Designing your Matrox RT.X2 system
Your particular workflow requirements and budget will determine the specific components you should choose when designing your Matrox RT.X2 editing system. To get the absolute maximum number of realtime layers and effects, in all cases, you can combine a top-of-the-line computer system, a high-performing GPU, and the largest, most robust storage subsystem. 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.
Your Matrox RT.X2 editing system relies on the power of your CPU to perform some effects and to decode and encode video streams. It relies on the power of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) in your system to process Matrox hardware-accelerated effects (Flex GPU 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.
Another consideration is the chassis that will house your components. Matrox RT.X2 is a full-length PCI Express (PCIe) card. It requires a chassis that can accommodate a full-length card. Matrox RT.X2 SD and RT.X2 LE are standard-sized PCI-Express (PCIe) cards that fit in any standard computer chassis.
Matrox has validated a number of computers, motherboards, chassis, display cards, storage subsystems, and DVI monitors, and provided guidelines to enable you to make an informed choice as you choose the components for your own Matrox RT.X2 editing system or work with your Matrox RT.X2 dealer to specify a turnkey system. Matrox dealers have validated additional computers and motherboards for use with RT.X2. Matrox does not have these systems in-house so we may be limited in our ability to troubleshoot them.
Minimum system requirements
The Matrox RT.X2 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 (PCIe) slot available
- 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)
- Separate NTFS formatted hard drive for A/V content
Choosing a computer or motherboard
Choosing a chassis (does not apply to RT.X2 SD)
Choosing a DVI monitor (does not apply to RT.X2 SD)
