What Kind Of PC is Best?

[Bearbegr]

Hello,

Okay,

I am now looking into getting a home PC for all my dvd burning needs, the Laptop is just not doing it for me! I have a Sony PCG-FRV25 Laptop, with a 40 GB HD, and 256 MBram... I thought this was enogh, but movies and such take a huge chunk of my HD, and it takes forever to burn a DVD on my external 2x dvd drive... Not to mention the editing and all that takes a lot of time to sit here and screw with the little mouse finger thing... So, now I want an actual PC for just DVD burning and games... What is the best? I was thinking of getting one built by my uncle, but still have no idea which parts are best... Any ideas would greatly help... Thanks

Chris

[Suntan]

Yeah uncle built ones are pretty good... 8)

All in all, pick your type Low, Mid or Top O' the Line

Start with a foundation of parts you want, list it, then start asking particulars

-Suntan

[yoda313]

Hello,
I can't wait for the mac people to pounce on your post

I am a PC user so I'll suggest that you OVERBUY everything so it will last awhile. Get as much ram and harddrive space as you can afford, you'll need it (ESPECIALLY for video).

I'd suggest getting a 3.0ghz or faster Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon.

Get a fast 3d card (at least 128mb if your a gamer like me, but there at 256mb already).

Get a DVD+RW DL if you want maximum capacity (8.5gb) but not everyone has had pleasant results.

Check out the bargains. You can get a prebuilt one for almost $300!! Keep shopping and you'll find what you'll.

As far as brands I won't make any suggestions as those are pretty subjective.
Kevin

EDIT ------ The fast computers won't be for $300. I meant to say SOME pc's will go for $300 after rebates. Those will be INTEL Celerons and come with low ram and storage.

I was chided for this later. My apologies for not punctuating and clearifying this.

[Suntan]

yoda,

Could you please point me to the link where I can buy a computer with a 3ghz P4 with 128mb vidcard, 1gig memory, 250gig hd and a DL burner for "close to $300"

I would like to buy about 50 of them...


-Suntan

[Bearbegr]

Yeah uncle built ones are pretty good... 8)

All in all, pick your type Low, Mid or Top O' the Line

Start with a foundation of parts you want, list it, then start asking particulars

-Suntan

I would have to say, I am looking to get a Top of the line PC... I do not want to have to buy another for a long while... I am looking to have it just for DVD authoring, and Gaming, but mostly just DVD aouthering... I have my laptop for any other needs I have... I was looking on Tigerdirect, and had no idea what I was looking for!... Only thing I know for sure is I do not want a Emachines PC... Way to many problems I have had with our old one...

[burnman99]

I'd go with the uncle built, providing your uncle is good at it. Personally i'd recommend an affordable Athon XP 2600 or so, and one of the Biostar M7NCG boards, probably the best value deal you can find. They don't support 64 bit CPU's but that technology has really been fully developed yet anyways. They also come with 128MB graphics card onboard, and a 8x AGP slot if you want your own grapics card. I'd get at least 512 MB Ram and 120 or more GB Hard Drive space if you are capturing video. The above items including case & DVD Burner shouldn't run you over $500 or so. I built the above for a friend of mine and he's real happy with it.

Hope this helps

Have fun stormin' the castle!
Rog

[gitreel]

A self built computer is always best, imho.

[yoda313]

Hello,

-Suntan-Could you please point me to the link where I can buy a computer with a 3ghz P4 with 128mb vidcard, 1gig memory, 250gig hd and a DL burner for "close to $300"

I would like to buy about 50 of them...

Sorry I think I punctuated incorrectly.

I MEANT to say SOME pc's are available for near $300USD AFTER rebates. But those are Celeron 2.5ghz and low memory and harddrive. My apologies for being slightly misleading.

My main point was to get as much memory and storage as you can get for video.
Kevin

EDIT ---- I also think most of the sub $400 rebate deals DON'T come with monitors. Some do but you have to CAREFULLY check all of the details of the rebate deals.

P.S. I'll try to be clearer in the future.

[Capmaster]

I hope you're ready for this thread to get real long, real quick. Every so often we get posts similar to this and since everyone has their own opinion of what the "best" PC is, everybody has different advice for you.

There is no "best" PC, but there are features that are more important than others for video editing:

1) Fairly fast CPU. 2500 Athlon or 2.6 GHz P4 or better.
2) Lots of RAM. Start with 512MB minimum, but the more, the better
3) Fast and large hard disk. The best ever is a 15K SCSI drive, but those'll put you in the poorhouse. Go with a 7200 RPM IDE disk minimum, even better is a 10K SATA drive. Start looking at about 120GB. Again here, bigger is better.

