Thanks A Billion Cheinworks,,
I figured something along those lines but I just wanted to know for sure ,I hear so many different opinions and have seen so many different configurations that I get confused as to why go a certain route and I remember reading a while back around Vegas 6 or so that the video card can be of regular or a bit above caliber , but I wasn't sure if anything has changed since, so I Figure my big investment will be in my i7 chip and a regular Video card

thanks

PS Just out of curiosity,,Nvidia or ATI?

a vote here for nvidia - i find ati software (catalyst) fairly buggy at the best of times... ymmv

I've been a staunch and happy ATI user for many years. I never have problems with the ATI software because i never install it.

I have an nvidea on one machine and an ati on the other. No problems with either for several years.
Which ever way you go, make sure you have outputs for dual monitors or more. Some cheapies don't.

Lynn

Which ever way you go, make sure you have outputs for dual monitors or more. Some cheapies don't.

If you intend to use a second monitor ... maybe it may be a good idea to stay away from ATI. I recently purchased a new Dell i7 with an ATI video card. All was fine until I purchased and installed a second monitor for video editing. Every once in a while I would get an error box saying that my video driver had a problem and had re-set. When that happened it was OK ... unless it happend 3 or 4 times in a row ... then ... I got the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.

I checked on-line and found that it was a common problem with my card but ONLY WHEN USING DUAL MONITORS.

The next week, after the latest BSOD, my operating system was totally messed up. Instead of Task Manager showing me I had 8 CPU's and 12 gig ... it told me I had 1 CPU and 256 MEG!!

Did you ever try to run Vista 64 of 256 meg?? Everything and anything takes forever because of so much virtural memory disk access. Dell finally had to replace my HD.

I've removed the second monitor until I can buy a new video card.

thanks for all the advise, i currently use a ati with a dual out, at one time or another i have had problems with there drivers and software, i never thought of not installing the software which is a good idea, i think i might go with the asus radeon hd 5770 ,its a affordable card with 3 monitor support and it supports direct x11,

i picked asus since i'm getting a asus mobo,, go figure

thanks

hey remixer,

does the 5770 output 3 monitors AT THE SAME time?

if so, i might well become a convert!

i run 2 monitors off a nvidia card, but was thinking of getting another cheap card for hdmi output to a monitor.

don't think there's any nividia cards that'll put 3 outputs simultaneously - in fact, i only thought matrox did that?

stand to be corrected

leslie

Hey Ushere,,

Yes the 5770 supports 3 monitors simultaneously
check out this link
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=48Fdihmj8luGFa8u&templete=2
and its on the Overview> the GPU Features section

plus it supports Direct X 11

the only problem newegg dont have it in stock :(

UPDATE:::

I just check out newegg again and there is another version of the same card and its in stock ,,this one can be tweaked !

Well I'll be the dissenting voice.
I think the choice of video card does matter. First if you're editing "movies" then I assume you'll be working in 1920x1080 and you'd likely want two monitors. Not any old video card can drive two (or more) monitors at Full HD and at a decent refresh frequency. I'd suggest getting a card capable of 75Hz.
If you look in Vegas's Secondary Display setup you'll see a number of tweaks and I suspect those affect operations done in the GPU. Not that they'd be overly GPU intensive though.
Last but not least if you're in the "movie" business it's hard to imagine that you'll only be using Vegas. I'd see you running After Effects at the very least, maybe some CGI app if you've got the time to learn one. All of those and their plugins can be GPU accelerated so a built for purpose video card might be a good investment if you're doing a lot of that kind of work. It's not vital, all apps will run without using the GPU.

Then again a cheap video is pretty cheap so if 12 months from now you realise you do need some fire breathing number crunching beast or two then the $50 you spent on your old card is going to be small change. Come to think of it, 12 months from now you'll probably get two cards for what will cost you today so best not to spend the money until you have to spend the money.

Bob.

Hey Farss,
You definitely made some good points that may not apply to all but do apply to some.
Your correct on not only using Vegas for different projects which kinda limits what you can do, I do use other programs as well as plugins that do use GPU power , but i think for what I'm doing now , the card of my choice will do well, its not over the top but its also just enough for my budget, i really wish i can get the 5970 that has dual GPU's , but as all new cards that hit the market , there's always a bit of issues that we hope can get corrected later on with updates,and amd is not all there with there drivers at first , so for now i continue to read reviews and do my homework to see any major issues, I already made a request to Santa (wife) and told him i cant wait till Christmas, so we'll wait and see!

thanks to everyone for all the input

>With the current state of editing in Vegas, a $6 video card out of the "used parts"
> heap is all you need. Vegas doesn't use the video card at all"

Respectfully disagree -- my experience says the opposite.

>"Vegas' best friend is the fastest, most powerful CPU you can get."

I'd add a footnote FWIW... the best CPU on the worst m/board with the slowest drives etc is still a dog.

>"...,I hear so many different opinions and have seen so many different
>configurations that I get confused as to why go a certain route..."

Facts, figures, & good benches don't lie -- unless you're in marketing or politics. ;?P

PCs are PCs. Vegas is software. Encoding is encoding. Step back & take a look at what's fastest, particularly with encoding *IF* that's what you want to focus on, or 3D or whatever. Good reviews do all the work so you don't have to -- read them if you're looking for tech, non-fanboi advice. Think of it as reading consumer reports BEFORE you buy the prettiest car on the lot.

@ brighterside...

Actually there are/were problems, mostly gone now [knock wood], with both nvidia & ati cards, that both companies & Microsoft were working on -- i.e. it wasn't a vender-only problem.

Otherwise I'd humbly suggest putting things back to original with a restore disk from Dell, performing any Windows updates, grabbing the latest drivers, and hook up the 2nd monitor. It's doubtful your existing card damaged your hdd or Windows, though Windows (or any) files can get damaged in a crash. The RAM & CPU readings you report were from that crash, & not directly from any graphics card. Literally millions of users with either ATI or nvidia cards run dual monitors each & every day, & have done so for many, many years... it's not some new, evolving tech.

>"Yes the 5770 supports 3 monitors simultaneously"

You can find out quite a bit just Googling EyeFinity. It's tech that's there apparently in all the new ATI cards, being at the GPU chipset & board logic level, just implemented differently or not at all depending on make/model of card. It also requires monitors (AMD/ATI docs say at least 1 of 3) with display port. Opinions of course vary on how well, or if it'll catch on -- m/boards with multiple graphics card slots have been common for years, but more than a couple of monitors is still uncommon when you consider all the PCs being used in the world. EyeFinity would/is great for any sort of video wall effect (i.e. for gaming etc), but with 32" HDTVs/monitors getting so cheap, I'm wondering if most won't just go that simpler route.

For $700.00 it better support 3 monitors and a "broad" to pop out and install it.
JJK