Windows XP 64bit or a good graphics card?

[mattlolwtf]

I plan on doing a bunch of HD video editing and watching, and some gaming as well as 3d animation.
What I'm wondering is, what would be better for me, getting Windows XP pro 64 to get more Ram and sticking with the alright graphics card that comes on the mother board. OR going with the 32bit and getting a pretty awesome graphics card(any recommendations? 200-300$)?

[johns0]

Get a geforce 275 gtx with 1.792 gb of ram,good card for $300 or cheaper and get the os later or a geforce 260 gtx216 for $200 and os for a $100.Got to have a dual core system with pci-e to use the cards.

[jagabo]

A 64 bit OS has no benefit unless you need over 4 GB of DRAM. Video editing and gaming doesn't qualify for that. 3D animation, maybe, if you are rendering very large scenes -- and using 64 bit rendering software.

[sikoone]

I'd get the better video card because it would help with the video playback as well. I've tried to watch HD video on a integrated video card and it wasn't a pleasant experience at all.

[edDV]

Retail stores are pushing "64bit" Vista now to make users think they are getting a feature. The retailers also get a chance to upsale more than 4GB Ram that very very few need.

The reality is much current software, and older hardware are not 64 bit ready. This is especially true in video apps. They simply won't work.

The retailers don't care about any of that. They want to sell you 8GB to 16 GB of RAM when all you need is probably 2GB.

[johns0]

If your doing lots of hd editing and encoding you will want 8 gb of ram,people will tell you all you need is less but i find it makes a difference.

[minidv2dvd]

if you are dead set on a 64 bit os, go vista not xp. developers are more likely to add vista 64 programs at this point than xp64. i'd wait the 6 months for windows 7 myself and get the better graphics card now.

[mattlolwtf]

Alright, thanks guys. I think I will go with the video card too.

[edDV]

If your doing lots of hd editing and encoding you will want 8 gb of ram,people will tell you all you need is less but i find it makes a difference.

Which apps are you running? I'm doing pro level work (compressed HDV, XDCAM, DVCProHD), not much fully uncompressed these days but I've never topped out on 3GB memory. CPU is another story.

Which apps are using all this memory? I can only get there loading multiple apps and source files at one time.

[johns0]

Which apps are using all this memory? I can only get there loading multiple apps and source files at one time.

Thats why i have 8 gigs,encoding and playing games at the same time,cant run multiple apps and games without lots of ram and quad-core.

Using multiavchd and uncropmkv and running newsbin pro and gta4 at the same time plus tabbing out of games,lots of ram sure helps in that.Right now my system is using 2gbs of ram and thats not even half loaded with usual apps.One thing i like is my system never seizes up liked it did with 4gb,thing is i use my computer to the max.

[edDV]

Which apps are using all this memory? I can only get there loading multiple apps and source files at one time.

Thats why i have 8 gigs,encoding and playing games at the same time,cant run multiple apps and games without lots of ram and quad-core.

Using multiavchd and uncropmkv and running newsbin pro and gta4 at the same time plus tabbing out of games,lots of ram sure helps in that.Right now my system is using 2gbs of ram and thats not even half loaded with usual apps.One thing i like is my system never seizes up liked it did with 4gb,thing is i use my computer to the max.

So you are keeping multiple games active in memory?

[johns0]

Just multiple apps,one game at a time is enough for me.Thing is when i do service calls at customers home i tend to seize up their machines due to the fact they never have more than 2gb of ram,just gotta take it easy and run one or 2 apps at a time.

[rallynavvie]

Multi-tasking is more than just about available memory and CPU, you need to consider HDD access as well. You may be able to get away with a 3 drive setup where you run the apps/games from Drive 1, source video on Drive 2, and destination video on Drive 3. Most modern systems ICH can deal with this pretty well. However with all this talk about having enough apps open and running to use more than 4GB of memory then you will likely need to set up a good array. This does not include RAID 0! A good array for this is going to be RAID 10 for Drive 1 and two 3-drive RAID 5 volumes for Drives 2 and 3.

