Looking at building a new machine using the AMD X2 3800 CPU. Only piece I'm not sure of is the vdeo card. Pretty well have it narrowed down to a nVida 6600 but not sure whether the 6600LE, 6600, or 6600GT. The machine will be used for some video and photo editing, capturing and burning DVDs. Capturing and rendering vidio takes a lot of resources and I do want to do things while these are taking place, mostly listen to music and surf. Don't if captuing or rendering would impact the video card performance. I don"t play games. The 6600LE would be about $70-$80, the 6600 about $90 - $100, and the 6600GT $130. With the 6600 and 6600LE could probably go up to 256MB of mmeory, with the 6600GT would be 128MB. Is the GT worth the extra money given how the machine will be used? How important is the memory, e.g., is it better to get a less expensive card with more memory or the GT with less memory? Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks

Hey.....go.....here.

Take note of the X1300PRO, for your video stuff.

If you don't play games, and you like video, the X1300 is the clear choice.

Ati has an AVIVO driver that allows the videocard to speed up DVD rendering. It gives quite a measurable performance boost.
Add to that excellent motion compensation for DVD playback... and the new x1300's have pretty nice 2d display quality too, for image editing.

If you were gaming, I'd recommend the 6600, but if it's non-gaming stuff, the X1300 is the way to go... and it's not a horrible gamer for the price, either.

Should be able to find one for under $100 for sure.

Buying more expensive videocards only helps gaming or 3d CAD applications; it does nothing for 2d graphics or video...


Here's one for $82 on newegg... passive cooling do it's nice & quiet, too:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 14-102-622

Well, that was esay. Really appreciate the help from both of you. Thanks

Will the ATI X1300 handle Aero Glass in Vista?

i am in a similar situation. I don't play games and would use this card for video editing etc.

My question is will this get along with Asus A8N-SLi Premium or shoudl I be looking at Nvidia cards?

Ati cards will work fine with Nvidia boards, and vice versa... although you won't be able to crossfire them.

But if you're not gaming or doing high-end CAD work, crossfire/SLI is useless anyway, so no problem there.

If you're not going to use SLI or overclock don't waste your $$$ on a SLI board! A nice nForce4 Ultra mobo will save you some $$$.

The lower end cards with more memory are just a marketing gimmick. People see a video card with 256MB or even 512MB and assume more is better. RAM is cheap so it doesn't cost them anything to slap in some extra MBs.