Choosing a computer or motherboard for a Matrox Axio LE system

The computer will house the Axio LE card. It must be running Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Business, or Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit versions only) and have adequate cooling and a power supply large enough to meet the requirements of the Axio LE card and other peripherals in the system. A full-length PCI Express (x4) slot is required for the PCIe version of Axio LE. A full-length PCI-X slot (66 MHz or greater) is required for the PCI-X version of Axio LE. The system must also have at least 2 GB of RAM. (Adding more RAM does not provide a significant performance gain for your editing application.)

Your choice of processors is a key element in the performance of your Matrox Axio LE system, particularly when it comes to certain CPU-intensive functions such as:

• Encoding and decoding compressed video, particularly in HD
  (HDV, DVCPRO HD, and MPEG-2 I-frame HD)
• Compositing multiple graphics layers
• Realtime color correction
• Realtime chroma and luma keying
• Realtime speed changes
• Realtime transitions (Matrox wipes, dissolve, additive dissolve)
• Realtime track matte
• Realtime SD clip upscaling in an HD project
• Realtime multi-camera editing

Matrox Axio LE is optimized to run on both AMD and Intel processors and to take full advantage of their unique architectures. Single-core and multi-core processors are supported. A minimum of two processing cores is required - either two physical single-core processors, or one physical multi-core processor.

When choosing the processors for your system, you should consider your typical workflow. If you plan to edit mostly compressed video, choosing top-of-the line processors may give you additional realtime capability that can be a significant time saver. However, if you will be working mostly with uncompressed video, which is not as CPU intensive, you may want to invest in larger, faster storage rather than CPU horsepower. Keep in mind that more processing power will also benefit many of your other applications, such as Adobe After Effects, Discreet Combustion, etc.

Matrox has validated a number of computers and motherboards for use with Axio LE. For each computer and motherboard, we provide performance results for the GPUs we have tested, as well as validation recipes that tell you how to configure the system.

Validated computers and motherboards:

• Validated computers and motherboards for the PCIe version of Axio LE (Axio.utils 3.x and Adobe Premiere Pro CS3)
• Validated computers and motherboards for the PCI-X version of Axio LE (Axio.utils 3.x and Adobe Premiere Pro CS3)
• Previously validated computers and motherboards for the PCI-X version of Axio LE (Axio.utils 2.0 and 2.5)
• Incompatible computers and motherboards