advice for graphics card and hardware

[kelthuzad]

hi, hope someone can help me out. im a video editor and a digital compositor.
im using avid and combustion and thinking of buying a pc Amd athalon 64 for my needs.
im trying to find what is the best and off course affordable price for a graphic card. I found out and being suggested to buy the "PNY Quadro FX 500"
i found out also the MATROX PARhelia 128MB which cost almost double.
the matrox cost $400 but since its expensive and a bit old i dont know if there are other graphics card with the same price but with better performances.. i was trying to find out and hope that someone here know better and can help me out. im willing to spent up to $400 but i dont know if there are better for the same price.
Is the pny fx 500 ok too? i saw it doesnt have tv out so this is why i was trying to find out other and end up with the matrox. i know about NVIDIA but not sure what is good for that needs all i saw is about games ...
Ill be very happy if someone can suggest me what to do or any other tips regarding the hardware for the AMD.
Thanks a lot

[cascatino]

I'm actually facing the same problem. I have already an AMD Athlon XP 64 bit 3200+, I have an old ATI radeon 9500 128Mb card softmodded to FireGL Z1 and I was thinking about how to improve performance of my system. Due to the fact that I'm also involved in 3D graphics I need OpenGL performance. consider also the fact that Combustion works with OpenGL so the Parhelia doesn't seem to me the best choice....
Why don't you consider purchasing a ATI native FireGL card? This cards have the TV out and a guy from Cyberzeka (you know, the plugin letting you visualize the combustion workspace on TV) told me that their plugin should work with FireGL.
Now let's talk about AMD 64bit processor: actually the chipsets used by this CPU doesn't support any of the editing accelerated card (i.e. Canopus, Matrox Rt and so on) so, if you are planning a long term investment it doesn't seem to be the best choice (trust me, I've got this CPU with 1 Gb and I have to wait for renderings of all types!). This CPU will work faster (besides the GHz factor) under a 64bit environment and guess what? Windows 64bit doesn't let you install nor Combustion neither 3dsMax!). Ok that's all. I hope it helped....ciao!

[kelthuzad]

Thanks a lot Cascatino,
what do u mean the CPU, which one will work faster? do u mean the amd 64 bit is not good and should i go on pentium or what? a bit confused....
any suggestion for ATI native FireGL card u mentioned... so i can check out prices and performances...?
thanks again
l8r

[cascatino]

I think you should start from a very robust, fast ATI Radeon card such as a 9800Pro, actually FireGL card don't support tv-out natively.
For the CPU dont' misunderstand me, my AMD 64 3200 is fast but I have the strong feeling that a PIV 3,2 could have been better (think about Hyper Threading!). I hate waiting my Pc to produce something more than a bouncing sphere on a plane!
I remind you that in all the benchmarks I've seen the Pentium IV (HT, better if EE) performed better than AMD 64 (same speed) in common calculation operations (mpeg conversion, 3dsMax rendering, Maxon Cinebench and so on...). So, this is the fact: software houses (Discreet, Eyeon, Alias and Avid, for example) had better to speed up their software development to a 64 bit environment otherwise the AMD Cpu is good only for a half of it!

[xav_B]

Hi cascatino,

i trust that you know, what i have absolutly no idea about.
I just got an amd64 3200 and am a 3dmodeler (and am gutted after reading your post). I'm about to upgrade my graphics card, and would like to keep it at a farily low price. My motherboard supports agp 8x(only 1,5v & not 3,3v?). Could you please adivise me or point me in the right direction. I'd like to also understand more about the 64 environment and why its not as fast it should be. Or has this been bettered already since your last post?

cheers,
xav

[SalaTar]

Some OEM ATI FIRE GL Z1's had a tv out.

I have one

http://www.hypermicro.com/product.asp?pf_id=VDAT100B

[xav_B]

Thanks for the advice salatar.

But i'm on a real budget at the moment- so i'm thinking of either sapphire radeon 9550 256 or Msi rx 9550td 256- they're both the same price right now. I hope they're good. i now mostly have to use 3dsmax on amd64.

cheers,
L