Best bang for the buck on an encoding/editing machine.

[Helltrain]

I am trying to put together a list of components for my next PC build. I am not much of a gamer on the PC (that’s what the 360 is for) but I like to do a lot with video. I plan on using Adobe Premier Elements 4, TMPGENC 4 Express, VideoReDo TV suite and possibly a few others. I don’t do a lot with HD video but I see myself getting there in the not-too-distant future.

Anyway, I am wondering which components would I get the most benefit from higher end parts? This is my parts list at this point:

MOBO - MSI P6N Platinum SLI
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Model BX80557E4500
RAM – 2 X 1GB
VIDEO – ASUS EN7300GT SILENT/HTD/256M GeForce 7300GT 128-bit GDDR2
OS – Windows XP MCE 2005

HDD – I have a 300 GB IDE hard drive from my previous install (main drive crashed). This drive has all my data on it. I know that Adobe recommends having a separate drive for storing (and encoding to I am guessing) video. Since the board supports SATA2, would I be better off using the IDE drive as my primary OS drive or my video drive?

RAM – Would there be any encoding related performance with high performance ram or should I just stick with value ram?

VIDEO – I was thinking about stepping up to the same card in a EN7600GS chipset for $20 more, would this be worth it? I am leaning toward these Asus cards because there is no fan on them. From previous experience I am trying to limit the number of fans in the case mainly because it is one more thing to fail and have to replace. This is also one of the reasons I picked this board. I had a pinnacle studio tech tell me one time that adding a more substantial card to my old system would increase the performance of their software as it offloads some of the processing to the GPU. I am not sure if this is something that is unique to pinnacle or if most programs do this.

I know these aren’t the highest end parts, but I am also pretty limited in terms of funds (kids and all that). Just wanting to get an idea of where I will get the most bang for my buck when it comes to video encoding/rendering.

[Krispy Kritter]

For video encoding, you will want the fastest cpu that you can afford. Encoding is all cpu speed, the faster the cpu, the quicker the encoding.

RAM - unless you plan on OCing, you only need RAM that meets your MB specs and "budget" RAM isn't always the cheapest.

Video - for normal everyday use, this is mostly irrelevant. Any of last few generations of cards are plenty quick enough. With that said, the nVidia 8500/8600 series cards support onboard h.264 decoding. Which can be useful in a case like this, where it sounds like you are building a HTPC.