Need help from Computer geeks

[MaNuMaNiAc]

I'm looking to build a new desktop computer for various uses. The computer would be used primarily for video editing but since I'm quite an avid gamer, I want a computer that will meet the requirements of the newest games in the market. I'm looking to spend somewhere between $1500 to $2000.

Can you suggest a good set up? (Graphics card, motherboard, brand of RAM, etc)

P.S. I already have a monitor, keyboard, mouse. I'm just looking for CPU setups.

[hater]

what monitor do you have? if you will do video + gaming you can't go smaller than 24" monitor these days.

I just bought this monitor and I can't imagine looking at another monitor, it's amazing:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/acer_p243w_24/

[MaNuMaNiAc]

I agree with you on the gaming front I guess. In terms of video editing however, I don't think its very necessary to have a huge monitor. 24' is way too big IMO. I have a 19' Viewsonic and it works well enough.

[hater]

I used to say 19" is good enough until I got my 24" widescreen. Now I realize how silly I was.

Beleive me monitor should be on top priority it is the thing you interact with the most. What use is a kick ass pc with a tiny, old 19" monitor?

[MaNuMaNiAc]

I used to say 19" is good enough until I got my 24" widescreen. Now I realize how silly I was.

Beleive me monitor should be on top priority it is the thing you interact with the most. What use is a kick ass pc with a tiny, old 19" monitor?

when its either or, its not the top priority. I'd rather have a better graphics card or more ram than a bigger monitor. 19' is just fine for my purposes.

[Fernando TD21]

Remember, if you get a huge screen you will also need a great VGA (graphic card) to run some games on the native resolution.
Since you do video editing, I recommend a quad-core. 4GB of ram would be nice, specially if you are using Vista.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

I've been hearing about RAID systems being ideal for video editing setups. Anybody know why exactly?

[DizzG.]

$1500 to $2000.

That is to much money to spend. But if you want to spend it why not buy someone else system they spent 2500 on that way you have all you need.

[DizzG.]

Apple Mac Pro Desktop (Two 3.2 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon Processors, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 16x SuperDrive)

[PM5K]

For that much money I don't see why you can't get a new monitor as well...

[Steve Perry]

keep the updates coming!

[DannyT]

2 g's is way too much...for just a pc...unless your video editing is bringing money something can be bought for a bit less and be just as powerful....especially if youre building this bad boy by yourself

[TDMVPDPOY]

I just built this comp 2 weeks ago, dunno about the prices in america, but this is my system atm

CPU - Q6600 @ stock 2.4ghz
MOBO - GB-EP45-DS3
RAM - 4GB DD2 800 RAM
GPU - SAPPHIRE 4870X2
PSU - CORSAIR HX620
CASE - CM690
O/S - VHP64BIT
TOTAL = AUS $1700

PS. IMA overclock that quad of mine cause the cpu atm is bottlenecking the video card, and getting a 24inch LCD screen to fully utilized my video-card resolution at gaming 1900x1200 ftw

Quads is good for mul asking if you are doing alot of crap like openning multiple programs etc at the same time or video encoding/photoshop...

intel is having a price cut soon on there CPUs, so just wait till next month, where new intel i7 chips are out, which would hopefully decrease prices down for previous chips.

If your into gaming i suggest getting a 8400/8500/8600 cpu if you got no budget since these cpus can overclocked to +4ghz npz. Or you can settle for the 7xxx series cpus which has smaller cache, but can overclock quiet well as the 8xxx series. Duo core cpus are very good for gaming etc, but not for multi-handling stacks of programs at the same time, it wont bottlenecked ur high-end video card cause at +3ghz stock speeds is good enough.

that quaddro fx video card....lmao is not for games, only for clowns who do cad work dude.

[velik_m]

I've been hearing about RAID systems being ideal for video editing setups. Anybody know why exactly?

RAID is for security against disk failure. If you're doing this for living that's a good idea, however you're better off putting together a cheap file server for this purpose. Most PC's come with software RAID at most, and you really want a hardware one.
If you're not doing this for living, just set up a regular backup routine (e.g. once a week) to external data storage device, and forget about raid.

As for display, you will want as much work surface as possible, however better (and cheaper) solution is to buy a second screen and work dual screen, instead of just upgrading your current one (make sure your graphics card will support this).

As for the rest: go cheap on box, disk (as big as possible), DVD drive, use on board sound card and network card.
Go heavy on graphics (with plenty of video ram) and processor, buy as much ram as possible. Make sure your PSU will provide enough power and select motherboard that will support your configuration.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Here's the situation. I study cinematography so video editing is bound to be a part of my professional life in one way or the other. Point is, yes, I am planning on using this to make a living at some point.

For now I'll be editing my class projects, for which I've already earmarked 6k to buy a Panasonic HVX200a HDV camera. Now, the setup I need has to be able to handle HD editing and encoding so it will definitely be hardware intensive. I've been told that video editing doesn't really rely heavily on graphics cards though, BUT since I'm quite an avid gamer and it is necessary for me to buy most everything else to edit, I might as well s out a few extra bucks, get me a very decent graphics card and be done with it.

anyway, thanks for the advice gents! very much appreciated.

