Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/13/2008, 4:19 AM
1 - Yep.
2 - Only if you have Vista 64 or possibly XP 64
3 - Way way way more than plenty. A 10 year old 8MB or 16MB card is more than enough to run Vegas on dual monitors.
Eugenia wrote on 9/13/2008, 9:32 AM
1. Yes.
2. Only if you use a 64bit OS. Otherwise, 3 GB is the logical max.
3. Any modern card is, in terms of VRAM. However, the GeForce cards have much more bandwidth than Radeon cards, and so video playback ends up being a bit faster. Radeons are better if you want to *rotate* the resolution of a monitor: ATi keeps the acceleration fully, while GeForce becomes really slow. But if you just want to use normal monitors, not rotated, a full bandwidth GeForce will give you a few extra fps in playback.
4. Get two hard drives. Vegas is faster when its temp and storage drives are different. The temp drive C:\ doesn't have to be too big, but the second one, that will be used for storage should be 500 GB or more.
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 9/13/2008, 9:51 AM
Right now, my first choice is a Dell Inspiron 530 (Q6600, 3GB ram, 2x 500GB hd, ati 3650 gpu (256mb), for 800 euro (22 inch screen included)
Cnet advises the Dell XPS 630, which is a gaming computer with two Geforce 9800 cards in SLI. It costs at least 600 euro more, without screen. For that price, you can buy an PS3 AND an Xbox360.
Is it true that the ati 3650 card is better at handling HD video than the Geforce?
Eugenia wrote on 9/13/2008, 10:09 AM
You don't need SLI. You just need the best bandwidth card. Both GeForce and ATi offer "HD extension" APIs that make HD video playback faster, but this is only true for TWO or THREE applications in the world that USE that API. Vegas and any other editor, or even VLC and WMP, don't. In other words, that "HD extension" marketing crap that both companies offer, are useless in the real world, because no one uses them. Because of that, you only need a graphics card that's full bandwidth, in other words, sheer hardware speed rather than special driver and API extensions.

Anyways, go with the 530, but do select a Geforce if you are given the choice. Also, don't forget that Magic Bullet Editors 2.1 that you have around, only gets accelerated with Geforce cards, not with ATis. ;-)
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 9/13/2008, 10:41 AM
For the moment, the 530 series only allows ATI 3450 or 3650 cards, no Geforce. Medion has a nice configuration right now, but I have a really bad experience with Medion support here in Europe, so I guess I 'll stay away from that brand now...
Eugenia wrote on 9/13/2008, 7:53 PM
Get the 3650, it's a fast card, and it has an HDMI-out from what I see on the DELL's site.