Video Card BRAND? (not type) and Power supply question.

[Steve King]

I have a Sapphire R9 280x running three monitors. I like it a lot. I do 1920×1080 29.97 HD most of the time. Preview Best-Full at full frame rate. No 2k or 4k, so I can’t comment on that. On my card the trick to get 3 monitors running was (1) DVI (2)HDMI (3)Display port through an active adapter to HDMI. Also happy with render times for Sony AVC/MVC MP4 file output.

Steve K
Full time writer/director
Pt. Time Video Editor

[John Rofrano]

[Brad Leigh] “Are there any oops’s I need to avoid? I assume the form factor is pretty consistent, and connectors I assume would be the same. I was going to purchase one of the higher end models from Tiger Direct.”

I wouldn’t assume anything! I made the unfortunate choice of buying a Dell computer once and the PSU had proprietary connectors which means when I went to replace it I had to buy another one from Dell at twice the normal price. I will never buy a Dell computer again. I understand that a lot of big manufactures use non-standard connectors to get you to buy replacement parts from them so be careful with what you assume.

Bottom line: You need make sure that your Gateway is upgradable with industry standard parts.

[Brad Leigh] “I see the AMD R9-270 and 290 recommended. The 280 is about my price point. Any reason the the 270 is better more compatible then the R9 280? “

The 280 is a better card but it does require 200w of power instead of the 270 150w so make sure you buy a PSU that’s big enough to power it.

I don’t know of any brands that are bad. Most of them use the reference architecture so the cards are either identical or some may be slightly overclocked.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Brad Leigh]

Thank you Steve and John.
I will double check those connectors!
This forum has been a great help getting my online Audio courses up and running. Below is a free link to the course for anyone interested.
John and everyone else thanks again. I told you I would send a link when it was done, but I couldn’t find a way to PM you.
https://www.udemy.com/analog-audio-tape-recorder-basic-theory-and-alignment/?couponCode=thecow
This link will take you direct to the course and get you in for free.
In any event if the link were to fail you can just enter the coupon code:
thecow
disclaimer
I am not a professional editor, or cinematographer. So please do not use this example to judge Vegas Pro. I shot edited this all myself. ( Though I am proud of some of the computer animations I did in Carrara.
Brad

i7 2600 3.4 Ghz 8Gig Ram , Win 7 Pro, Vegas Pro 12

[Bob Peterson]

I do not have any experience with Tiger, but we have had great luck with Microcenter if there is one near you. They have helped my daughter and I put together two computers with no problems at all, and are a continuing source of parts and advice.

[Scott Francis]

I just purchased an XFX Radeon R9 290 and it is INSANE!!! I have it running in a 4790 Devil’s Canyon system with an ASUS board and it handles a ton thrown at it. Best video playback I have ever had!!!
I have used, ASUS, GIGABYTE, XFX and Sapphire cards with no issues really from any of them. Be SURE to get at LEAST a 750 watt power supply with any of the newer cards and 1000 watt if you can. It really makes a difference. Also, since you have a 3 year old system, make sure the board has the PCI Express ability of the card you are getting.
Here is the link to the card I recently purchased from Newegg.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150697

Best

Xavier (Scott) Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[John Rofrano]

Hey Brad, this is an excellent course. I watched the first section thru lecture 3 and got 100% on the quiz. 😉 The animations are excellent and really help convey the concepts and your explanation is very clear. I found it fascinating because I still have my old Teac 80-8 in my basement.

I haven’t turned it on in about 20 years and I can’t imagine what shape it’s in. I plan to watch the rest soon.

Thanks!

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Brad Leigh]

Thank you John!
and again thanks for the help.
Those Teac 8s track are kinda in vogue these days I’ll bet you could get a few hundred bucks for it, if you never planned on firing it up again.
Amazing how times change eh?
B

i7 2600 3.4 Ghz 8Gig Ram , Win 7 Pro, Vegas Pro 12

[Nigel O’neill]

[John Rofrano] ” I still have my old Teac 80-8 in my basement.”

and I have got an AKAI tape reel to real with an 8 track cartridge in mine – oops! might be giving away my age LOL!

[John Rofrano]

[Nigel O'Neill] “I have got an AKAI tape reel to real with an 8 track cartridge in mine – oops! might be giving away my age LOL!”

Same here. I used the AKAI for two track mix down and I have an 8-Track Cartridge recorder and some tapes that I still need to rip to MP3. I also have my Teac A-3440 4-Track 1/4 inch reel-to-reel. So we must be able the same age. lol 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Colin Morris]

Hi Brad,
I just upgraded my i7 3.4 GHz Gateway workstation to the 2GB Radeon R9 270X. I replaced the stock PSU with a 750 watt Thermaltake recommended by a local PC repair shop. The shop charged me $25 to install the R9 and the PSU. On 1st reboot my 2nd hard drive and Blu ray burner were not showing up.The tech said the biggest challenge is connecting, bunching, and cable tying the internal cables from the new PSU, as they are lengthy. After checking all connections everything worked fine and that was a month ago. I usually pay for the install because I don’t install video cards/PSU’s every day and that’s what my local tech does. I also listen to the tech’s recommendations. He said the Thermaltake was quieter and he had fewer returns compared to some other models. I also check prices on my phone and his price was actually $10 cheaper than Best Buy.
In running Vegas 13 Pro, the first thing I noticed was I could enable GPU and have a 3 camera multicam preview running smoothly at best quality on my second monitor. Hope this helps with your decision.

Colin Mendez Morris
ArsMusica
http://www.arsmusica.ca