[ocgw]

Runnin' Windows 7 RC 64-bit w/ 8GB of ram and a Phenom II, this is the best chit since sliced bread, when I have to pay for it I won't even mind lol

My smart upgrade advice for video editing/encoding, is get the best quad you can afford

edit: you can get a great 64-bit OS for free

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

ocgw

peace

[milOtis]

Stay with Intel Xeon quads if you are going to use professional video editing apps like Adobe Premiere Pro. Their higher MB cache size REALLY makes a difference when editing HD, and even SD also. AMD's are great, if you are on a budget though, and do not intend to do any major HD editing like P2/MXF camera files, etc...

I would stay far far away from XP-64bit though. It is a nightmare. I am running Vista 64-bit, and could not be happier. No crashes, no incompatible programs, all drivers work great, and everything.

~ milOtis

[rallynavvie]

My smart upgrade advice for video editing/encoding, is get the best quad you can afford

Why stop at one? 8)

[edDV]

My smart upgrade advice for video editing/encoding, is get the best quad you can afford

Why stop at one? 8)

Soon we will have 8 cores then 16. Plan ahead.

[jagabo]

My smart upgrade advice for video editing/encoding, is get the best quad you can afford

Why stop at one? 8)

Because the OP wants to spend $200-$300.

[ocgw]

My smart upgrade advice for video editing/encoding, is get the best quad you can afford

Why stop at one? 8)

Because the OP wants to spend $200-$300.

lmao :P

get Windows 7 64-bit for free (and maybe a cheap memory upgrade) to go along w/ that new quad

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

ocgw

peace

[rallynavvie]

Until Microsoft starts charging for Windows 7. I have to hand it to them for the marketing job on this one, there are going to be a lot of angry people about this time next year.

[milOtis]

get Windows 7 64-bit for free (and maybe a cheap memory upgrade) to go along w/ that new quad

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

ocgw

peace

beating that dead horse again i see...jeez. every single post on this forum you try to convert ppl to Windows 7. they could ask "why is the sky blue?" and you would answer with "Get Windows 7!" . jeez, enough already.

perfectly happy with vista 64bit

p.s. - recommending "cheap" memory, if someone is about to get a good quad processor, is BAD advice. your memory will be the bottleneck if you buy "cheap".

[milOtis]

Until Microsoft starts charging for Windows 7. I have to hand it to them for the marketing job on this one, there are going to be a lot of angry people about this time next year.

they didn't do it for marketing reasons, they did it so that the first RTM will basically be Windows 7 SP1 included, rather than what they have done in the past where they release a RC build, then see who whines about it, not fixing it until 6-12 months AFTER release. This way they get all the bugs out before official release. I see no point in upgrading to Windows 7. It is funny how everyone using it is so excited about it's "new" features...Oh, you mean the features that have been in MacOS for the last 10 years? lol

[milOtis]

I plan on doing a bunch of HD video editing and watching, and some gaming as well as 3d animation.
What I'm wondering is, what would be better for me, getting Windows XP pro 64 to get more Ram and sticking with the alright graphics card that comes on the mother board. OR going with the 32bit and getting a pretty awesome graphics card(any recommendations? 200-300$)?

Ok, back to the original post. We have already exchanged PMs about XP64, so you know where I stand on that. Now, if you are going to be doing "a lot of HD editing", then video card does not matter. All rendering is CPU based, and the video card is only used for liv preview while you are editing, which if you are doing correctly you are editing in Draft preview mode anyway, so that doesnt matter. Secondly, if you are going to be doing a substantial amount of #D rendering, then just the opposite is true...the GPU (not CPU) is the big dog in these apps. The GPU is used for preview AND rendering, so to be happy, you would need a card like a FirePro, which is upwards of $1,000.

p.s. - no motherboard comes with "alright" graphics, especially if you are wanting to do anything more than surf the internet and send emails. onboard video is always pretty lame.

