I'm building a new PC! Help me put it together!

[vetski179]

I do a lot of video editting, and DVD, SVCD, and VCD encoding using Premiere and TMPGEnc. Have a 100G hard drive and a 20G that will go in, as well as Pioneer A04, and 2 additional optical drives. Want to use a ATI AIW 8500, or, maybe a AIW 9700. I am not a gamer, just want to use the ATI to capture from my satelite to make DVD's, SVCD's, or VCD's. I read TMPGEnc is optimized for Pentium 4. I currently am using a 1G Athlon w/Win 98SE. Want to use XP or Win 2K with new system so I can get away from the 4G file size limit. So, I guess my questons are: 1) What processor? 2) What type of memory and how much? DDR? 3) MOtherboard? I'd like an board LAN, USB 2.0. The ATI will have 1394, but, if I can get it on board too, that's be great. I do not want the latest and greatest, but I would like to up the speeds at which the various tasks are taking now. Thanks for your advise-

[i_am_dave]

What can you afford ???

I don't have the details on specific hardware, but...
My ideal system would have the following charactaristics:
Dual P4 processors (The fastest available)
At least 512 Mb of the fastest DDR ram I could afford
Windows XP pro
One 120 Gig hard drive (for the OS and programs
One RAID array(hardware RAIDed, not software), each consisting of a 2 or more 60-80Gig hard drives(15000 rpm), for video processing.
USB, firewire, and LAN onboard.
High end video card(with capture capability)

I looked at doing this a couple years ago, but we needed to purchase a new car instead, so I ended up spending about $2000 on a canned solution from HP.
It would be easy to spend > $5000 on a system, maybe sometime around 2015 when my youngest kid gets out of college

[Hardcoreruss]

How much have you got to play with

[arcorob]

This is really easy !!!
First , so you know, prices are down down down.

You can get a TOP ASUS board for under 100 dollars. Come iwth On board Lan , USB 2.0 , IEE1394 and more.

Pentium 4 2.4 Gig 533 MHZ bus CPU (Close to the bleeding edge but off enough to save money) under 150.00

DDR memory - Minimum 512meg - Cost 64.00 for 512 meg High Quality PC2700 333mhz DDR ram

80 Gig UDMA 6 hard drive for capture and formatted NTSF to go over 4 gig, 79 dollars - But you are already set ..so skip this

cost 314.00

I could go from here and provide you links if you like....

I do this REGULARLY

[Raen]

If you do alot of video editing you should invest in a motherboard with hyperthread technology. The MSI 655 max FISR is an amazing board There are 2 models, one with HT(Hyperthreading) one without. Be sure to get the one with hyperthreading.

Right now there's only one CPU out that does hyperthreading. That's the Pentium 3.06 Ghz. ITs also the msot expensive chip. I got mine for 585 dollars. If you can't afford that then wait til the price drops and go with another cpu til then, but still buy the HT ready board for when you do upgrade.

The MSI board also has dual channel DDR ram 400. Dual channel ram acts similair to a RAID system for harddrive, but for ram. In other words it makes it blazing fast(but you have to have 2 identical ram modules.) I would get 2 DDR333(pc2700) 512m ram modules. The DDR400(pc3200) isn't worth it on this particular board. There's only a slight increase and isn't worth going for the 400 over the 333 on this board.

If cost is no object I'd get 2 ATA150 serial harddrives and RAID them for performance. At the very least go with ATA133, you need 2 identical(or near identical) HD's to RAID them.

As for video cards. I'd look for cards that have DDR on them. The Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800 gets rave reviews as the fastest card on the market, but from the reviews I've read its lacking in the video capture department. I'm not sure what I'd buy if I were you. I use the Radeon 8500(all in wonder) and I'm very happy with it.


A site that reviews motherboards/hardware/etc(I forget the sites name now) said the MSI 655 Max FISR was the fastest P4 board they have ever tested and that was one without Hyperthreading. Hyperthreading is the wave of the future for the next generation of Pentium CPU's. It works on the same principles as Dual channel ram and RAID. It divides the proccessing work up and thus gets it done alot faster. I do alot of video editing and I've been amazed at it so far. Very amazed. One warning tho. The board seems to have a problem using all 4 ram slots. I had to settle for 1gig of Ram instead of the 2 I wanted. But with dual channel DDR the 1 gig of ram was more then enough and out preformed(on Sandra) 1.5gig of the same DDR333 ram without dual channeling.



