Custom Building Computer?

[portrower8]

Hi,

Is it cheaper, or more bang for the buck, if I try to build my own computer for video eduting/ dvd authroing? If I want to build a custom computer, what kind of video card (graphics card) should I get? What should one get if they want for video editing/dvd authoring? I don't think I'll ever use it for games. Any suggestions?

I read that Pentium works better with Canopus... is the following hardware lineup good?

Motherboard:
P4C800-E Deluxe
Which has:875P chipset 800FSB/ max 4GB Dual-DDR400 Memory 800 MHz FSB
Dual-Channel DDR400 Memory, Intel PAT, Multi-RAID for ATA133 & Serial ATA, Intel Gigabit LAN, ASUS AI features
($175)

Processor: P4 3.00Ghz S478 (800FBS)
($300)

Hard Drives?
Sound Card?
Video/Graphics Card?

am I missing anything?

[The village idiot]

If you aren't using the graphics card for capturing or for gaming, then it really doesn't matter much. For your editing and encoding needs, processor speed is the biggest factor. Next is hard drive speed and memory speed and size. If you are using DV you can get by with a pretty simplistic machine. I use a Shuttle SS-50 machine and it works just fine with the onboard video and audio. Any of the Shuttle XPC would work fine for DV editing and encoding. 2 Hard drives are nice to have, it can speed up your encoding. Put the source on one drive, then encode to the other. Big drives are a good thing, more memory is a good thing. A nice big monitor is a good thing

[redwudz]

A lot of questions, a lot of answers. It will usually cost you more to build a custom computer, but you will have a better system that will be more upgradeable and more flexible than a 'store bought system'. If you spend a lot of time researching what you want and more important what you want to do with it, you will end up with a better system. As far as processors, the P4's have an edge on compatability, while the AMD's have an edge on price. If you want a 'dream' system it is going to cost you either way. You want a fast processor, 2-3GHZ. You want fast memory, DDR 3200 or faster. A large HD, 160GB or similar. Take a look at the computer profiles of some of the members here, and see what they are using. I spent a lot of time looking at websites to get the system I have now. I made a few mistakes. No matter what is 'state of the art' today, it will be old news tomorrow. You want a system that is flexible, that you can upgrade for at least a year or two. If you want to build your own machine, you can find websites that can lead you through the assembly process.

[jtommyj]

I'm in the process of upgrading my dual mp 1900 machine to a dual Xeon machine. I do major video conversion and want the extra headroom.
When I encode on a single processor system, it just seems to bog down the computer too much for my liking and since some encodes are 10 hours plus, dual solution works best for me.
For example, 1 system is P-4 2.4, 1 is XP 2400 @2.4 Ghz nad 1 is Tyan dual mp 1900.
With Tmpgenc, dual system takes between 1/2 and 3/4 of the time that the P-4 single and XP single do. Plus I can use Newsbin to download from newsgroups, surf the net or whatever with no bogdown.

[The village idiot]

Dual Xeon [drool] Dual is the best way to go, I just can't afford it right now.

[portrower8]

can anyone reccomend barebone systems, or motherboard with dual CPU etc on it?

does anyone have a good company they dealt with before you'd reccomend. Anyone's I should stay away from?

Thanks!

[LanEvo7]

Its always cheaper to build you own system. You can pick the cheapest NEW prebuilt system and it will be cheaper to build you own.

[jtommyj]

REally, to start with they aren't that hard to build yourself. That being said, I'll assume you are in the USA so you could try www.polywell.com for custom systems, both AMD and Intel.
For a Polywell dual 3.06 Xeon including ONLY case, PS, 2x Xeon 3.06, 2x 256 PC-2100 ECC registered ram, MB with on board graphics, no Hard drives, no nothing is 2112.00
If you bought similar items at Newegg and built it, your looking at around 1600. That's what I'm going to do because I've already got 1.5 GB of ECC registered ram, the PS, hard drives, etc, in my AMD box and will just swap out. While the prices are steep (AMD systems are MUCH less expensive), it is worth it to me.

