Hello! I need some advice about my computer, but wasn't sure where to post this. I'm new to DV editing, as a hobby, just bought a camera, etc. etc. However, have been using Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, etc. for a while (don't ask). Question is this: my machine is 2GHZ, 128MB video card, 1GB RAM. I'm thinking about spending some dough for a faster machine with a better video card (512MB) and more RAM. To this point, I've been able to work fine with my current system, but I could always go for more speed, and we're always looking for more power, right? (512MB is tempting me!) But someone told me they thought I'd see enough of an improvement if I added another GB of RAM that I wouldn't need to buy a whole new setup. I need guidance from you experts. Will my current setup, plus another GB of RAM, be sufficient for heavy usage in Premiere & AF, or would I see a sufficient upgrade with a new setup to justify the considerable cost? I'm not looking for perfection, I just want something reliable for some fairly intense editing and effects-work... thanks in advance for your help!

I'd say that the weak point of your system is the CPU. Dual Core, 3 GHz minimum... ring any bell? Of course, adding more RAM would be of SOME efficiency too.

For video editting you really do not need to worry yourself overly much on the video card. To be honest I'm not sure the vide card will make one ounce of difference to Premier pro. Certain effects in AE will make use of the GPU though so don't discard the idea of a better/faster graphics card entirely. But you're almost certain to get a better return on a faster processor and more RAM. If you have Premiere Pro and AE running together then I would consider 2Gb of RAM to be your starting point. I'm getting by with a 3GHz P4 but it's feeling a bit sluggish lately and I'm considering something new for the middle of next year maybe.

Also, something important but not mentioned is HDD space. You want a minimum of two physical HDDs. One for the OS and s/w and the other for video work. The first can be small (around 80Gb) but the video drive wants to be big enough for your work and (as you are using Adobe s/w) make your big drive an internal drive as well. If you phone Adobe support you'll likely still get told they only support internal drives rather than networked or external drives.

Other things you can do to get bigger bang for buck is not edit high def in native Premier Pro 2 as well. I'm sure it works ok but ther's better high def routes than plain vanilla PPro.

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