Graphics/video editing cards

the Matrox RTX is not a video graphic card, it's more like a 'premium' capture card, the RT stands for real time, meaning, you don't need to press enter to render and you can see the result, realistically speaking, it is a bit faster using a Matrox RTX card than without on during preview/render time, of course, you must use the transitions/effects that come with Matrox to see the real time result (which usually come with hundreds)

However, it also depends what 'serious' your friend said, if he also imply of using a broadcast television, etc, spending that money wouldn't make any difference

But if you want a faster result, what you can do is beef up your computer: invest in RAM, make it 1Gig, and invest in another hard drive your 160gb hard drive, I assume you are using that same hard drive for installing the programs? then you need one more for video clips (at least a 250gb and up), reason is simple, by having 2 hard drives, the computer access/resource wouldn't need to depend on one to pull system programs and video clips which 'might' slow it down...

So, is Matrox make it more 'serious'? not really, it does have added bonus, but that's depending what you use the editing for (if you are getting $ in for editing, down the road consider something similar). As for now, beef your machine with 1gig of RAM at least and go with another 300gb hard drive for video clips and make sure that's all your video clips located. Then you would see the difference

Johnny

Many thanks Johnny, I suspected as much. I will add ram and another HDD to my shopping list.

Not that you need confirmation but it may be nice to know that I completely agree with Johnny on this one. Spot on advice IMHO.

i should add, if your motherboard uses pc2700, pc2100 or pc3200 type memories, go with pc3200, faster, also if your motherboard can go up to 2gig, go for it the more the better.