complete new system hardware advice needed

[bj52]

ok folks i'm ready to take the plunge and i'm looking for some good and unbiased (if possible) advice on hardware.i want to build or get built something "toward" a high end machine.i know what i got is just tooooooo antique to fool with,somwhere below 400 mhz, so i'm ordering a new machine with all the hardware if possible. while i can't say money is no object i'm trying not to make that the main priority. 3 grand might be ok but less would be a lot better. much over 3 might decide wether i really want to get into this hobby or not.mainly i just want to capture some tv and put it on dvd so there won't be any real expertise going into all this.i've read till my eyeballs are falling out so i'm fairly well informed but makeing decisions is not my strong suit given so many options so some good suggestions would be greatly appreciated regarding hardware for this hobby. i plan on configureing something online to buy to avoid buying parts from too many different places and building myself. the less dealers to wrestle the better huh? i got a place picked out from reseller ratings to order from but to keep from rustleing any feathers i'll keep that under my hat.
so with that being said if you have the time to kill i'd appreciate your slapping me around and stepping on my toes to get me in line here.

any preferances on where you'd buy from?=

intel-p4 or AMD? AMD64?=

chipset?=

mainboard gigabyte GA-8KNXP,msi, or something else?=

graphics card asus ATI Radeon 9600 XT/TVD or something else?maybe cheaper graphics and something like a canopus advc-50 for the captureing?=

1 gig of memory enough?=

leaning toward a lian li pc-60 case with enermax 550 watt ps or would it be better to go cheaper on he case and put the saveings toward some sort of rendering card?=

NEC 8X DVD+-RW ND-2500A burner sound ok?=

onboard sound ok or do i need a better card and just how good does it need to be?i already have a SB live value=

for hdd i'm thinking 2 250 gig sata wd's in raid 0 for storage and capture with 120 gig for the os. but i'm wet behind the ears on this so step on my toes if need be.=

monitor's optional but i was thinking about a new 19" crt.=

sorry for the long post but i'm dieing to get started could really use some expertise makeing these decisions.

[Shudder]

Wow.. you might have a hard time spending 3 grand

I'm an AMD fan myself, simply because I prefer to have good performance at a good price instead of good performance at a less-than-good price.

Don't even consider putting in the Live card. It's junk and if you even find drivers for it it won't work like it's supposed to. If you REALLY want to get a good audio card, get something like the m-audio audiophile 2496, but you probably won't need that if the video card has some audio in.. If you're not going to be a gamer, get the cheapest ati AIW-ish card you can.. like the 9600 over the 9800

1 gig of memory should be fine, but you know what they say about memory. If you don't, look it up

Not really experienced with RAID, I go standard myself. 19" should be good at a good pricepoint (like 190 for samsung 955f or something). I personally wouldn't even want anything larger than my 19 But if youw ere planning on spending 3k (which you won't these days) you could probably get a good lcd monitor, but that's up to you.

[SLICK RICK]

You seem to be on your way to building a great PC.

any preferances on where you'd buy from?=

Newegg.com

intel-p4 or AMD? AMD64?=

I have a 2.8 P4 with HT and I am happy with it. In the end the decision is up to you though.

chipset?=

875 is the latest, I have 865

mainboard gigabyte GA-8KNXP,msi, or something else?=

ASUS

graphics card asus ATI Radeon 9600 XT/TVD or something else?maybe cheaper graphics and something like a canopus advc-50 for the captureing?=

Since you are wanting to capture, you might want to look at an ATI AIW card.

1 gig of memory enough?=

Yes

leaning toward a lian li pc-60 case with enermax 550 watt ps or would it be better to go cheaper on he case and put the saveings toward some sort of rendering card?=

Completely up to you, When I built mine a few months ago, I put alot of money on hardware that I wanted a nice case also. So I spent a little more for a custom case.

NEC 8X DVD+-RW ND-2500A burner sound ok?=

Yes

onboard sound ok or do i need a better card and just how good does it need to be?i already have a SB live value=

If you get a good mother board, then the onboard sound should be just fine.

for hdd i'm thinking 2 250 gig sata wd's in raid 0 for storage and capture with 120 gig for the os. but i'm wet behind the ears on this so step on my toes if need be.=

That sounds like a good start.

monitor's optional but i was thinking about a new 19" crt.=

If you have any money left to spend a LCD monitor would go great with a system like that.