[The village idiot]

can anyone reccomend barebone systems, or motherboard with dual CPU etc on it?

does anyone have a good company they dealt with before you'd reccomend. Anyone's I should stay away from?

Thanks!

Not many places will have a barebones kit for dual cpus, it's kind of considered advanced. Motherboards.org might be a good place to look around.

I've dealt with shopHarmony.com and tigerdirect.com as well as buy.com also one guy that only had an Ebay store, but I can't remember his store name. The dual machine are going to run above $1000 USD, even if you build it from parts. Dual AMD will be cheaper, but not as fast unless you buy the new 64 bit cpus, and a 64 bit OS like XP for 64 bit cpus. Tigerdirect lists some dual cpu machines, you might want to look at the web site, just be carefull, sometime they sell refurbed or used stuff and don't make it completely clear that the stuff is used!

[budz]

can anyone reccomend barebone systems, or motherboard with dual CPU etc on it?

does anyone have a good company they dealt with before you'd reccomend.

I would recommend www.mwave.com and compuplus.com in building your own pc. I have had great service from both companies. mwave.com has motherboard combo's you can choose from. They have many different motherboards to choose from. I've ordered 2 motherboard combo's from them. I found their prices reasonable compared to other websites I've seen. Check them out. The customer service is excellent.

[overloaded_ide]

Its always cheaper to build you own system. You can pick the cheapest NEW prebuilt system and it will be cheaper to build you own.

That is correct!
Except for one thing, you will build something much better, which of course costs more

Check out gotapex.com for good deals on alot of stuff! I have got some real bargins after looking for deals there. They don't sell anything, no tricks, no gimmicks. They just list TONS of discount coupons, specail deals ect... all to save you money!

I have often found coupon codes for $20 off $100 and $50 off $200 from stores like officemax.com and staples.com.
Although those type stores are often high to begin with, after using a coupon they are often good prices, then add in rebates they may have, sales items, check the clearance sections ect... You can save a bundle on great stuff! 80gig drives were well over $100, got mine from staples for just $75 after coupon, clearance markdown, and a rebate! This was quite awhile back, but just an example.

Almost always there are some types of great deals on dells and such!

Spec out your system to the least you will except, and the most you want!
Then look for the parts to start building it.
I buy most my parts from newegg.com, free shipping on more expensive type items like CPUs, system boards and drives, small stuff like mice or disks the shipping is too high and I buy elsewhere. They have a perfect track record with me! I buy alot and they never messed up!

Directron.com is also good! Bought there a couple times, shipping is about actual costs. Great selection of cases, and everything else! Prices are good.

It will cost you less building your own system than buying a prebuilt if it were exactly the same system. Normally you get a really better system building your own for the same price as pre-built, or you up or goals and build truely high quality system for more, but you can't even get those prebuilt anyway!

For example, I have 4 systems, planning to build #5 soon. Someone wanting a system to get on the net asked about buying one of mine. I said about $300 and they were like Hmph I can get a complete system at WallMart for $600, monitor printer and everything.
Ya sure but it's crap!! E-machine or HP, probably 128mg ddr, 40gig drive, all in one system board ect..
Mine is used very little, and HIGH QUALITY, nothing I build ever has less than 256mb ram even.

If you know your parts, or study up on them. Look for some sales you can build a great system for less than fair prebuilt system. Or if you got the bucks, you can go hog wild and just buy the best of everything and you'll have a system BETTER than ANY prebuilt for any price!

[gmatov]

Where does the port rower B sit? Second thwart on the left?

Do you have computer shows in your area? If you do, pay the 7 bucks to go in, with your list of desired parts, shop, if you find the right vendor, have them make up a "barebones", ie, case, board, CPU, RAM, HSF, and buy the rest of the parts and either take them home to install, or if the price is right, have the vendor install those also.

One caution I would give you is, if you do go to a show, make sure that you get a board with at least 4 PCI slots, for expansion in future, cap card, ATA card, etc.

