I have a Gigabyte GA7 VRXP F12 motherboard and I need upgrade advice for digital camera graphics.

[Seneca2]

I have 256 name DDR 133 memory, I will get another stick of the same for 512 totals, is this enough? I can upgrade the video card if need be, but I can find next to no information on 2D performance, games are of small importance to me. What I have seen tells me that ATI 9200 -9600 with 256 memory is more than I need, is this correct?
I have a 1 gig Athlon running rock solid at 1.1 gigs, would a faster Athlon be worth the cost? I have a solid copper sink and a 3 speed fan and it keeps what I have now in the 40c range. My Antec case/w 4 Antec case fans helps.

 

[jm0ris0n]

Hi Seneca2,

Any graphics card with 64MB or more of videoram should be fine. Any ATI card sold in stores today will work great for editing/working with digital images.

2D Digital Imaging is not very videocard intensive at all. However you will notice the biggest performance increase with a faster processor.

If your motherboard can take a faster speed processor, this would be the best way to go. (I wanted to type more, but I have to go now).

 

[mechBgon]

For image editing, more memory will often help too. I've used over 750MB of RAM in PhotoImpact 6 at times. Another aspect of having lots of RAM is that Windows2000/WindowsXP will cache your image-editing program in RAM if it has enough RAM, so that it can re-launch from RAM instead of re-launching from the hard drive. Considering how slow PhotoImpact launches even from a 15000rpm SCSI drive, this is nice

 

[jm0ris0n]

One of these would be a nice, noticable upgrade

2400+ http://www.pricewatch.com/1/3/4928-1.htm (~$60)
2600+ http://www.pricewatch.com/1/3/4961-1.htm (~$87)

(I don't thinkk your motherboard takes 333mhz bus cpus. )

 

[tiap]

It all depends on the size of the images are you are playing with. If its only a few mb then no big deal. I have used 125mb files and the more ram the better.
One machine I still use has an original aiw radeon with 32mb, on a tyan mb /w a p4 2.4 400fsb with 1 gig pc133 ram. I can do virtually any 2d imaging including dvd encoding etc with no lost frames. To shave a second or two from an image render is no big deal. two hundred renders a day doesn't amount to much. Video encoding was cut by 2 hours using a 2.8 prescott with 1gig 3500 ram etc. But I usually leave that overnite so 2 hrs saved doesn't matter either. It's all relative.
Go for a lot of ram and maybe a faster cpu. If money is no object get the latest and greatest.