Stick with those three "biggies" and you're off to a good start

[dosun]

I would have to say, I am looking to get a Top of the line PC... I do not want to have to buy another for a long while... I am looking to have it just for DVD authoring, and Gaming, but mostly just DVD aouthering... I have my laptop for any other needs I have... I was looking on Tigerdirect, and had no idea what I was looking for!... Only thing I know for sure is I do not want a Emachines PC... Way to many problems I have had with our old one...

Bad time to decide on a top of the line pc. There are many new technologies comming out just around the corner and the 64 bit era is starting. Microsoft delayed its 64bit of windows, but its supposed to be comming out real soon. I don't think you should spend 3K+ on a computer right now with so many new significant changes comming about. Why not just get a midrange to hold you over?

[Bearbegr]

I would have to say, I am looking to get a Top of the line PC... I do not want to have to buy another for a long while... I am looking to have it just for DVD authoring, and Gaming, but mostly just DVD aouthering... I have my laptop for any other needs I have... I was looking on Tigerdirect, and had no idea what I was looking for!... Only thing I know for sure is I do not want a Emachines PC... Way to many problems I have had with our old one...

Bad time to decide on a top of the line pc. There are many new technologies comming out just around the corner and the 64 bit era is starting. Microsoft delayed its 64bit of windows, but its supposed to be comming out real soon. I don't think you should spend 3K+ on a computer right now with so many new significant changes comming about. Why not just get a midrange to hold you over?

Top to me is probably mid range to you... lol... The nice thing about a desktop is in can be upgraded as apposed to my laptop...

[Capmaster]

I would have to say, I am looking to get a Top of the line PC... I do not want to have to buy another for a long while... I am looking to have it just for DVD authoring, and Gaming, but mostly just DVD aouthering... I have my laptop for any other needs I have... I was looking on Tigerdirect, and had no idea what I was looking for!... Only thing I know for sure is I do not want a Emachines PC... Way to many problems I have had with our old one...

Bad time to decide on a top of the line pc. There are many new technologies comming out just around the corner and the 64 bit era is starting. Microsoft delayed its 64bit of windows, but its supposed to be comming out real soon. I don't think you should spend 3K+ on a computer right now with so many new significant changes comming about. Why not just get a midrange to hold you over?

Top to me is probably mid range to you... lol... The nice thing about a desktop is in can be upgraded as apposed to my laptop...

My previous machine was a laptop. It sure is frustrating watching your main machine get slower every week, knowing you can't easily upgrade it, isn't it? :P

[onewaypockets]

There is no real need to spend $3k on a computer.

About six months ago I had this site build mine... http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/

I got a 3.2mhz Pent 4
Western Digital Special Edition 80g
Corsair memory 1g
Intel brand motherboard 875 chip with gigabit lan
256k video card with DVI
Sony DVD burner
Sony DVD Rom drive (fast reading)
floppy
universal card reader (for digital cameras, etc)
450 watt power supply
server case with side window and two case fans

All for about $1400, and I see at this writing the price is a bit lower.

I don't work for them, just a happy customer. I'm not even sure if "uncle" could buy the parts for less than this. Why pick up a screwdriver?

If you wish you can build stuff from their site way beyond this...RAID biggie drives, 3.4 extreme edition processor, 2gig ran, $$$ video cards, etc. I did not have the need, I would have liked a 160g hard drive though...although the 80g I got is still fine.

P.S. The only big mistake I made in specing out the parts was the case. I ordered something called the "Z-alien" case. It looks like a friggen joke, glowing slant eyes. Everyone laughs at it when they come into my home office. I would not pick this case again!!!

[Vejita-sama]

There is no best, that is no one person can say that this system is 'the best' system. It's a trade off between money, time, stability, speed, etc. I personally prefer to buy AMD over Intel, then overclock. I'm currently running a Abit NF7-2 w/ Barton 2500+ OC to 215x11.5

But a lot of people are not willing to OC there system. In my mind, OC is the best way to go (dollar for dollar). If you've got the money just go to Dell and buy the fastest intel system they've got.

As for video cards, raid, etc. etc. It always works out better if you build your own. And that's a personal choice for which there is no one best answer.

[sumibas]

Go with the new pentum 4 775 socket 2.8 Ghz 178 $ at new egg
mother board 167 $ from gigabyte
128 video card 80 $
120 gb hd 70 $ after tebate (check locak office max or best buy)
good case would cost around 75 $
DVD dual writer NEC 80 $
memory corsair xms or kisgston hyper X 1 GB around 200 $

so around 850

[lordsmurf]

I've you've got money to splurge, go for RDRAM over DDR. Especially the 1066 version. Very nice stuff. I have a GB of 800 RDRAM, much better than the DDR system I have.