[ocgw]

get Windows 7 64-bit for free (and maybe a cheap memory upgrade) to go along w/ that new quad

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

ocgw

peace

beating that dead horse again i see...jeez. every single post on this forum you try to convert ppl to Windows 7. they could ask "why is the sky blue?" and you would answer with "Get Windows 7!" . jeez, enough already.

perfectly happy with vista 64bit

p.s. - recommending "cheap" memory, if someone is about to get a good quad processor, is BAD advice. your memory will be the bottleneck if you buy "cheap".

cheap as in "inexpensive" dude

grow up

ocgw

peace

[ocgw]

Until Microsoft starts charging for Windows 7. I have to hand it to them for the marketing job on this one, there are going to be a lot of angry people about this time next year.

Angry about what?, everyone knows this is a trial period

duh!!

ocgw

peace

[milOtis]

get Windows 7 64-bit for free (and maybe a cheap memory upgrade) to go along w/ that new quad

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

ocgw

peace

beating that dead horse again i see...jeez. every single post on this forum you try to convert ppl to Windows 7. they could ask "why is the sky blue?" and you would answer with "Get Windows 7!" . jeez, enough already.

perfectly happy with vista 64bit

p.s. - recommending "cheap" memory, if someone is about to get a good quad processor, is BAD advice. your memory will be the bottleneck if you buy "cheap".

cheap as in "inexpensive" dude

grow up

ocgw

peace

um yes ...that is what I thought you meant in the first place.

a good Quad core processor like the Intel Xeons with 12mb cache and 1600FSB are only $300, but the RAM you need to take full use of that FSB is NOT cheap (and yes, I man inexpensive). You have to get FB-DIMM (fully buffered EEC) RAM if you want to utilize the full power of 4 or 8 cores on the Intel chips. That is why I recommended going with AMD - they are slower, but still cheaper and do not require the expensive memory. The memory for my system was over $300 for 8GB. You might say thats a rip off, but try finding GOOD FB-DIMM ram, ECC ram (Error Checking RAM)

[milOtis]

Until Microsoft starts charging for Windows 7. I have to hand it to them for the marketing job on this one, there are going to be a lot of angry people about this time next year.

Angry about what?, everyone knows this is a trial period

duh!!

ocgw

peace

He just meant angry that you have to pay for it now, even after they only make a couple of minor changes. That's all, Jeez, stop being so hot tempered and jumping on people. You are doing it all over the different threads and being a jerk. Chill out man. You joined like..what...not even 3 months ago? Don't be a typical hot-headed arrogant n00b, ok?

~ milOtis

[SatStorm]

Calm down
Stay on Topic!

Next comes locking.

[rallynavvie]

No, only a few us get to be dicks to people in the Computer forum

FB-DIMM has come a long way on its pricing. You can see my sig for what my real gripe about those stupid little things is. And coming from someone who has been doing video work on dual-socket machines for nearly 10 years I've seen the diminishing returns you can get from SMP systems (cash to performance). I can also speak from experience on the diminishing returns of an assload of memory on a workstation

[ocgw]

Until Microsoft starts charging for Windows 7. I have to hand it to them for the marketing job on this one, there are going to be a lot of angry people about this time next year.

Angry about what?, everyone knows this is a trial period

duh!!

ocgw

peace

He just meant angry that you have to pay for it now, even after they only make a couple of minor changes. That's all, Jeez, stop being so hot tempered and jumping on people. You are doing it all over the different threads and being a jerk. Chill out man. You joined like..what...not even 3 months ago? Don't be a typical hot-headed arrogant n00b, ok?

~ milOtis

are you insane?

I had to ask the mods to tell you to stop your mindless ramblings to me in PM already, pls stop stalking me from thread to thread w/ your bs

ocgw

peace