Graphics Cards

[floatingtrem]

Now I'm not exactly sure this is the best place to put this as it will be refering to more than than just editing within Avid, but it is my current top choice in editors so I'll stick it in here.

I've been looking into graphics cards lately, as my current one has had some problems and is on it's way out. I know Avid only officially supports the the Nvida Quadro line, but of course the program runs fine without one. I'm currently running it on my 9800pro and while, sure, render times could be faster, they aren't really getting to me.

Is there really any major benefit to running a workstation card versus a fast gaming card? I've tried to look it up but to very little avail. Most CAD cards are geared all towards OpenGL and 3D rendering, does video editing really take advantage of any of this?

What cards are you guys running and are any of you running into any problems with lesser cards and/or gaming cards?

 

[dasonras]

I am no expert on this topic, however i can give you by subjective opinion.

I have two computers. Both running Avid Xpress Pro. Computer 1 has a 256mb nVidia graphics card. Computer 2 has a 64mb intel integrated shared graphics card.

Both computers handle the editing in avid PERFECTLY! To me, there is not a single difference. The low end card doesn't skip a beat.

Now, i also have two mac notebooks. Mac Book Pro and Mac Book. The Pro has a high end graphics card and the macbook has only an integrated card. In FCP, they both work the same exact way with 2d editing projects. However, the macbook does have difficulty when working in programs like livetype, where much of the images are 3d and wireframe based.

So, for 2d editing and cutting, not sure if graphics card makes a whole bit of difference. I've had some pretty good results with low end cards.