The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Morning guys,
I've been looking into the possibility of upgrading the graphics card in my PC. My motherboard is an aging Gigabyte 945gcm-s2l and I am currently running an NVDIA GeFORCE 6600 256MB DDR2 graphics card. My board can take a maximum of 4GB DDR2 RAM (already installed and it's OCZ gaming RAM which I believe is as good as my board will take) but only 3GB of it is useable as apparently the 'missing' GB is being used by my current graphics card. It's not a OS issue it's not showing in the BIOS and I use a 64bit OS which can handle this anyway. Would a more powerful graphics card improve my systems performance or would it be a waste of money? I don't play games on my PC but I do use it for HD video editing. My processor is actually not all that bad it's an Intel Core 2 Extreme x6800 (overclocked to 3.5Ghz with cooling modified) and my system is generally pretty fast and stable. It's just with video editing every bit of power counts. I know that I should really build/buy a new PC but apart from the money, I have that much stuff on this one that it would it take me forever to sort it all out again and I really don't have the time at the moment.
I am using a Cooler Master Elite gaming tower which is powered by a 350W PSU BTW.
Be grateful for any suggestions.
I've been looking into the possibility of upgrading the graphics card in my PC. My motherboard is an aging Gigabyte 945gcm-s2l and I am currently running an NVDIA GeFORCE 6600 256MB DDR2 graphics card. My board can take a maximum of 4GB DDR2 RAM (already installed and it's OCZ gaming RAM which I believe is as good as my board will take) but only 3GB of it is useable as apparently the 'missing' GB is being used by my current graphics card. It's not a OS issue it's not showing in the BIOS and I use a 64bit OS which can handle this anyway. Would a more powerful graphics card improve my systems performance or would it be a waste of money? I don't play games on my PC but I do use it for HD video editing. My processor is actually not all that bad it's an Intel Core 2 Extreme x6800 (overclocked to 3.5Ghz with cooling modified) and my system is generally pretty fast and stable. It's just with video editing every bit of power counts. I know that I should really build/buy a new PC but apart from the money, I have that much stuff on this one that it would it take me forever to sort it all out again and I really don't have the time at the moment.
I am using a Cooler Master Elite gaming tower which is powered by a 350W PSU BTW.
Be grateful for any suggestions.
Page:
pete_21 wrote:
I have changed my mind, PC gaming rules! :)
Welcome onboard haha :¬D (You're going to get your wrists slapped for that admission!)
but it is true pete :¬)
I have changed my mind, PC gaming rules! :)
Welcome onboard haha :¬D (You're going to get your wrists slapped for that admission!)
but it is true pete :¬)
Actually on second thought PC gamers don't have to pay to play online nor do they have to deal with quite so many annoying potty mouthed 12 year olds. Suppose I could always use my Xbox controller so it wouldn't be totally alien to me. I have changed my mind, PC gaming rules! :)
pete_21 wrote:
PC Gaming: Pop disc in tray, find out a certain component needs upgrading to play it. Upgrade component, find it doesn't work with the particular version of the operating system you use. Find latest driver, it works (ish) but you spend numerous evenings pratting about trying to get it work when you should be playing the game. By the time you finally get the damn thing to work everyone is level 9000 on the game and any attempt to play it usually ends in total humiliation.
Xbox 360 Gaming: Pop disc in tray, play game.
:P
Point taken ... but doesn't happen much now. Spoke to an American salesperson in PCWorld yesterday about BF3. He was jealous that on PC we have 64-a-side and he only gets 24-a-side and no mod access ... he couldn't PC game anymore because of RSI and was now using an Xbox. I did point out that he could use an Xbox controller on the PC :¬)
PC Gaming: Pop disc in tray, find out a certain component needs upgrading to play it. Upgrade component, find it doesn't work with the particular version of the operating system you use. Find latest driver, it works (ish) but you spend numerous evenings pratting about trying to get it work when you should be playing the game. By the time you finally get the damn thing to work everyone is level 9000 on the game and any attempt to play it usually ends in total humiliation.
