Best for Video Encoding

My new GF wants to build a new comp for her work as a graphics designer and I know that gaming cards arent made to do much vid encod work but would any of the latest ones out do the job? Would the Crossfire or SLI work effectively as both?

If not which one would do the job best: ATI Fire GL ,Nvidia Quatro or the 3dlabs Realizm 500. I was thinking the 3DLabs would be best but input from those who do it most often is a better bet.

For video encoding, your input card is much more important. A friend of mine does digital video editing and he uses this and is very happy with it.

http://buyeretail.com/product.asp?file=pricewatch&i=MATRTX100XHW

I believe he uses an older Quadro4 for output, not sure of the exact model. You might like the Quadro FX4500, it's the newest and best one. I'd have no idea how they compare to competing cards from 3DLabs, ATI, or Matrox though.

For basic capturing and encoding an ATI all-in-wonder may be an option for her, and it's much cheaper than a lot of solutions (like the one mentioned in the previous post).

And if it's just encoding, then pretty much any video card should do since the only difference it would make is in image quality (to the monitor -- not encoded quality) and most cards are very similar in this respect.

JigPu

Thanks for the info all.