Looking for a good, but not too expensive video card.

[Digigenic]

I'm aware that this is geared more towards 3D software, but I figured you all would know about good video/graphics cards...
So I'm posting here first.

I'm building a new PC [on a budget] and I'm looking for a good Nvidia PCI video card. I intend to edit some HD/HDV material, and some 3D animation.
As suggested by a store salesperson, I've been looking at this one: here. [ASUS EN7600GS SILENT/HTD/512M GeForce 7600GS 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card]
Of course, there are other variations of this card, this was one example.
Any other thoughts, suggestions?
Thank you.

 

[Digigenic]

I've had some more time to ask around elsewhere, and it appears that I have no other choice but to go with a quaddro.
Anybody here who can attest to the performance of this unit?
Thank you.

 

[Anhar_Miah]

If you thinking of editing HDV and or 3d, in genral having a powerful graphics card does not boost over all performance, things like the speed of your CPU, cache size, memory, etc are far more important than the graphics card.

And if you can get as MANY cores as possible.

Good luck, and check out Toms Hardware website, its should have benchmarks for you.

 

[TowerFan]

I'm currently using two EVGA Gforce 7600 GT cards set up in non-SLI mode. Works a treat. I have one card driving my main display, and the other card driving my secondary display and a NTSC TV via S-Video. The TV is to inspect output meant for an NTSC destination (DVD and broadcast).

I use this config with Adobe Production Studio Pro, Avid Xpress Pro HD (with some minor difficulty), and Lightwave 3D v9.

Anhar is correct that the video card performance has less effect on 3D apps and video editing than the CPU, Memory, HDD speed, etc.

Why are you forced to use a Quaddro?

 

[Digigenic]

Thanks for both of your responses, greatly appreciated.

If you thinking of editing HDV and or 3d, in genral having a powerful graphics card does not boost over all performance, things like the speed of your CPU, cache size, memory, etc are far more important than the graphics card.

And if you can get as MANY cores as possible.

I'll have a core2duo, a couple gigs of RAM.
I wanted a good video card to provide me with additional speed and accuracy for rendering in 3D apps. Especially if I'm animating.
Don't some cards have trouble displaying more complex objects accurately? Maybe I'm mistaken, but even it isn't an accuracy issue, there's still going to be a difference in how fast certain things will render with the graphics card, right?

I'm currently using two EVGA Gforce 7600 GT cards set up in non-SLI mode. Works a treat. I have one card driving my main display, and the other card driving my secondary display and a NTSC TV via S-Video. The TV is to inspect output meant for an NTSC destination (DVD and broadcast).

I use this config with Adobe Production Studio Pro, Avid Xpress Pro HD (with some minor difficulty), and Lightwave 3D v9.

Anhar is correct that the video card performance has less effect on 3D apps and video editing than the CPU, Memory, HDD speed, etc.

Why are you forced to use a Quaddro?

I'm sure I still need to do more research, I was under the impression that the Quaddro line was developed specifically for pro 3D and video work.
That isn't to say that other cards aren't capable, because obviously the 7600 cards are working for you, but you mentioned having a little trouble with Avid editing, do you think it's video card related or something else with the application?

I'm glad you listed the apps you're using because that looks about like what I'll probably be working with, but with the new CS3 production suite.
I still favor the prospect of going with the 7600 and saving some money, but I'm also eyeing an 8800 GTS or GTX card. I feel like there's still so much more to learn about all of these cards and their capabilities. It was one area I've been neglecting to stay well read on and my brain is beating me up for it now.

 

[TowerFan]

Sorry if you already know how this works but I'll assume you are new to 3D apps like LightWave. I can't speak to Maya or 3ds Max, I've only used LW, but the theory should hold.

There are two aspects to "rendering" in a 3D app. The first is the real-time display in your workspace where you create objects, texture the surfaces, create bones to animate, etc. LightWave uses OpenGL for the display of your workspace. If you are scrubing through a camera move around a 3D scene with several million polygons then the card is really working hard to display all that. This is where the card quality/speed comes into play. How fast can it Display millions of polygons.

The second aspect has obsolutely nothing to do with the quality of the video card what-so-ever. When your 3D scene is ready to be "rendered" you (in my workflow anyway) create a series of sequential still images. Jpeg or Targa for example. The computer has to calculate all of the interaction between objects and your lighting, dynamics, etc. This is all heavy duty math. So here is where the quality of just about everything BUT the video card comes into play.

Again, sorry if you know all of this already.

Now for the Avid problem. Avid is a VERY picky program as to what hardware it plays with well. Avid specs require a Quaddro, but it will work with most Gforce chipsets. My problem in particular is that Avid crashes when started if I have the S-Video out set to Extended Desktop. If I disable the TV then Avid starts and runs just fine with just the two VGA displays. I have a Mojo to view my video output in realtime anyway so it doesn't matter in my case.

The reason I have 7600 cards is because when I built this system I at first bought 7900 GTO's. Avid wouldn't display any video so I had to return the 7900's and get 7600's, which did work. Same driver version, go figure. This machine is about a year old so this is all probably changed. Also, If you don't have Avid's required hardware they will not give you hardware related customer support.

 

[Anhar_Miah]

TowerFan is spot on, though some softwares such as Nvidida |Gleato (bad spelling maybe) and RTsquare 1.2 allow the rendering to be off loaded or shared with the graphics card this is known as GPU rendering (as opposed to CPU) however there is some problems with this route,

(1) you can't use native shaders that you may be use to such as Vray, they have to be translated (I think for max, if your using Gleato then you have to use Mango?)

(2) GPU is highly parralell computing but not much good for non repeating complex scences.

I've tried both, but the results was not great, even the best gallery examples where not that great (IMHO) maybe this will change in the future.

But for now, multiple cores (CPU speed) and RAM is what effects render times, as well as other settings scene complexity etc..

Boxx workstations as I have mention earlier have 16 cores, and also if we wait a little longer Sonys Cell Workstation should be out, now to give you an Idea of the power of a cell workstation Sony demonstated and rendered in REAL TIME the CGI film "Final Fantasty the Spirits Within".

But also to note as the computer gets faster, not much changes really, artists tend to push the quality and complexity of the scenes a littler higher and we are all back to square 1 !