Just my thoughts..........

SLICK RICK

[shelbyGT]

an upper limit of three grand? jesus do you know what you could get for under 3 grand?! My comp is, in my opinion, very nice, and it was only $1700. I got it from abspc.com and they have some nice stuff for well under what your ceiling is.

and if you are building it yourself then ... man that could be a kickbutt system.

[Treebeard]

Just some good websites to order parts from

newegg.com
zipzoomfly.com
mwave.com

all very good service, lots of free shipping.

wish i had some money to build a new rig.

[funkguy4]

Since you're going to be doing video encoding, and your "upper limit" is like the sky, I would suggest a high-end Pentium 4. Maybe a gig or 2 of RAM. Make sure this RAM is more than adequately rated for your system. I recommend an Asus or Abit mainboard, check their websites to find what you want. Probably one of the Serial ATA ones with 800 MHz FSB dual-channel memory controllers. Get some 120 gig SATA hard drive. GET A NICE CASE WITH GOOD COOLING. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH! Get a SLK-900 heatsink (or the newer one) with some high-end 80mm fan.

You'll be able to find all the parts you want at the vendors at pricewatch.com.

I recommend strongly that you get your memory from buyaib.com.

As for the other stuff, just get it at some vendor listed on pricewatch.com
Don't forget to watch out for vendors where multiple items you are buying are at cheap prices cuz this can save u a ton on shipping.

GOOD LUCK YO!


.....damn 3 grand...i could get a dual-P4 system for that....

BTW: I was an AMD enthusiast, but when I started the video stuff AMD started to suck I've got my solid XP 1900+ here, and I'm jobless so there's no way I'm gettingt a new computer for a another few years (...tear)

[Hardcoreruss]

$3000 you'll get a beast for that. I just built my own pc, check my specs cost me £1467 all in without a monitor

[holistic]

Greetings bj52 and welcome.

Before we go any further , I noticed this statement from you.
...mainly i just want to capture some tv and put it on dvd ....

If this is the case, you really could get away with something for half of the 3G's you want to blow.

Some details :
Both AMD and Intel make a good product. In fact i have some of each. My old 'video' machine was a PIII 700 @933 with 384Mb ram and two 30Gb ATA66 drives. This was sufficent for 352*480 huffyuv captures and MORE than sufficent for DV. My new machine is an AbitNF7-S with a 2500+barton core (1.8Ghz) running at 2100Mhz (rock soild) 512Mb ram and two 120 GB ata133 drives, an old GeForce3 VIVO i now use for occassional analog captures.

The 'old video' machine was up to the task but i got some good deals on hardware and put the new one together for under $900US.(see profile).

Sooooooooo going with your above statement, I would suggest the following :
A good motherboard with "future" expanability.
http://www.motherboards.org/motherboard-rank.html

In this case the best "value for money" is the nForce / AMD boards.
Most of these motherboards come with built in LAN ,USB2, Firewire & 5.1 audio.

Of course with this board you will need to go AMD .Look at the barton series processor.

Note : before the flaming starts --- yes the P4 will encode faster, but unless you are running an encoding factory ,I don't see the need.

HARDDRIVES :
You DON'T NEED a raid array, you don't need SCSI. This may have been true a few years ago, but todays drives are plenty fast enough. Remember DV is 3.7MB/second and D1 (720*480) is approx 25Mb/sec .With in the capabilities of most ATA133 drives.

VIDEO CARDS
The most popular card on the boards these days seems to be the ATi A.I.W Radeon series. These cards have VIVO (VideoIn-VideoOut) , built in TV tuners and TV out. They also capture straight to MPEG2. This feature alone will save you time.