Some of the barebones vendors put boards in with 1, yes, 1 PCI slot, all else on board.

500 spent this way will get you more computer than a 500 buck DELL (Compaq, HP), as well as 1000, or 1500.

Have fun. And don't be afraid to plug this stuff together. It's harder to screw one up than it used to be.

Cheers,

George

[portrower8]

Wow. I love this forum thing.. it's a great resource. I have a lot more reading to do. I've been reading forums here, canopus.com and at amd.com. It's a lot to digest, but I figured I'm better off asking all you - those who have done it and are doing it -- then just jumping in with my eyes closed or asking people who will throw marketing gimicks at me at take advantage of my noviceness.

Thank you all so far for your input -- I hope it keeps coming.

Does anyone know of any place offering student or educational discounts on hardware componets?

[portrower8]

Hehe...

I hope it's harder to screw up than it used to be. I've been reading on Intel's site too about the RAID and AGP, PCI slots etc.

PortRower8-- used to sit 8 (stroke)...but now usually 2

[gmatov]

Sorry, saw that as a "B", not an "8".

What're there, 16 plus the cox'n?

No, you WILL get a better sys if you buy what you want, you game (I know, you don't), you spend more on the vid card, music counts, more on a sound card.

Cheers,

George

[Bondiablo]

it's rarely if ever cheaper to build your own but you get a better system that's much easier to upgrade later where the ready made computer may have to be replaced entirely when you want to upgrade.

the 875p chipset boards are a waste of money unless you plan to use ECC ram, that's the only thing an 875p board has you can't find in an 865pe board. if you want to stick with asus go for the p4p800 deluxe.

[overloaded_ide]

One thing I should say also.
Decide what your wanting the system for! How do you plan to use it, how important is time, and how much do you want to do at once?

I think some here might agree with me, you don't need the fastest and best computer for video editing if your just gonna capture and burn, or ripp and burn! GOOD yes, best no.

If your gonna actually do rendering or encoding for best quality and take the time to really do it right, then you need faster and better, best!

In some ways you can cut your time in half with two slower systems than with one fast system!
For example, it takes the same time to burn a disk no matter how fast the system is. So it would make sence 2 systems with 2 burners are twice as fast as one (for different DVDs, not extra copies of the same)! Course you probably don't need that, but just for an example.

So if you had 2 decent but slower systems, one could be capturing for 2 hrs, and at the same time the other could be rendering for 2 hrs. Thus total time is less! You could most likely build 2 systems well to do that work for much less than trying to build one system to do both jobs at once! If that were even posible! And once you start rendering/encoding your not needed at that system again for a few hours!

Of course 8hrs rendering on 2 movies each is total 16 hrs! That takes 8hrs on 2 systems at the same time, or how much more power do you need to cut the time down by what amount to use just one system for both?
WHat I'm getting at is the best may not always be the best!
You can build 2 systems of decent quality far less than one top end system!

Right now newegg has the 2500xp 333fsb retail for $90. Biostar system board with that on specail is $146 (for both) (free shipping). I have 2 older biostars, I like them fine. Built in sound is good on the newest one, haven't tried it on the older one. That and good 512ddr ram would be a good start at a decent price.

Video card really is not that important, unless it's your capture card, or you do alot of gamming! If this is dedicated Video machine a cheap video card that does a good job playing DVDs is all you need! I've heard many people wrongly claim fast rendering from a video card is important! IT IS NOT!!! Video cards are only rendering like durring games, where basically raw data is feed to them and they render the game screen! ALL video editing rendering is done with the CPU, Ram, system board, hard drive ect! In this case the video card is only a playback device same as watching a DVD.

