Build Recommendation Please

arttwood · #1 (**permalink**) 03-25-2006, 01:10 AM

Hi all. . .newbie here.

I've been editing videos as a hobby for a few years now - but with the bloated family PC (pentium 4 1.8ghz, 512MB ram, 150G HD, etc.)

I'm interested in building a PC specifically for doing video editing - but the fact is, I'm a hobbyist. I don't have the time (or the capacity) to scale the steep learning curve of the professional-level editors (Adobe Premiere Pro, etc.) I've been using Pinnacle Studio 9, Ulead, and Adobe Elements to-date - and aside from stability issues (which I attribute to the low-powered hardware), I'm quite happy with these solutions. Again, my objective is to take 3 hours of birthday/vacation/etc. video and put it into a 5-25 minute "slick" production. I've got no aspirations for commercial production.

OK - here's my question. I'm about to build my own system. As a principle, I want to build the best I can for the money - without spending too much unnecessarily. I don't NEED the very best - but if it's a matter of spending $50 or $100 more on a component or processor that really makes a difference - then heck - that seems to be a smart choice. Here's my preliminary build below. I think the biggest question for me at this point is, given my limited aspirations, am I "overbuying" on the graphics card? I'm not going to be doing any 3D special effects, CGI, etc. Just your typical suburban dad going way overboard on screen wipes, transitions, etc. Wink

Appreciate your thoughts:

Mother Board Asus A8N SLI Premium NVIDIA Socket 939 ATX Motherboard

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz HT
Dual Core
CPU Cooler Thermaltake RX Series CL-P0296 92mm

Memory (2GB) CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered

System Drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Video Storage Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

Case Antec P180

Power Supply Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W

Graphics Card Quadro 540

DVD Burner (Already have one - Pioneer 4x)

OS Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2 - OEM

Mark W · #2 (**permalink**) 03-25-2006, 10:05 AM

Cosidor a west dig raptor 10,000 rpm drive for the system, I got one and it made my system much more responsive.

arttwood · #3 (**permalink**) 03-25-2006, 04:14 PM

Not sure the Raptor is a good value (at least for me). The $/GB is pretty high.

Any thoughts on the PNY Graphics card? Is this overkill for Pinnacle Studio/Adobe Premiere Elements?

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 03-25-2006, 04:39 PM

I don't think you're going too overboard on the card, especially as more and more editing software is using the power of the GPU for realtime effects.

Bear in mind that the A8N SLI Premium has 2 x SATA RAID controllers, Within my setup of the same board, I have 4 drives accross two RAID arrays. I suggest you consider buying at least 4 drives.

arttwood · #5 (**permalink**) 03-25-2006, 05:01 PM

Thanks for the feedback. Very helpful.

As for setting up a RAID. . .I thought this was overkill too (I thought RAID setup was mostly necessary for Real-Time editing in a production environment). If you could indulge me with a few more questions:

* What are the practical benefits of RAID to the novice user?
* What is the purpose/value of 2 RAID arrays?

Thanks!

Art

Mark W · #6 (**permalink**) 03-26-2006, 10:18 AM

Not done raid yet, but when i added a raptor for the system drive my pc became much more responsive. I presume this would be even better with some raids.

arttwood · #7 (**permalink**) 03-26-2006, 02:49 PM

Given that I've got an Nvidia SLI-capable motherboard. . . .would I be best advised to get SLI-capable graphics card(s)? (The PNY does not have the SLI feature).

Thanks.

grewell912 · #8 (**permalink**) 03-26-2006, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by arttwood

Given that I've got an Nvidia SLI-capable motherboard. . . .would I be best advised to get SLI-capable graphics card(s)? (The PNY does not have the SLI feature).

Thanks.

this happens to be because pny is very crappy, i had a pny card and it lasted mere months, that was it....junk

arttwood · #9 (**permalink**) 03-26-2006, 07:57 PM

so. . . a graphics card recommendation in the $100-200 range?

grewell912 · #10 (**permalink**) 03-27-2006, 12:15 AM

something like that, with the new NLE's on the market, they are using the gpu to render, so a good gpu is key if you plan on real-time. i have a $400 gpu, but i play games......