DVD BURNERS
Whatever ! . 4x burn speeds of course - cheap these days. Plenty of good products here. Consider this though ::: Buy a 4X burner at $100 versus an 8X at $200 technology changes so fast the 4x will be a good buy till maybe a 'dual' layer burner appears. (soon)

As suggested , get a good case , good cooling.
ANTEC makes nice cases and power supplies.
512Mb DDR400 good to start with -- 1 Gb overkill (for video)
Since it sounds like this is just a TV to DVD hobby, a good quality monitor is suggested - BUT have you considered how you plan to watch these DVD's you make???.

A suggestion :
This machine ..... http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=387
Will do all you need and more -- Just add AIW Radeon and DVD burner and you have a quiet mini home entertainment system.
The money saved can goto a nice LCD projector....There 3G spent !!

][

[bj52]

ok folks sorry i'm late getting back but i been doing a lot of reading.
so this is what i'm about to settle for unless you can give me some better opinions. gonna wait a few more days to see if prices drop.no overclocking just looking for stability.
case=enermax cs-10182-ba
power supply=enermax EG651P-VE (FMA) 550 watt or Antec True550 550Watt
mother board=Abit IC7-G
processor=intel P4 3.0GHZ 800MHZ FSB
heat sink=Retail HS & FAN

memory=now here i'd like to know if regestered ecc would be better.
1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 TwinX1024-3200C2PT Corsair XMS

harddrive=so i read maxtor is better for video,seagate quieter,WD better.who knows. but for the time being i'm am dodgeing the raid 0 till i get use to the system.
Western Digital Caviar SE ( WD2500JD ) 250GB 7200R 8MB SATA
Western Digital Caviar SE ( WD2500JD ) 250GB 7200R 8MB SATA
Western Digital ( WD2500JB ) 250GB 7200RPM 8MB IDE
dvd burner=nec 8x DVD+-RW ND-2500a/GBP
sound=on board till i see if i need better
video=Asus Radeon 9600 XT 128MB ddr VIVO 8X AGP
os=Win xp pro

that totals to roughly $1925.00
so what do you think about adding some sort of real time editing card to speed things up? this i know nothing about so someone with some experience please comment.
CANOPUS DV STORM2 REALTIME MULTI-TRACK EDITING SYSTEM W/STORM BAY ? or maybe
Canopus DVRaptor RT2 with a Canopus ADVC 100
one last thing.i want to capture some movies from the satellite to put on dvd. so what i read is captureing in DV is best and thats why i had mentioned the Canopus ADVC 100

ok folks i'm done. sorry for the long post again. i really appreciate your help on my first post and would appreciate any more advice you might have based on your experience cause i aint got none. but i'm gonna learn with your help.
thanks again and i won't bother you folks any more.

[holistic]

mainly i just want to capture some tv and put it on dvd

Some nice hardware there. I sure hope it is put to better use that just TV captures.

Some good choices, the power supply is going a little over board -- but hey 'all the power to you'
Of all the OS , XP-Pro will give best compatability with current software - good choice.
A little overkill on the drives ..... each to their own i guess.
And -- Whats with the monolith of a case? Give the Antec Sonata a look-see . It gets points for style and it helps supress noise. ie: quite case.



Again, refering back to your original "usage", a stand alone recorder would proberly be a better choice.

][

[zleepy]

Again, refering back to your original "usage", a stand alone recorder would proberly be a better choice.

Right.
He never mentioned editors like Avid, Premiere, Vegas or the $50 DVD Factory.

[bottle-necked]

If you've got 3 grand to spend then get a 8KNXP mb and setup what I wish I had, a 4-drive IDE Raid-0 array and a 2-drive SATA Raid-0 array for video and capture.

Bring your $$$$, I'll help you spend some.

*********
My 2 cents worth:::
you don't need ecc ram
Corsair is good memory, just check their recommended chart for you MB.
Upgrade the heatsink/fan and do some case cooling
WD - my favorite
ATI AIW 9800 Pro
take the money you have left and buy a nice Mini-DV Camera

Good luck.

[funkguy4]

If you get a 2.4GHz P4 with the 800MHz FSB I heard and then saw that it is an overclocking monster. And I recommend this with a high-end heatsink/fan combo. This will be heckuva lot cheaper.....and you can show off to your budds that you can overclock if they're comp-literate....