2 Good hard drives, one for a boot drive and software, the other for video work only. Boot drive doesn't have to be that large long as it's large enough. 60 or 80 gig should do well and leave working room, unless your gonna install a TON of stuff, extra room can be used for video storage also. Biggest Hard drive you can get a decent deal on for the slave drive (video drive).
Personally I preferr to stay under $1 per gig! I like maxtor 133 drives 7200rpm with 8mb cache and the 3 yr waurntee.
OEM is as good as retail boxed! You get a much better price for the same drive normally. What you don't get is a cheap ide cable, software (download it from manufactors site if you need it) or the pretty box!
Read here what a Nightmare those boxes can be!
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=181671&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Right now above type drives 120 gigs are $107 and 160gigs $134 at newegg.com That's about $0.90 and $0.84 per gig! Compared to over $1 per gig for smaller and larger drives.

Getting the biggest drive is not the best, nor the smallest. Getting the best price on the best drive is best! If you have extra space on the boot drive you can store video files there. If you need more drive space you can add a controller card for about $35-$40 and add 4 more drives!
The only two drives really needing to be fast are the boot drive (with software) and the editing drive! Any good drive will do for storage and playback!
Your gonna work the tar out of the video drives, so I really preffer the 3 yr waurantee!!

When you buy a case, if you can use a large one get a tower with lots of bays You never know how many CD or DVD drives/burners your gonna want, or hard drives.

For just a fast rip and burn, or capture directly to mpeg2 author it and burn I am plenty fast enough with a XP1700 and 1 gig ram, and the type drive I mentioned. I have not encoded with tmpgenc since I installed more ram. Now that I have mastered the fast method to my satisfaction for converting my VHS to DVD, I am going to start working with DV and analog and with tmpgenc. My results are as good as the tapes as far as I can tell, now to try and make them even better

[The village idiot]

For a system drive, I wouldn't go much under about 30GB right now. That way when you need to wipe it and re-install your OS it wont take forever like a 120GB drive will. It also gives you enough room to use to put rendered mpegs waiting for burning, then a second drive that has as much space as you anticipate needing. DV is 13GB per hour. Some of the other codecs are MUCH bigger.

Again, for DV work and ripping my modest little Shuttle SS-50 with a 2Ghz processor works fine. It only takes a little over real time to encode to mpeg at DVD sizes. For VCD I can go real time or less. Yes I wish I had a faster CPU, but it is not something that I really need. It may not be super expandable like a full tower, but it also doesn't suck down the power or take up the space like a tower. And with firewire, I don't care how many drive bays it doesn't have. A burner and 2 hard drives fit nicely, no need for a floppy.

[holistic]

......I wouldn't go much under about 30GB right now. That way when you need to wipe it and re-install your OS it wont take forever like a 120GB drive will.....

I think you mean it the other way round ?!!

][

[geek rock]

......I wouldn't go much under about 30GB right now. That way when you need to wipe it and re-install your OS it wont take forever like a 120GB drive will.....

I think you mean it the other way round ?!!

][

no, he said that a system drive (ie, one that won't be storing lots of capped video) shouldn't be much under 30 GB, 30 GB is enough for tons of apps and system files, but small enough for a hard drive formatting to be done quickly. (well.. faster than it would be to format a 120 GB drive..)

-Mark

[holistic]

I guess it is all it the way you read it.

I would have said system drive not over 30 gb due to it taking forever to wipe . ie: larger drives take longer to format .....scan ...etc

whatever

[overloaded_ide]

I like those little boxes too!

SHuttle has em, and now Biostar I think is making them too. I'd like to get one for portability. But I do like a big system myself, though many people don't. I have a large mid tower now with 4 5 1/4 bays and want a larger 6bay one, a friend just asked if I wanted to sell a smaller case I have that only has 3 5 1/4 bays cause his case is too large
It's smaller than my larger one.

Course cases are one of the least expensive parts, for standard cases!
The full tower I want is only $70 I think, and I can ripp everything out of any of my systems to install in it if I buy it latter.

