Recommend a budget desktop

[SIZZ]

Hello everyone, Im looking to get a new desktop (cheap, less than $500) since Im just getting into video editing and my laptop is having a very hard time with the avchd that my camera is spitting out. In the near future I plan on doing some multicam editing. Any recommendations? The thread on the dell inspiron 570 caught my eye. Anyhow here's my laptop specs, I think any desktop on the market would exceed this:

Processor Intel� Core� 2 Duo Processor T5750
2.0 GHz | 2 MB L2 Cache | 667 MHz FSB

Memory 4096 MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2 � 2048)

Video controller Intel� Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Up to 384 MB of Dynamic Video Memory

[lordsmurf]

AVCHD?
Look at quad core with 8GB RAM.
Lately I prefer Mac for HD work, too.

[redwudz]

That Dell 570 should work well enough with a three core AMD and 6GB RAM using W7 64bit. I would probably add a second hard drive as the boot drive is usually busy with the OS management and not the fastest for video work. For the price, it looks like a good deal, though with those upgrades, about $550US. The ATI Radeon HD4200 Graphics onboard should be OK. It doesn't include a monitor, so that may be an added expense.

For just simple editing, a fast dual core will work, but if you need to encode, and you will at some point, more cores and a fast CPU will speed things considerably.

And welcome to our forums.

[freebird73717]

I don't know your skillset but I'd suggest having a go at building your own. Checkout sites like newegg.com, tigerdirect.com, frys.com, or microcenter.com

I quit buying pre-builts a long time ago.

And Yeah I agree with LS. Quad core with lots of ram.

[handyguy]

Costco usually has some ZT Affinity computers around $600 that have nice specs.