreme gaming speed and effects of the new cards, and not so much about the graphic importance...are they the same thing? I was told that the 2600GT was a low-end, the middle of the road budget card, so should I be looking at the 8000 series of cards?

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I was told on another forum....

"""For now I'd say that Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H is thebest board around, the only drawback is that the 16x PCI-slot is only 4x if you decide to get a video card later on. You should also have a look for the new G35-based motherboards since they have much better video performance"""

Then I thought...
Video performance? See what I mean? The board has a lot to do with the card too. I was also looking at the ABIT IP35-LGA775 Mobo,and people talk about overclocking...I am not going to do that, but I like all the features of this board..(like I know what I'm talking about)

For this rebuild...
Prematurely, I already pre-bought 4GB DDR2 PC6400/800 matched Corsair ram, but told that it's fine whether with the Q6600 or E6850 CPU.

I will probably use WinXP (heard alot of stability issues with VISTA,

Two 500GB Internal Hard Drives, primary partitioned 40GB for O.S. and Applications, remainder for temp files, documents, and 2) second 500GB HD for Video files and PSD's,JPG's,MP3's, and other stuff.

700w or 750w PSU Thermaltake or similar.

CPU - E6850 or Q6600 with a SCYTHE Ninja CPU cooler fan

I have a Viewsonic 22" Flat panel LCD.
I have a DSL Ethernet Modem,so I would need that on a board.

I have two older Roms, - 1) CD-RW/DVD-R Combo and 2) DVD-RW,DVD-RW About two years old...need I upgrade?

Then whatever the GPU would be. I don't think about crossfire or SLi duo cards in my future at all,but maybe..just maybe. whatever card I do get, maybe a few games wouldn't be out of the question,but I am not going to base the GPU on that.

Apps - NERO8,WINXP,CANON Digital Software, Adobe Photoshop,freehand,and Flash, Microsoft Office, Winamp Media Library, or better, etc. (Winamp is easier for me to drag Mp3?s for a quick listen)

I would like to get what I need to be prepared for VISTA if I would need more than 4GBG Ram, that XP can only handle 3.2GB, at present.

I have about $800.00 -$1100.00 budget to work with. (or whatevr works)

Any ideas? Thanks! oh...BTW..Happy Holiday!:

2 replies

by jaqui

actually tends to be done with the cpu instead of the gpu.

The gpu is only really used in display of graphics, not in rendering calculations, which is what editing a video is.

a fast gaming graphics card is helpful, since the heavy graphics display of any video editing is better with one.

a fast cpu, lots of ram and lots of hard drive [ last two you have covered ] are critically important for editing videos.

by hal 9000

Personally I would go with the New M'Board because you want a new computer not a 1 to 2 year old unit that you built today so get the newest available.

As for the Optical Drives they will work with this M'Board but the ABit only has the 1 IDE Channel on it so you'll need SATA Drives, also why duplicate the DVD Reader & CD Burner as this can all be done with the DVD RW?

You need to remember that with Video Editing you need [b]True Colour[/b] on the Monitor or all your output will be incorrect and not the correct colour so you'll need to tweak the Monitor to give the correct colour if possible. Many of the Graphic Artists that I support refuse to have the Thin Monitors as they insist that the colours are wrong and they are unable to do the work that they are paid to do. That may or may not be a issue to you but you should look at it regardless as the image on the screen may be different to what the finial output actually is.

Now as Jacqui has already said the Video GPU only sends a signal to the monitor to display the image it doesn't actually do anything in Video Editing but at the same time with any Complex Video Image the GPU needs to be fast so the bigger that the image actually is the faster the Video Cards GPU the better. You also need to remember that Video Signals require 2 things a GPU powerful enough to generate the required signal and enough Video RAM on the Card to supply the GPU with the required information so it's not constantly lagging waiting for the next string of Data.

Here you can tell what is best for your needs by what you currently have. If you are using a 8 Meg AGP Card a 128 Meg PCIe card will blow your socks away and while you may not need the ability to generate the signals of the current crop of Games the Video Editing Software will soon catch you and require as much Video Processing Power if they don't already have this need. So I would say buy as Big as Video Card as you can afford now, but remember that you always have the option to replace it latter if necessary.

About the only other thing is that most of the Grey Rinse set who do Video Editing for the Grand Kids use the Quad Core CPU's now as they are the Biggest/Fastest available but XP doesn't support the Quad Cores so if you where going to look at one of these you may find it better going with an Open Source OS and Software which doesn't do the Hogging of System Resources that the new versions of Windows does as well as to a certain extent the older XP version. If you are looking at a Dual Core CPU you need to also remember that you need XP Pro as that is the only one from M$ that supports the Dual Core CPU to 100% Capacity. The Home and Media Centre Editions do not support the Dual Core or Single Core with HTT.

Depending on what you are exporting your output to you may require a Firewire port/s to save time but as you haven't made any mention that may not be an issue to you.

Col

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