Hey, i just have a simple question,,, im buying a video card for my PC, but im not looking for a GAMING video card, im looking for a video card for 3D Animation, HD Video Editing, Large Scale Effects, More towards Adobe's After Effects.
What video Card do you recommend for my needs? Looking for x1 2GB or x2 1GB video cards, Hopefully from sites like tigerdirect or newegg... Thank you for your help...
PS: PCIexpress 2.0, :)
nathan2008-09-07T20:53:10Z
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My brother is a professional video editor (avid, after effects, etc) this is what he uses
pricey, but the programs screams. It's good value for money, saves a ton of time for the money.
You need to buy either Ati Firegl or Nvidia Quadro line of cards. Those lines are certified to run most professional programs well. Great documentation as well.
The below poster doesn't know what he's talking about. Here's a good thread.
Look at post 6. The quadro card has 5 TIMES the openGL performance of the 8800. Yes this cards cost alot, but you get what you pay for. Workstation cards are designed for 2d apps. They blow any gaming card out of the water in 2d performance. Workstation cards cost alot more, because the drivers are much better than gaming drivers. When your business depends on making sure every pixel is render 100% correctly, 100% of the time. It cost tons of money to get that level of quality out of the driver. No gamer is going to complain that the red pixel in 244x255 was off by 3 color point. People who use these cards for their business will compare. Quality comes at a huge cost. This amount of QA testing cost tons and tons of money. Also the drivers are certified to work 100% correctly with most major programs (maya, solidworks, avid, etc). No gaming card is certified (granutee) to work 100% correctly with any games. If the game doesn't work with the card, it's the game problem.. not the card manufacture. With a workstation card, if the program causes the card to crash.. it's the card's problem, and THEY will fix it. (i've had this experience with ATI, they rewrote part of their driver to work with cad 2008, specifically for my company!)
I will recommend highly NOT to buy a gaming card. Yes you are going to pay 3-4x what a gamer card cost. But you get 3-4x the quality. Quality you can be assured your card will work 100% correctly with the program 100% of the time.
For you, the ATI FireGL or NVidia Quadro would probably be better but they are hard to find. A good high end gaming card would also be good for what your looking for. ATIs new 4800 series are good, and the X2s are good for your 2 card situation, as are the 3800s. The NVidia 8800GT and the GTS 512 are also good if you are looking for an NVidia Card, as are the 9800s or the new 200 series.
A good gamin' card, will smack anything you just listed to the curb!! VIDEO GAMES! Matrox M9140 LP indeed! $600 BUCKS! Ok, it's time for a graphics card primer! What does 3D Animation, HD Video Editing, Large Scale Effects, and Adobe's After Effects, all have in common? What do games have in common with this? GRAPHICS RENDERING! Full scene anti aliasing, anisotropic filtering, vertices per second, pixel fill rate, etc. A graphics card's performance is measured by it's frame rates, pixel and vertex shaders, pixel fill rate, and the ability to get the graphics data out. (Stream Processors) Do you need a 1GB graphics ram, or a 2GB? Naa! It's overrated! Just a way to sell sum graphics cards! In the future? Sure! This amount will be needed. How far down the road? You won't need it for the above programs! Your processor is your bottleneck for now. How about I recommend a graphics card, that will SMOKE the above programs you listed? Want to run two monitors? Okay! Want to run two BIG monitors? Okay! How about a large screen HDTV for a monitor? Want to run FOUR large monitors? Better get two of these cards! lol! (Still cheaper, than that MATROX above!)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3507889&CatId=28 XFX GeForce 8800GTS Alpha Dog Edition,(Not to be confused with the old 8800GTS! This one has 128 Stream Processors. Run's way cooler than cards that compare to it, uses less power, and has plenty of headroom for overclocking!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUJYKnsgd4
I believe on using deductive reasoning based on intelligent conclusions, and not just run out, and buy the newest, most expensive stuff out there!