Video card for DVD mastering

[WEIVODA]

I'm going to build a new PC in a few months and I need advice on the video card. I couldn't care less about game playing. The most demanding programs I will be running are Photodex ProShow Gold and Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5. They will be used for creating MPEG files and mastering DVDs from mostly MPEG files. I'm wondering if a high-powered $350 video card is going to be much faster at these jobs than a $150 card. Are there any particular characteristics I should look for in a video card that will be especially useful for this kind of work?

Thanks,
Randy

 

[Brian48]

You'd probably get by with a cheap video card under a $100. For what you want to do, the video card is not really important. You need need a fast CPU, lots of memory, and a very large (as well as very fast) hard drive. I would also get a stand-alone DVD player as well as a decent DVD burner.

 

[WEIVODA]

Thanks. Regarding the hard drive system, I'm planning on using dual 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache SATA drives using a striped RAID setup.