Need help finding the right CS5 Prem Pro PC. Please help.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Gents:

Based on recent developments, I’ve finally decided to have a PC specifically built to for an upcoming upgrade from Premiere Pro CS3.2 to CS5. Since I can’t build it myself, would you please be willing to offer some recommendations for online solutions that are: safe, reliable, reputable, reasonably priced, fair and offer some kind of a guaranty or warranty?

I’m thinking that a custom configured system from one of the major manufacturer would be overly pricey part per part and offer limited choices. My budget is roughly $1,000-1,200.

For parts, (considering I don’t want to spend $1,500 or $2,000 for a top of the line or upper end machine) please list in detail what combination would you choose if you were in my shoes that would meet the following goals/criteria:

It doesn’t have to have the best and speediest components, just be reliable, stable, yield smooth playback quality and render well at a reasonable speed. I’m not a power user by any means so it will receive moderate use, the CPU won’t be maxed out.

What questions should I have asked or important considerations that I should keep in mind when making my choice?

Another objective is not only to buy a full-fledged & dedicated CS 5 machine for myself but another unit with lesser firepower that my wife can use and also function as acceptable back-up in case something goes wrong with the first.

I noticed “Dell 7 days of deals” started today. I’m not yet attracted to what they have but wanted to just list the core specs of a couple of their “deal” systems and leave them to you experts to critique and offer suggestions as to what I should do, not do, why and steer me along the right path.

1) Studio XPS 7100: AMD Phenom II X4 945/ATI Radeon HD5670 1 Gig VRAM/8 gigs memory.
2) Studio 8300: i5-2300 @ 2.8ghz/ATI Radeon HD5450 1 gig VRAM/6 gigs ram

Are ATI Radeon cards up to the demands of CS5 or are Nvidas card the way to go? How does one differentiate on card from the next within NVIDA?

I was wondering how a variation of or an upgrading of these key components would potentially fit my needs, expectations and budget. I had asked a similar question about 6 months ago however the parts market and choices has changed,

Thanks for any and all help offered. Please contribute and get this discussion started!

[edDV]

Are ATI Radeon cards up to the demands of CS5 or are Nvidas card the way to go? How does one differentiate on card from the next within NVIDA?

NVidia Quadros are the refernece cards for CS5. Probably outside your budget. GeForce Cuda next best.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/builtforadobepros.html

Use the Adobe compatibility database.
The GeForce GTX 285 is lowest card certified to support GPU acceleration.
The GeForce GTX 470 has twice as many Cuda cores.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/search_result.html?manuSearchVar=1&modelSearchV...&buttonSubmit=

[lowellriggsiam]

I am using this to run CS5. Based on cost/benefit ratio it gets the job done. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227317.