Building a computer

Carnage7p · Post by **Carnage7p** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 9:12 pm

Ok IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m building a computer for college which will also serve as my editing computer. I need some advice. What are the 5 most important factors in a computer that make it perform editing well. this is an opinion thing so just pick what you think. obviously there are much more than 5 things.

stickmurder30 · Post by **stickmurder30** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 10:15 pm

well, one year ago when I builded my own computer I bought the best components i could get on the market... thus, I could not regret my choices....

Carnage7p · Post by **Carnage7p** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:38 pm

well that doesnt answer my question now does it. the reason i ask is because i dont have an unlimited budget and i want to know what my top priorities should be.

DAZMAN · Post by **DAZMAN** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:43 pm

in my opinion a good processor/ duel processor, large memory (at least 512 of ddr ram) a good, up to date graphics card, definatley a good capture card and a dvd rw.

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:11 am

DAZMAN wrote:in my opinion a good processor/ duel processor, large memory (at least 512 of ddr ram) a good, up to date graphics card, definatley a good capture card and a dvd rw.

Graphics card has little to do with editing /render speeds - maybe playback, but not the atual creation. Fast Hard drives ( Seriak ATA ) - Dual processors if you are using an editor that supports them will be an improvement ( ie Premiere Pro) but not that much of a boost if the software is not multi threading. For most 'bang - for - the- buck processors... AMD Athlon XP or MP are a great performer for the price - go for the fastest front side bus you can find , which will depend on the chip. 512 MB ram minimum, more than that would be good, but not that big of a performance boost at render time. The proc and hard drive system is the key to faster renders. If you are shooting DV, then just about any firewire will work well, but if shooting in an analog format, then the capture card will be critical.

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:30 am

research everything for common problems. Get the best you can afford. Chuck as much RAM at it as you can, nice stable OS, try to avoid any bottlenecking of processing

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 7:29 am

Don't cheap out on the memory. Every time I have bought the one on sale, it wouldn't work!

Carnage7p · Post by **Carnage7p** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:16 pm

yeah i plan on getting at least 1.5 Gb DDR RAM. i think my limit will end up being around $2500

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:48 pm

just make sure the OS and hardware can handle it, sometimes too much RAM can slow a system down and sometimes excess RAM has no effect on performance

Truggy · Post by **Truggy** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:52 pm

dude i bought a good PC from best buy for 2200$....good ram, good vid card, works fine for editing, why build it? go buy it from like best buy or a comp store or something

Carnage7p · Post by **Carnage7p** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 2:12 am

i'll tell you why because i bet you i could build your same computer for about $1500-$2000 thats why. that's a huge difference in price enabling me to build a sweeter computer.

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 2:27 am

true Carnage, With component parts i could build the same system much cheaper. Building PCs is easy, setting up the software takes time

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 3:03 am

Grant wrote:true Carnage, With component parts i could build the same system much cheaper. Building PCs is easy, setting up the software takes time

We duplicated a $3600 Alien system for less than $2200, and used better speakers and Vid card. I also think the case we found to use for it was cooler than the alienware case

It was also the first Opteron system we built, pretty impressive chip!

justsomeguy · Post by **justsomeguy** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 5:32 am

ahh also the all to much overlooked compnenet: th motherboard. you dont want to go cheap on that cause everything has to go thru it, it will allow you better upgraddes in the future, and yeah, it has a cool name.

i think my limit will end up being around $2500

with that amount of money you can get a really kick @$$ computer, i wish i had that much to spend on a comp.
if your buying online checkout www.newegg.com they usually have the best prices.

Carnage7p · Post by **Carnage7p** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:44 am

alright thanks a lot. does anyone know what the fastest processor available right now is?

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 11:08 am

go to
http://www.tomshardware.com/
and check out what they have to say and what comparisons/problems there may be

ssj3gohan · Post by **ssj3gohan** » Sun May 09, 2004 3:09 pm

fastest processor right now is a pentium 4 extreme edition 3.4 GHz with 2 MB cache. It's 1099 euros here in holland.

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Mon May 10, 2004 5:52 am

The funny thing is that in a year, that's going to be considered obsolete!

MFrosty · Post by **MFrosty** » Mon May 10, 2004 8:19 am

I always build my computers because then you can fix it yourself instead of paying hundreds of dollars for someone else to do something that's actually really easy to do. Don't buy the best processor out there, you'll be wasting hundreds of dollars for a few extra mhz. I bought a 3.06 and installed a watercooling system. That way i could get rid of almost all the fans in my case, making my computer really quiet. This makes audio dubbing and stuff way easier when there isn't this loud humming in the background. Also, I can overclock my ststem to 3.66 safely because the watercooling system keeps the processor pretty chilled. I don't normally do this though because this reduces the life of your processor. Never buy the very latest and greatest computer components because you will be wasting your money on something that is outdated in 2 months....ever heard of moore's law?

xbreaka420 · Post by **xbreaka420** » Mon May 17, 2004 8:18 pm

well first off
this is what id do
2.6p4 oc to like 3.2
1 gig of kingston hyper-x ram
radeon 9800pro about 210$
34gb 10,000rpm sata drive as system drive
a 120 gig for storage
another 80 gig external for general shiz
plus dvd rw

xbreaka420 · Post by **xbreaka420** » Mon May 17, 2004 8:19 pm

this is my low-budget setup
abit nf7-s
amd 2400+ mobile at 11x225
1 gig kingston hyper-x
120 gig drive
radeon 9800xt

Im gettin another 120 soon for my video files

ssj3gohan · Post by **ssj3gohan** » Tue May 18, 2004 4:58 pm

uhm are you really sure about this? this is really much lower-end than your last setup
I'd go for more RAM btw, and keep the FSB high! preferably get one at 533 or maybe (expensive) 800 MHz with the slowest cpu available for that config (probably a 2.4 GHz p4 for 533 MHz or a 2.55 GHz p4 for the 800 MHz FSB). This way you can always upgrade to get really big performance boosts when you've got the money. You can temporarily save on the peripherals.

lethelgirth87 · Post by **lethelgirth87** » Tue May 18, 2004 6:05 pm

PM Nightingale_Zero. He has a computer website, he can hook you up with the good stuff, and cheap too.