Intel tends to be better than AMD, especially on INTEL boards. Stay away from VIA if you can.

Those SATA HD's are nice.

Get a good PIONEER DVD-R/+R drive.

If you want games AND plan to do video capturing, take a serious look at the ATI AIW 9800 cards.

[dosun]

I've you've got money to splurge, go for RDRAM over DDR. Especially the 1066 version. Very nice stuff. I have a GB of 800 RDRAM, much better than the DDR system I have.

Intel tends to be better than AMD, especially on INTEL boards. Stay away from VIA if you can.

I don't know what two systems of RDRam and DDR you are comparing but nobody uses RDRam anymore. Intel failed to push it because it's expensive, hot, and must be run in pairs without any advantages over DDR. The trend was set for DDR years ago, when even Intel the initial supporter dropped it. ALL the newer boards, whether AMD or Intel uses DDR or DDR2.


Right now the speed race is neck to neck between AMD and Intel. AMD has a slight lead(even in video encoding), but their top of the line processor costs close to $1000 Intel migh be a better value.

BTW, if you are getting Intel go for the Northwood core. Do not buy the newer Prescott core. It runs hotter, pricier and offers no speed advantages.

[madvideos]

right now until 31st tigerdirect.com is giving away free computers. The rebate one.. after rebates it is free.. really stripped down to nothing more than just a case and mobo and chip so you really can not go wrong making yourself a dvd workhourse, they also have a dvd writer for 50 bux.. throw in a decent hd.. 512 ram and wam you have a 100 nice computer for working.

[gitreel]

The catch is limited upgradeability, limited software, little choice and obsolete hardware.

Sure why don't you get that free computer.

[budz]

I just built 2 pc's that cost $800.00 a piece. They weren't the fastest PENT 4 chips because there was no need for it since they are not doing video editing, just dvd burning, surfing the net and emails. Here's the specs on the pc's I built.

Pent 4 2.26 ghz chip, 533 side bus
Shuttle motherboard AB60N
Kingston Memory DDR333, 512 mb
Maxtor 120 gb 7200 rpm hard drive
VisionTek 9200SE AGP 8X 128 mb video card (radeon 9200 chipset)
Antec case SLK2600AMB, 300 watt power supply
Pioneer 107D DVD BURNER
Liteon SOHC-5232K CDRW/DVD-ROM
Samsung Floppy Drive

There were some rebates with some components and match pricing therefore making the cost of the pc's even cheaper.

Get a custom made pc built for you. Just don't purchase a DELL pc because they do not use industry components on their computers. Read this link:
http://www.upgradingandrepairingpcs.com/articles/upgrade3_01_01.asp

[Wetmonkey]

check out pricewatch.com for you components. all the best prices on the net. Stick with AMD better bang for you buck and easily overclockable with the right mobo. If your wanting to work with large data files shoot for 10K sata hard drives and a large 7200 ide for mass storage. Snag pc3200 ddr. Youll see the 3000+ AMDs arent to pricey for the oem...

[Gillies]

PowerMac G5... nuff said

[gitreel]

PowerMac G5... nuff said

Can you say expensive, proprietary hardware, not as much software as a pc and did I mention expensive?

[Nilfennasion]

You didn't mention reliable. The footprints left by Windoze are such that I estimate that when I migrate to Linux, I'll be encoding disc images in five minutes rather than twenty-five. I haven't used a recent-vintage Mac, but given that OSX is based on Unix, I can't say I can imagine Windoze comparing in performance terms.

In the end, this question has many sub-questions and answers. You can't get a definintive answer until you answer some questions yourself. Do you want to accept more responsibility for tinkering around in the guts of your computer, and be rewarded with security as well as superior performance? If so, avoid Windoze.

[sacajaweeda]

Most people don't really care as long as they can find the big "make DVD" button on the damn thing.

[Bondiablo]

NEVER EVER buy top of the line. Buy a step or two behind the bleeding edge and you'll get a system that's almost just as fast, the only place you'll ever notice the difference is in benchmarking tools, and you'll spend about half as much. As a general rule I say don't spend more than $1200 on a new tower.

As a good starting point I'd look at the 865PE or 875P motherboards with a 2.4C processor, 2x256MB of PC3200 ram, a 160GB 7200rpm HDD maybe 2, maybe the Lite On or NEC DL DVD burner, probably a seperate DVD reader for ripping, for games video card is most important at least a nvidia 5900xt, sound card is optional since onboard is probably good enough, pick a nice case and seperate, quality power supply of at least 400w. See what that adds up to then make improvements to that list as your budget allows. If games are most important I'd pick a faster video card if video work is more important I'd pick a faster processor and either way next thing would be more and maybe faster ram...