[baseline bum]

Absolutely do not buy AMD and do buy Core2Duo/Quad/etc if you want to do lots of video editing. Also, don't buy more than 3GB of RAM if you're using 32-bit XP, because it sets aside ~1GB of the 4GB address space for device addresses I believe. I'm not sure if 32-bit Vista does the same, but if I had to put money on it I'd guess it does. I wouldn't buy less than 3GB either though if I'm doing lots of video editing, especially with RAM being so cheap now. Of course, if video editing is a much higher priority than gaming I might be tempted to go Mac for Final Cut Pro.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Absolutely do not buy AMD and do buy Core2Duo/Quad/etc if you want to do lots of video editing. Also, don't buy more than 3GB of RAM if you're using 32-bit XP, because it sets aside ~1GB of the 4GB address space for device addresses I believe. I'm not sure if 32-bit Vista does the same, but if I had to put money on it I'd guess it does. I wouldn't buy less than 3GB either though if I'm doing lots of video editing, especially with RAM being so cheap now. Of course, if video editing is a much higher priority than gaming I might be tempted to go Mac for Final Cut Pro.

I've heard about the 32bit systems only using 3gb RAM, thanks for the confirmation. I personally plan on buying at least 4 if not more.

As for the Mac, I agree Final Cut Pro is a god send, but I'm not really a Mac person. Plus, I plan on doing several upgrades as time goes by and Mac is RIDICULOUSLY expensive down here in Argentina (I'm truly not really sure who can afford Apple here... I'm guessing the crooks in our government ). I think I'm going to stick with what I know and buy Pc. Plus Adobe Premier Pro CS3 is quite good.

[baseline bum]

Also, don't underestimate the need for large hard drives if you work with uncompressed video. Even something as low as 640x480 at 29.97 fps will likely take up about 3-4 GB/hour as uncompressed MJPEG (not counting sound or size added by container format). At 720p that goes up to around 16GB/hr for uncompressed video.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Also, don't underestimate the need for large hard drives if you work with uncompressed video. Even something as low as 640x480 at 29.97 fps will likely take up about 3-4 GB/hour as uncompressed MJPEG (not counting sound or size added by container format). At 720p that goes up to around 16GB/hr for uncompressed video.

yeah, I'm aware of the storage space importance. In fact, when talking HD, we're talking minutes = GBs...

I've also heard I should get two separate disks, one for my OS and programs, the other for video compression and project storage. Is this accurate?

[baseline bum]

I've heard about the 32bit systems only using 3gb RAM, thanks for the confirmation. I personally plan on buying at least 4 if not more.

As for the Mac, I agree Final Cut Pro is a god send, but I'm not really a Mac person. Plus, I plan on doing several upgrades as time goes by and Mac is RIDICULOUSLY expensive down here in Argentina (I'm truly not really sure who can afford Apple here... I'm guessing the crooks in our government ). I think I'm going to stick with what I know and buy Pc. Plus Adobe Premier Pro CS3 is quite good.

Definitely look it up to make sure I'm not full of crap on the 3GB barrier. Even in theory, you cannot use more than 4GB of RAM on a typical 32-bit OS (32-bits can only address 2^32 different bytes, i.e., 4GB, as 1GB = 2^30 bytes).

If you use Linux you can build a 2.6 kernel to be able to address 64GB on a 32-bit build, but XP certainly does not have this, and I doubt Vista does in its 32-bit form. You might want to research 64-bit Vista though. I haven't paid any attention to it in a while, and while it was crap the last time I checked, maybe 64-bit Vista works decently now.

[baseline bum]

yeah, I'm aware of the storage space importance. In fact, when talking HD, we're talking minutes = GBs...

I've also heard I should get two separate disks, one for my OS and programs, the other for video compression and project storage. Is this accurate?

I would, but that's mostly because I wouldn't want to lose any of my video if I have to reformat the system par ion. Windows par ion management on the installation disk sucks ass, and I wouldn't risk a lot of data by keeping it on the same drive as my system par ion, even in a different par ion.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Definitely look it up to make sure I'm not full of crap on the 3GB barrier. Even in theory, you cannot use more than 4GB of RAM on a 32-bi (32-bits can only address 2^32 different bytes, i.e., 4GB, as 1GB = 2^30 bytes).

If you use Linux you can build a 2.6 kernel to be able to address 64GB on a 32-bit build, but XP certainly does not have this, and I doubt Vista does in its 32-bit form. You might want to research 64-bit Vista though. I haven't paid any attention to it in a while, and while it was crap the last time I checked, maybe 64-bit Vista works decently now.

got it thanks for the heads up

[MaNuMaNiAc]

I would, but that's mostly because I wouldn't want to lose any of my video if I have to reformat the system par ion. Windows par ion management on the installation disk sucks ass, and I wouldn't risk a lot of data by keeping it on the same drive as my system par ion, even in a different par ion.

well, from what I've heard its also an issue of performance as well. Of course, I could be wrong. Still, even if its just the safety angle, I'd buy two just for that.

[TDMVPDPOY]

i suggest you have one hdd for ur programs, a very fast sata hdd 7500rpm-15000rpm....

then 2 750gb in a raid setup...

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Anybody know what is better, one nVidia gtx 280 or two 8800 GT in SLI?