Video Card Suggestions

[Bill Schoaf]

Time to replace my 128 DDR ATI Radeon 9700 w TV/out on my Dell 3.05 GHZ p4, 2 GB RAM, 500 GB. It served its purpose but can't quite hang anymore.

Use Avid Xpress Pro HD, Premiere 2.0, and Adobe After Effects 7.0 on this machine mostly.

I know there are some really unreal cards out there but looking to stay +/- $500 or so. Suggestions?

Thanks!

[Lawrence Spurgeon]

Not shure how video constrained you are. 7600GT is a nice discount ($200) card. I'd consider going from 2 to 4 fgigs of RAM or replace the processor with a dual core one.

[Bill Schoaf]

Thanks Lawrence, it's an older machine (3.5 years) but still is pretty good when editing on the PC. We'll save the dual core workload for the Mac. But I do need a new card 100%.

[Tim Goldman]

3.5 yrs old, sounds like your stuck with agp then, if this is the case your options might be limited. Is it agp or pci-e, thats really the first question.

[George Ellis]

It would be AGP from the age. There are some nVidia vendors shipping 7x00 series cards in AGP. And considering the suites, nVidia is preferred over ATI.

[John Hartney]

You can pick up a good deal on a G6800 card for AGP with 256 megs... it is a bit long in the tooth, but will enhance your system well.

I just built my last p4 machine. The future is dual core and express bus, no doubt, but until you're ready to go there, you'll realize a bump up. It also has d-sub, dvi, and svideo out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16814121216R

The link above is to and open box asus with 512 megs of ram for a bit over $150... it takes a 4x-8x speed bus... if yours is older still take a look at newegg, they have the 6800 in a slower bus speed as well. You may even consider a 6600 card..... I referanced a system above put together to edit photos in photoshop, I went with a FX5500 card with 256 megs of ram for $39... For still work, it is fine and we now have a dedicated station for working on still and graphic overlays, it also has a filmscanner and photo printer on it.... I put in a p42.8 northwood from ebay I picked up for $80.00, in an intel 865 board with 2gigs of 3200ram/800mhz fsb. Like I said, it is older technology, but fine for our purpose and the components are very low in price, considering our return.


Good Luck!

[Bill Schoaf]

Originally Posted by Tim Goldman

3.5 yrs old, sounds like your stuck with agp then, if this is the case your options might be limited. Is it agp or pci-e, thats really the first question.

My Dell 8250 is AGP - "The 8250 has 4X AGP and an ATI RADEON 9700 Pro 128MB video card"

John, I looked at the 6800 - 256mb as I have it on my laptop. It's not bad. I understand my options are limited on the Dell 8250 with the 4x AGP slot, but was looking for something with a bit better performance. If I run out of options, the link you provided will have to be it.

[Tim Goldman]

well, the 7800 gs is the end of the line for agp, it's about as good as they get..well it's the top of the line for nvidia. your 4x shouldn't have much effect as an agp card will defaut to 4 or 8 so that no biggie. heres a review
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/...aint_dead_yet/

asides from that i'm sure ati has something sorta the same, i just don't know it, i haven;t gotten into ati cards, I use a 6600 which works fine, but if your trying to make a last ditch save on a agp, weell take a look at the 7800 gs


newegg has them fairly cheap
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
so i think thats it for ya

[John Hartney]

With a 4x agp slot, I don't know how much of a performance gain you'll realize with a 7xxx card... at some point, you're throwing good money after bad... or bad money after good... or money away or something.

[Bill Schoaf]

Originally Posted by John Hartney

With a 4x agp slot, I don't know how much of a performance gain you'll realize with a 7xxx card... at some point, you're throwing good money after bad... or bad money after good... or money away or something.

Anyone looking for a solid Dell 8250 ;)

Well if the 7800 isn't going to prove that much better than the 6800 then the 6800 is the way to go and save the $$$. It's more of a backup machine anyway but still very usuable.