Xbox 360 Gaming: Pop disc in tray, play game.
:P
Point taken ... but doesn't happen much now. Spoke to an American salesperson in PCWorld yesterday about BF3. He was jealous that on PC we have 64-a-side and he only gets 24-a-side and no mod access ... he couldn't PC game anymore because of RSI and was now using an Xbox. I did point out that he could use an Xbox controller on the PC :¬)
DL wrote:
Evening pete :¬) Had that drink yet? Card should be fine for gaming - I'll see you on the Battlefield soldier ;¬)
Ha ha, yeah the drink was good! Think my Mrs. might have been thinking about The Sims until I told her there was no way this PC could run it (a little white lie but it's no worse than telling her the latest Justin Timberlake rom-com is not getting a UK DVD release). I'm keeping The Sims excuse to justify getting the board, processor & RAM later in the year...
Anyway I have one of those rather excellent Xbox 360's for gaming and it's amazing.
PC Gaming: Pop disc in tray, find out a certain component needs upgrading to play it. Upgrade component, find it doesn't work with the particular version of the operating system you use. Find latest driver, it works (ish) but you spend numerous evenings pratting about trying to get it work when you should be playing the game. By the time you finally get the damn thing to work everyone is level 9000 on the game and any attempt to play it usually ends in total humiliation.
Xbox 360 Gaming: Pop disc in tray, play game.
:P
Graphics card is great BTW, thanks again for all the help guys. Can get the OpenCL encoding version of my video editing suite for around £50 (if Magix don't offer the £25 upgrade again) and can download a full working trial version to see if there is any noticeable difference. Will definitely give that a whirl when I have the time.
Evening pete :¬) Had that drink yet? Card should be fine for gaming - I'll see you on the Battlefield soldier ;¬)
Ha ha, yeah the drink was good! Think my Mrs. might have been thinking about The Sims until I told her there was no way this PC could run it (a little white lie but it's no worse than telling her the latest Justin Timberlake rom-com is not getting a UK DVD release). I'm keeping The Sims excuse to justify getting the board, processor & RAM later in the year...
Anyway I have one of those rather excellent Xbox 360's for gaming and it's amazing.
PC Gaming: Pop disc in tray, find out a certain component needs upgrading to play it. Upgrade component, find it doesn't work with the particular version of the operating system you use. Find latest driver, it works (ish) but you spend numerous evenings pratting about trying to get it work when you should be playing the game. By the time you finally get the damn thing to work everyone is level 9000 on the game and any attempt to play it usually ends in total humiliation.
Xbox 360 Gaming: Pop disc in tray, play game.
:P
Graphics card is great BTW, thanks again for all the help guys. Can get the OpenCL encoding version of my video editing suite for around £50 (if Magix don't offer the £25 upgrade again) and can download a full working trial version to see if there is any noticeable difference. Will definitely give that a whirl when I have the time.
Evening pete :¬) Had that drink yet? Card should be fine for gaming - I'll see you on the Battlefield soldier ;¬)
pete_21 wrote:
My video editing suite recognizes it and now states 'initializing hardware acceleration' when it starts up, not sure what this means as I'm pretty sure my version does not support OpenCL encoding? It plays HD clips superbly and does seem to be taking some stress off my CPU (now using around 45% to play a 1080P Blu Ray).
Even without OpenCL support, you'll still get hardware decoding of video which is fairly common on gfx cards now. Presumably thats what your software is detecting.
I'm presuming this card would be useless for gaming but I reckon it'll suit my needs just fine TBH.
I dont know about useless. I've got one in my desktop and it manages fine. Obviously with PCs its all about the resolution & graphic setting you want to play at, but if you really wanted to play games that card isnt going to stop you.
My video editing suite recognizes it and now states 'initializing hardware acceleration' when it starts up, not sure what this means as I'm pretty sure my version does not support OpenCL encoding? It plays HD clips superbly and does seem to be taking some stress off my CPU (now using around 45% to play a 1080P Blu Ray).
