Hello there!

I've worked on several small video editing project over the last few months while at work. I'm doing this on my fairly standard desktop PC, and without any type of specialist hardware.

My question is this... after i have finished the editing process and i'm ready to export my work, which piece of my hardware contributes the greatest amount of effort whilst the frames are being rendered?

I know that a large CPU and plenty of RAM is definatley beneficial, but i was thinking more along the lines of graphic cards. Do they make a significant differance during rendering?
If they do provide the 'processing power' behind the rendering could someone advise me one what i'd be looking for if i were to buy such a card.

I havent needed to do any video capture as of yet, so if a graphic card solution is the way forward it wouldn't need to have any capturing capabilities.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!