Newbie Question on Hardware

[strangepork]

Hello,

I was wondering is there any documentation that states suggested hardware upgrades that help with conversion. In other words will a good graphics card help me with a smooth/quick conversion?

For example, what type of video card, will help with rendering??? for Virtual Dub, Mod, AutGK, DVDshrink?? What processes are used more?? Actual CPU or on the graphics card.


of course a memory upgrade, which is obvious.

[nFury8]

Current encoding tasks are mostly processor-intensive and not GPU-centric. Although the next-gen nVidia FX chips look set to change that.

[theReal]

Right now you gain the most speed if you:

-have more FSB
-have more processor power
-have a processor knowing the latest instructions (SSE, SSE2, MMX(+), 3DNow(+))
-have a good chipset that can make use of all of your RAM's and CPU's speed
-have good RAM that runs at lowest timings and command rate.

The new Nvidia Geforce 6800 is the first graphics cards which makes an attempt to influence your video encoding speeds, but it is still not good at it(*) (while it is an extraordinary 3D graphics card - also with extraordinary power consumption...)



(*)I'm trusting the Tom's Hardware Guide Tests here as I haven't seen one of those cards yet (I still have a Radeon 7500)