Even without OpenCL support, you'll still get hardware decoding of video which is fairly common on gfx cards now. Presumably thats what your software is detecting.
I'm presuming this card would be useless for gaming but I reckon it'll suit my needs just fine TBH.
I dont know about useless. I've got one in my desktop and it manages fine. Obviously with PCs its all about the resolution & graphic setting you want to play at, but if you really wanted to play games that card isnt going to stop you.
Right, think I've finally got myself sorted. After speaking to the system builder at a local shop he convinced me to go the ATI route. The card I bought was this one but it's called the 'Multimedia Editing Plus Edition'. Seems a bit weird as I can't seem to find any mention of this particular card anywhere on the net? The shop have said I can take it back if I'm not happy so thought I had nothing to lose by trying it? It's a 1GB GDDR5 card running at 900 Mhz clock speed. My video editing suite recognizes it and now states 'initializing hardware acceleration' when it starts up, not sure what this means as I'm pretty sure my version does not support OpenCL encoding? It plays HD clips superbly and does seem to be taking some stress off my CPU (now using around 45% to play a 1080P Blu Ray). The card was also cheaper than I was looking to pay so I wasn't at all convinced that it was going to do the job. My first impressions are very positive though, it's a passive leap from my old card for sure. I will download the trial of the later version of the Magix editing suite (which definitely does support OpenCL encoding) when I get chance and give it a try. I'm presuming this card would be useless for gaming but I reckon it'll suit my needs just fine TBH.
Thanks again for all the kind help, it was massively appreciated.
Now for that drink DL was on about........ :)
Thanks again for all the kind help, it was massively appreciated.
Now for that drink DL was on about........ :)
pete_21 wrote:
Think I know what I need now.
Probably a 'stiff drink' haha :¬D
Think I know what I need now.
Probably a 'stiff drink' haha :¬D
Thanks for clearing that up Chas, makes perfect sense to me now.
Cheers for that link DL, very helpful. Think I know what I need now.
Cheers for that link DL, very helpful. Think I know what I need now.
pete_21 wrote:
Just done a bit more research into video editing machines and can't seem to find any using Quadro/Firepro cards. They generally seem to use the type was originally looking at (550ti etc.), in theory the Quadro/Firepro cards seem well suited to my needs but using PC Specialist system builder you cannot even select these cards for video editing machines. Any suggestions guys?
The Geforce cards of any type generally have pretty solid hardware video rendering. Quadro cards are great for polygon crunching and graphics rendering, 2D stuff etc. but I'm not really convinced on the video rendering side. Generally, I would imagine that there would be a performance hit (albeit a small one) over using a Geforce card, which is specifically designed for graphical grunt and fast frame rendering.
In "Techie" terms, the Quadro is loaded with Cuda cores, Nvidia's parallel computing chip, gearing it solidly toward 3D displays and graphics generation, business apps and the like. Geforce cards, whilst having access to Cuda technology, are clearly defined as the all- purpose cards- less about fluid dynamics and raytracing, more about pixel crunching and high speed performance.
Just done a bit more research into video editing machines and can't seem to find any using Quadro/Firepro cards. They generally seem to use the type was originally looking at (550ti etc.), in theory the Quadro/Firepro cards seem well suited to my needs but using PC Specialist system builder you cannot even select these cards for video editing machines. Any suggestions guys?
The Geforce cards of any type generally have pretty solid hardware video rendering. Quadro cards are great for polygon crunching and graphics rendering, 2D stuff etc. but I'm not really convinced on the video rendering side. Generally, I would imagine that there would be a performance hit (albeit a small one) over using a Geforce card, which is specifically designed for graphical grunt and fast frame rendering.
In "Techie" terms, the Quadro is loaded with Cuda cores, Nvidia's parallel computing chip, gearing it solidly toward 3D displays and graphics generation, business apps and the like. Geforce cards, whilst having access to Cuda technology, are clearly defined as the all- purpose cards- less about fluid dynamics and raytracing, more about pixel crunching and high speed performance.
Page: