Design an Axio LE system

Your particular workflow requirements and budget will determine the specific components you should choose when designing your Matrox Axio LE editing system. If money is no object, you can combine a top-of-the-line computer system, the fastest GPU, and the largest, most robust storage subsystem to get the absolute maximum number of realtime layers and effects, in all cases. If your budget is more modest, there are many tradeoffs you can make to design an editing system that will give you maximum performance to do exactly what you need to do on a daily basis.

Matrox Axio LE relies on the power of your CPU to perform some effects and to decode and encode compressed video streams such as HDV and DV. It relies on the power of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) in your system to process Matrox hardware-accelerated effects (Flex effects). Note that what we refer to here as a GPU has various other names that may be more familiar to you, such as display card, graphics card, or VGA adapter. The type and size of storage you require depends largely on the video formats you are using and the number of hours of video you need to maintain online. Understanding your various options in each category will help you design the most economical system for your needs.

We have validated a number of computers, display cards, and storage subsystems and provided guidelines to enable you to make an informed choice as you choose the components for your own Matrox Axio LE editing system or work with your Matrox Axio LE dealer to specify a turnkey system.

Minimum system requirements

The Matrox Axio LE editing system requires the following minimum system configuration:

• Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Business, or Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit versions only)
• Chassis with adequate cooling
• PCI Express (x4) slot available for the PCIe version of Axio LE or
  PCI-X slot (66 MHz or greater) available for the PCI-X version of Axio LE
• 2 GB of physical memory (RAM)
• Two processing cores - either two physical single-core processors, or one physical dual-core processor
• Display card (see list of validated cards for higher performance choices)
• Separate NTFS formatted hard drive for A/V content

1. Choosing a computer or motherboard
2. Choosing a display card (GPU)
3. Choosing the storage