The choice of video cards for home movie editing is not important at all. You will be able to capture movies from your camera via firewire, edit and play AVI and MPGEG movies with just a basic video card or your on board graphics.

But what if you do your editing on a machine where you play an occasional game ? Games do require a special graphics card that is more powerful. The reason is that unlike video streams games send mathematical data to the card describing how to draw items. Some games need very complex commands and huge amounts of data describing how to draw textures and shading for objects to make the games look more realistic.

Following is a list of what I recommend for video cards. Whenever I buy products I want my purchase to be future proof. I want a product with technology that will last a few years. I also stay away from bleeding edge technology. Often brand new products are have a high price/performance ratio. In the computer world prices will drop after a product has been released for a while.

Nvidia and ATI are the two primary players in the graphics card world. Vendors take the basic cards by the vendors and place them into their own packages and layer other applications into the package.

Nvidia

• GEforce 6200 – This is the minimum card I would buy from Nvidia. Current prices are in the $55-$75 range. Make sure you do NOT but a 6200TC or Turbo Cache.
  Although it sound it will be faster it is not. Rather than having memory on the video card it uses system memory. The need to pass information to system memory takes time and processing power, which slows things down.
• GEforce 6600

– Good solid card in the $75-$100 dollar price range.

• GEforce 6600GT

– The current sweet spot for video cards. High performance in a price range of $120-$150.

• GeForce 7000 series

– For the video gaming enthusiast. Typically in the $180+ range. Includes
the GeForce 7300, GeForce 7600, GeForce 7900 and GeForce 7900 series.

ATI

• Radeon 9600PRO

Minimum card from ATI. Typically in the $50-$75 range.

• Sapphire Radeon 9800
• Radeon X700 Pro

– This is the competitor to the Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT. $140-$150

• Radeon X800GTP

– a lower clocked version of the X800PRO

• Radeon Radeon X850 XT

– Typically in the $150+ range

• Radeon 1xxx series

– Thes are the enthusiasts models and include the x1300, X1600, X1800 and X1900.