- Joined
- Aug 22, 2008
- Messages
- 2,304 (0.40/day)
- Location
- Edmonton, Alberta
| System Name | AMD | Intel | Chumpy |
|---|---|
| Processor | PHII 955BE Stock | i7 920 D0 4.01 GHz | i7 920 D0 4.01 GHz |
| Motherboard | MSI 790FX-GD70 | EX58 - UD5 | E760 4 Way SLI |
| Cooling | Zalman 9700 CNPS | Water Loop | Water Loop |
| Memory | 4 GB XMS3 1600 MHz | 6 GB Dominators 1600 MHz | 6 GB Dominators 1866 MHz |
| Video Card(s) | 3 x 9600GSO, GTX260 216 | 2 x GTX 260 216 | GTX 260 216, 9600 GSO |
| Storage | WD 640GB | Couple o' 5400RPMs | WD 1TB |
| Case | Cosmos S | Lancool K62 Dragonlord | Lian Li PC-P80 Armor |
| Power Supply | TX850 | HX 1000 | HX 1000 |
| Software | Win 7 Home Premium | Win 7 Ultimate | Vista Home Premium |
Alright, I've been tasked with completing a new editing suite for a small, yet professional editing company. One of the programs they use is Avid, which of course has the lovely 'requirement' of a Quadro card if you use a Windows based machine. However, if you use a Mac, all you're required to have is a regular Geforce card. Furthermore, their lowest required card is a FX 560 which is about 5 years old and equivalent to a 7300GT. They note that only 128MB of graphics memory is required for full screen playback. Obviously, a high end mainstream Nvidia card should cream the FX 560 in Avid performance, yet its not listed as supported. 
I've done some looking around, and the first thing I've found is that apparently you can no longer soft mod a Geforce card to a Quadro. Second, I've found that if you don't have a Quadro card, Avid support simply won't deal with you. It wouldn't matter if the problem was 'my monitor is currently aflame', it seems they'd ask you to upgrade your video card to a Quadro and call them back. Now at this point, I'm extremely glad I'm not doing this for myself as I'd be frothing at the mouth and spewing multicolored smoke from my rear in a fit of rage at this seemingly apparent and needless upsell. In the interest of providing these people with what they seek, I thought I'd ask the community first for anyone who currently uses Avid or has gone through this process as all the answers I'm finding are conflicting.
I'm looking to get these guys the best for their money without charging what an editing suite bought from Avid would cost. I'm sure a faster processor and more RAM would be more beneficial than the upsell to a Quadro card, but that's completely irrelevant if the program refuses to work.
Jotnotes and questions:
Does Avid work with any of the high end, mainstream video cards? I've seen accounts of both yes and no, but I've seen a fair amount of 'hit or miss' for me to be certain. Obviously, the program not working isn't an option, so I'd like to hear some first hand experiences before I nail down any budgets for these guys.
If Geforce cards will operate Avid, do they do so reliably? I don't want to be on the hook for customer support, and these guys do things from commercials for local businesses to Government funded documentaries. They really wouldn't appreciate any downtime, and I don't want to be the guy who sold them snake oil.
If it will work on a Geforce card, would a Quadro card yield any performance benefits over that of the Geforce, or can a Geforce card perform similarly? If it works for the Macs, I have a hard time seeing Windows being any different.
Further info:
This company is currently using a dual processor Xeon with an equivalently aged Quadro. We're talking about 5 years old here so I'm pretty sure they're running with these, though they couldn't tell me specifically. I was not able to gather what Quadro card they have currently, but I know it was bought at the same time as the system. At this point, a simple i7 920, 6GB of RAM and a GTX 260 build is looking like a god to their current editing suite. If I don't need to sell them a Quadro, I could probably get these guys to upgrade to a couple of Xeons and an EVGA SR-2. I'd get the SR-2 over a server board so I didn't have to get the expensive RAM, and also I could live vicariously while I was building it.
I'm also looking for all sorts of information I probably haven't figured out I need to ask about yet, so if you think you've got something that I didn't specifically ask for but applies to Avid and hardware, post it up please.
I've done some looking around, and the first thing I've found is that apparently you can no longer soft mod a Geforce card to a Quadro. Second, I've found that if you don't have a Quadro card, Avid support simply won't deal with you. It wouldn't matter if the problem was 'my monitor is currently aflame', it seems they'd ask you to upgrade your video card to a Quadro and call them back. Now at this point, I'm extremely glad I'm not doing this for myself as I'd be frothing at the mouth and spewing multicolored smoke from my rear in a fit of rage at this seemingly apparent and needless upsell. In the interest of providing these people with what they seek, I thought I'd ask the community first for anyone who currently uses Avid or has gone through this process as all the answers I'm finding are conflicting.
I'm looking to get these guys the best for their money without charging what an editing suite bought from Avid would cost. I'm sure a faster processor and more RAM would be more beneficial than the upsell to a Quadro card, but that's completely irrelevant if the program refuses to work.
Jotnotes and questions:
Does Avid work with any of the high end, mainstream video cards? I've seen accounts of both yes and no, but I've seen a fair amount of 'hit or miss' for me to be certain. Obviously, the program not working isn't an option, so I'd like to hear some first hand experiences before I nail down any budgets for these guys.
If Geforce cards will operate Avid, do they do so reliably? I don't want to be on the hook for customer support, and these guys do things from commercials for local businesses to Government funded documentaries. They really wouldn't appreciate any downtime, and I don't want to be the guy who sold them snake oil.
If it will work on a Geforce card, would a Quadro card yield any performance benefits over that of the Geforce, or can a Geforce card perform similarly? If it works for the Macs, I have a hard time seeing Windows being any different.
Further info:
This company is currently using a dual processor Xeon with an equivalently aged Quadro. We're talking about 5 years old here so I'm pretty sure they're running with these, though they couldn't tell me specifically. I was not able to gather what Quadro card they have currently, but I know it was bought at the same time as the system. At this point, a simple i7 920, 6GB of RAM and a GTX 260 build is looking like a god to their current editing suite. If I don't need to sell them a Quadro, I could probably get these guys to upgrade to a couple of Xeons and an EVGA SR-2. I'd get the SR-2 over a server board so I didn't have to get the expensive RAM, and also I could live vicariously while I was building it.
I'm also looking for all sorts of information I probably haven't figured out I need to ask about yet, so if you think you've got something that I didn't specifically ask for but applies to Avid and hardware, post it up please.
Last edited:
![[I.R.A]_FBi](https://tpucdn.com/forums/data/avatars/l/39/39344.jpg?1384761935){kind=avatar}