Now I guess the million dollar questions is, spend $300 on the nVidia 7800 or $150 on the nVidia 6800. In other words, difference in performance I will see on THIS machine vs. the extra $150.00.

[Tim Goldman]

well, there will be a difference, just cause the card runs faster, but if it's just for back up i'd seriously think about it. Is a top of the line graphics card that important, what will you be doing with it? Is this your doom 3 machine (other words is it for gameing). By now most cards handle 2-d about the same, so if it's just your email and word machine then there might not be a need for a 7800.

I fun a 6600 on agp 8x. So far it's fine, I don't have any complaints, just tryng to hold out till next year when I'll get a new dual or quad core machine.

[Tim Goldman]

just happened to find this handy link. It lets you do this
"This page is updated on a regular basis and provides a unique resource for everybody who is looking for a graphics card. Our new service is free and allows for interactive performance comparison, real-time price/performance."

so check it out!

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

[Bill Schoaf]

Originally Posted by Tim Goldman

just happened to find this handy link. It lets you do this
"This page is updated on a regular basis and provides a unique resource for everybody who is looking for a graphics card. Our new service is free and allows for interactive performance comparison, real-time price/performance."

so check it out!

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

Thanks Tim, I appreciate it. Nice link for gaming purposes and gives a nice comparision.

This machine does nothing but Avid Xpress Pro HD, Premiere 2.0, and Adobe After Effects 7.0 and thats it. All I ever used it for really. No gaming.

The 7800 AGP didn't prove to be that much of a difference in most of the comparisons I ran but who really knows. Still don't think it's worth the extra $150 for the AGP on my Dell...unless of course I can get my work to pay for for the 7800. Now there's an idea :)

Leaning towards the 6800 AGP and thanks to all.

[John Hartney]

Bill, we're in a similar situation in a way... I'm looking to upgrade soon, too. My editing box runs the Adobe pro production suite, vegas 5, sound forge, acid. The P4 3.0 northwood with 2 gigs of ram is aged almost to the point of being unacceptable. But, my primary work is not video editing and the clients we do edit for, are still working with DV25, but that certainly will change in the future.

So, my next investment won't be to shore up this editing system, it will be reassigned, maybe to dedicated audio. And the video work will go to a new system built on dual core cpu with 7xxx 512meg video card, a board with express bus with plenty of sata ports and raid 5 ability. I'll put that in a server case so the drives can be hot swapped from the front if needed. Decisions are mostly profit driven. When the work flow leans to hd we'll go.

I also have a 17"laptop with a 6800 card and for field work with DV25 it works. But the only thing constant is change..

[Bill Schoaf]

Originally Posted by John Hartney

Bill, we're in a similar situation in a way... I'm looking to upgrade soon, too. My editing box runs the Adobe pro production suite, vegas 5, sound forge, acid. The P4 3.0 northwood with 2 gigs of ram is aged almost to the point of being unacceptable. But, my primary work is not video editing and the clients we do edit for, are still working with DV25, but that certainly will change in the future.

So, my next investment won't be to shore up this editing system, it will be reassigned, maybe to dedicated audio. And the video work will go to a new system built on dual core cpu with 7xxx 512meg video card, a board with express bus with plenty of sata ports and raid 5 ability. I'll put that in a server case so the drives can be hot swapped from the front if needed. Decisions are mostly profit driven. When the work flow leans to hd we'll go.

I also have a 17"laptop with a 6800 card and for field work with DV25 it works. But the only thing constant is change..

Funny John, we are in a similar situation. That's why I'm going with the 6800 for now. At most for 4-6 months until I deciced to put together a wicked system, where of course I will come here for suggestions and instead of getting a turnkey system, I'll be foolish and build it myself. Somethng lights out for editing.

This machine has served its purpose these past few years and will make someone a decent gaming machine or work desktop very soon. Plus everyday I work with these Western Digital HD's, I hold my breath. Hate em. Lost 2 already in the past.