RAM and Video Card

[beavereater]

I'm going to be upgrading my PC for photo editing and video editing purposes.

Question 1: With CS3 how much RAM will it actually use? I now have 1GB of RAM and wondering if 4GB will get used, or if it limits itself to something like 2GB

Question 2: With video editing I am assuming a good video card is necessary (If not, I love games and haven't played for a while) What would a good NVidia card be for 100 USD?

Question 3: I also plan on getting a new Harddrive but I don't know what the limits are on my motherboard. I have a GIGABYTE GA-K8N Pro-SLI. How do I know what size MAX I can get for my board?

Much thanks to any who reply

[DB83]

IIRC CS3 will not even install on less than 1 gig of ram. Like any other software, the more memory you have the more efficient the program will run.

However, if you install 4 gig on your system, XP will only make use of 3+

You do not need a high spec video card for video editing so yours may do just fine. If you wanted to use twin monitors then that would be a different story.. And can you buy anthing suitable for games for 100 USD ?

Your motherboard supports SATA II so it will support any size drive that uses that interface.

[Nelson37]

Just got an 8800GT for $119.00. Crysis runs great.

[beavereater]

Your motherboard supports SATA II so it will support any size drive that uses that interface.

I would like to use an IDE HD. I have issues with my current SATA II and installing windows. Just prefer to use the IDE.

[DB83]

Your motherboard supports SATA II so it will support any size drive that uses that interface.

I would like to use an IDE HD. I have issues with my current SATA II and installing windows. Just prefer to use the IDE.

Same rule applies. You can get IDE drives up to 500 gig and I'm sure that board will support the highest transfer speed for these.

Just one thing not covered by your post but which would now be relevant. It is not a good idea to use the same drive for the OS (Windows) and video capture. Windows will be trying to access the drive at the same time. By all means put Windows on an IDE ( I still have in my system) but the real video work is done on SATA disks. If you have a spare IDE connector then fine but I suspect (without looking them up) that your CD/DVD drives are using that.

[jman98]

http://www.crucial.com
http://www.kingston.com
are both good places to go to look up how much memory specific motherboards can take.

[edDV]

The video card is used for 2D display, display scaling, assisted MPeg playback and video output. The 7600GT/8600GT have the "Pure Video" features you need. Higher end cards have more 3D gaming features.