Village,
Your right about smaller drives when you have to format! I partition my boot drive as about a 40gig and whatever is left if it's big enough to bother with. Only reason I don't want to buy a smaller drive is the cost of them. Not too high, but over my $1 per gig limit. I go for quality, but I am cheap too! So with a 80-160gig boot drive I partion to a 40gig plus whats left. Then the second partion I use for storing whatever, music, video, zip files ect..
Or something I am starting to do also now is partion smaller like 10gig for O/s only and install all programs to the second partion. I have run into just a few programs that require installed to C: other wise they all go to D: now. That also helps when formatting or doing fresh installs. I have all my files and progams still, just have to set them back into Windows again.
Makes ghost backups much smaller and faster too! Normally it's only the O/S I have a problem with, so most programs don't need backed up everytime.

[LanEvo7]

no, he said that a system drive (ie, one that won't be storing lots of capped video) shouldn't be much under 30 GB, 30 GB is enough for tons of apps and system files, but small enough for a hard drive formatting to be done quickly. (well.. faster than it would be to format a 120 GB drive..)

You can partition your hard drives. You don't need to wipe out the whole 120gbs.

[mujahid7ia]

http://www.mysuperpc.com is an ok resource[/url]

[The village idiot]

Yes you can partition them, bt when you actually wipe them with something like the Western Digital write all zeros utility, it wipes the entire drive. So it really is best to just use a smaller drive.

And yes the smaller drives are expensive, I just bought a Maxtor 30GB from Staples. After rebate it will be $30 (this is an online special only), while BestBuy and CompUSA have a Seagate 80GB drive for $60 after rebates. For double the money, you get more than double the space. Still trying to decide if I want to get a couple of those 80GB drives. And I should get another 30GB drive too.

[Ejoc]

I keep seeing people say that self built systems cost more then prebuilt ones, and seem to gloss over that they are better systems. Its not fair to say: "I bought a BMW in parts and put it together and it cost more then my prebuilt Pinto, therefore built systems cost more." Building the exact same system as a pre built one is always cheaper.

[cplevel42]

Building you own system is great experience and somthing you should do, and yes it often does cost more than a online store bought system, but it's still worth it.

There are cons though, like no warranty (only on seperate parts) or
on-site support. If you feel that you need these things check out the prices at these two sites below. I have purchased a system from each in the past and have been very happy with systems and the price paid. I have never needed any of the available support that is available.

www.cyberpowerinc.com and www.ibuypower.com

[mujahid7ia]

in the long run, u mite regret getting a smaller hard drive just to save time when wiping it... so 40 - 60 GB is (IMHO) a good size...

[gmatov]

First, I agree you will build a better machine for the same money, remember that a built machine comes with a licensed OS installed, so legally you have to add 100+ to the cost of a home built. Whether you do or not doesn't bother me.

I would suggest you buy the largest drives you can get for the money you wish to spend. Several, in fact. A couple 160s or 200s sound good, tho' the 200s are a little higher, gig for gig, than 160s.

I have always made a 10 gig or so partition for the OS, progs installed to it. A better idea is to make a 10 gig partition on a second drive, installed as C, install Win, install programs, put your second drive in as C, install Win again, then make shortcuts to the second drives installed progs.

C on the primary drive will get the registry all screwed up in time. Wipe and re-install. Your progs will still run, as they are on the second drive. Don't need re-install, re-register, as they ARE in Win Registry, only on the other drive.

Cheers,

George

[Jim G]

George --

Two questions if I may:

1. I live in the Steubenville area. Can you recommend someone in Pittsburgh (maybe in the West End near the airport closer to Steubenville) who could make a custome machine for me for a fair price and with a solid warranty and tech support? I'm seriously considering building my own machine, but inasmuch as I use it daily for my work, I am not sure I want to chance such an important item to a novice like my self.

2. Could you elaborate a little on what you wrote below. I really can't folllow your point all the way.

I have always made a 10 gig or so partition for the OS, progs installed to it. A better idea is to make a 10 gig partition on a second drive, installed as C, install Win, install programs, put your second drive in as C, install Win again, then make shortcuts to the second drives installed progs.

C on the primary drive will get the registry all screwed up in time. Wipe and re-install. Your progs will still run, as they are on the second drive. Don't need re-install, re-register, as they ARE in Win Registry, only on the other drive.

Thanks very much.

Jim G