Need Video Card Recommendation for Vegas Pro

elvindeath wrote on 6/18/2011, 12:05 PM

I've got a relatively new i7 860@2.80 system with 8 GB running Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

The machine came with an ATI Radeo HD 5700 Series card (VX2739). At the time, I only had one monitor, but now I've added a 27" LED HDTV on the wall next to my computer setup, and I'd like to be able to (a) play BluRays on my CPU and output them to the monitor and (b) work on my home movie Vegas projects using the TV as a second monitor and/or output to test video.

Anyone have any good recommendations for a video card that will add the capacity to add another display (using HDMI) that would give me noticeably better performance ? An added bonus would be something with capture capabilities built in so I could run my cable box through it and grab some video from time to time.

I'd like to keep it under $300 if at all possible, and I'd probably prefer something I can get at Best Buy, since I've got about $150 in Reward Zone cash that I need to use.

Thanks for any advice.

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 6/18/2011, 8:41 PM

Vegas doesn't care, but at some point you will be wanting to run something from Adobe, like Aftereffects, or one of the many Vegas plug-ins coming online, such as BCC7. Those programs like the CUDA processors, and Nvidia is the most often recommended. Personally, I avoid ATI because because historically, I have had problems with their drivers.

Stringer wrote on 6/19/2011, 5:44 PM

I would recommend a GTX 460 ( Nvidia ) There are many available for less than $200..
I see best Buy has several ..

I'm not aware of any newer, mainstream video cards that have built in capture capability, but there are plenty of decent capture/TV tuner cards available for less than $100 ..

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/19/2011, 6:16 PM

I have a Radeon HD 3850 (3 years old I think). It comes with duel DVI, S-Vid out, a DVI to VGA converter & a DVI to HDMI converter.

The ONLY time I've had issues with ATI drivers was back with Vegas 3LE. ATI released a bad driver that messed up everything. I just reinstalled the prior month's driver & it was all good.

For capture I just read about about this in GameInformer: here.

It's a component to USB2 converter. The only other thing I'd recommend is an old DV camera with AV inputs, then you could use it as a Analog to DV converter to put stuff on your PC.

Unless you're wanting HD, that gets more $$ & fancier (from the sounds of it you want to capture, not tune in stations).

Stereodesign wrote on 6/20/2011, 12:25 AM

nVidia Quadro 600 here. No problems whatsoever.
I prefer nVidia over ATI, because like the post above I've had problems with ATI drivers in the past.

John_Cline wrote on 6/20/2011, 3:40 AM

I have had no problems whatsoever with dozens of nVidia cards in a variety of computers, I have had nothing BUT trouble with every ATI card I have ever had. I am convinced that ATI simply doesn't know how to write a bug-free driver.

Chienworks wrote on 6/20/2011, 5:38 AM

Been a steadfast ATI user for longer than i can remember. Never had any problems with their drivers ever. The secret to a bug-free ATI experience is to take the CD that comes with the video card and break it in half and toss it in the trash BEFORE installing the card. Then just let Windows discover the card and install it's own ATI driver instead.

Perfection.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/20/2011, 6:32 AM

The most important thing to remember is that when you have a working system, DO NOT UPDATE DRIVERS CONSTANTLY! If it ain't broke, DO NOT fix it. New drivers can remove previous features (Nvidia did this years ago, removed all DX support prior to 9, even on old cards, via the driver. Broke LOTS of stuff!), can create new problems (all GPU companies have this happen all the time), etc. I went ~1+ years w/o updating my GPU drivers and had no problems with anything related to my GPU.

Another big issue: installing a new GPU w/o uninstalling the old drivers first. It also seems best that when you do anything besides a drive or expansion card change (with an exception) to just reinstall Windows. New CPU's, MB's, etc. can need drivers Windows doesn't have, causing new problems.

The exception to the expansion card rule is vid cards. If you switch designers (IE Nvidia, ATI/AMD, Matrox, etc.) I've found the only way to avoid conflicts is to.... reinstall windows. Anything else leaves old drivers behind & lots of problems. Yeah, it may work if you don't but then you get the "Company X is nothing but problems, their drivers/hardware sucks!" like above.

I'm not commenting on Nvidia because I've only used one, thought the video control panel was a mess in layout & features (features not supported were listed, wasn't as easy to do multimonitor as my ATI), and that was YEARS ago (maybe 9 or 10 now). So I can't comment on the modern ones. I can say that just like disabling ATI's AI you should disable Nvidia's duel core optimizations, both cause problems with seemingly everything. I wouldn't trust the word of someone who doesn't have that piece of hardware now or hasn't in the past couple years.

EDIT: the ones complaining about ATI don't have consumer Nvidia cards, they have the workstation (Quadro) cards. The ones they have are WAY out of your price range, in the ~$400+ range. I'd look for more people with experience with the gamer-grade Nvidia GPU's like Stringer. Those are in your price range & the workstation cards generally have different features & drivers.