If I were to build a new computer today, that is what I would build. However in about a month new boards with a front bus of 800mhz(as oppose to the 533 on the MSI board) will be out. All the new motherbaords that will support 800mhz front bus should have hyperthread technology, plus a new 3.2GHz pentium chip will be more readily available. So it might be worth waiting a month

The MSI 655 Max FISR board is only 175 dollars. Its a very good investment. You can go with cheaper cpu and 2-256 DDR333 ram to save money, but the board is well worth the investment

[MikeV]

If you want to use your AMD processor check out the motherboards with the NForce2 chipsets. The best ones are from Asus and MSI, get the deluxe version , it includes USB2.0, firewire, onboard NIC, SATA, and Dual DDR support. They run under $150.00 US

[dcsos]

Officially the 3.06 is the only chip to support HYPERTHREADING..
but TECH REPORT www.tech-report.com
has enabled HPERTHREADING in the 2.4 and 2.53...the trick is the motherboard

[Piccoro]

If your spending little, i would go w/ AMD cpu, nforce2 based mobo under 100$ or 140 if you get asus deluxe. Dual ram w/that 2 sticks 512mb each pc2700 333 80$(x2) and that has onboard lan/firewire. (personal opinion...best game machine)

If you spend a little more...go w/ intel 2.4/2.5 cpu and motherboard etc.

spend a little more than that...you could get a dual cpu AMD board/cpus and that would perform good and also suit multitasking much better. that would be fitted w/pc2100 ddr ecc(error correcting) if you want. You can get these cheaper than you would think. Nothing like the real thing(cough...hyperthreading...HT is good, just will get better in future releases but dual cpu is still best for multitasking/dual cpu supported applications)

[JamesB69]

This is really easy !!!
First , so you know, prices are down down down.

You can get a TOP ASUS board for under 100 dollars. Come iwth On board Lan , USB 2.0 , IEE1394 and more.

Pentium 4 2.4 Gig 533 MHZ bus CPU (Close to the bleeding edge but off enough to save money) under 150.00

DDR memory - Minimum 512meg - Cost 64.00 for 512 meg High Quality PC2700 333mhz DDR ram

80 Gig UDMA 6 hard drive for capture and formatted NTSF to go over 4 gig, 79 dollars - But you are already set ..so skip this

cost 314.00

I could go from here and provide you links if you like....

I do this REGULARLY

I would like some links for this stuff, especially the hard drive as i am looking for a new one, at least 40gig, for cheap.

[MikeV]

You could try www.pricewatch.com they help you find the lowest prices for computer gear and give you links to the web sites. Or you could use your search engine and just search the web for the products. Or if you are really lazy you could pick up the phone and call your local Best Buy. No, wait you could post a silly question asking where to find the items and all the kind members of this site will post back web pages (that they researched for you) where you can find the info you are looking for.

[JamesB69]

You could try www.pricewatch.com they help you find the lowest prices for computer gear and give you links to the web sites. Or you could use your search engine and just search the web for the products. Or if you are really lazy you could pick up the phone and call your local Best Buy. No, wait you could post a silly question asking where to find the items and all the kind members of this site will post back web pages (that they researched for you) where you can find the info you are looking for.

Hey no need to get smart with me. Its just that i have never seem an 80gig Hdd for $79 bucks and those other prices either. I know how to search. but like i said i have never seen prices like these before. Yes i used ebay, pricewatch, newegg, any other place you wanna buy stuff from but nevermind people like you arent even worth it

[hootie29]

Watch CompUSA for good prices on hard drives. I bought a Maxtor 120 gig 7200rpm 2 weeks ago for 129.99 then a 50.00 rebate brought it down to 79.99

[vetski179]

Thanks for all your help. I should've specified my $ limit. I'd like to keep it in the $500 range, including the ATI 8500. I know the 8500 is going to be at least $200, so that gives me about $300 to work with. But I know I could sell what I have now on Ebay to help defray the new ones costs. Maybe this is a bit optomistic on my part. To be honest, the long encodes don't bother me that much with my 1G machine. I just get it going, and then go to bed! Thanks again for all your input.

[Piccoro]

USD
http://www.buyxg.com/
$172 AMD Barton 2500+ 333FSB Retail
$112 Asus Nforce2
$87 Corsair PC2700 512MB
$91 WD 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache
came across these while ordering some parts myself.

[Gritz]

Lots of good suggestions ....... I like the ones from piccoro and arcorob for your particular price range. Look up anandtech.com for reviews and current prices (and corresponding sites), and newegg.com for usually great (but always reasonable) prices and great service and shipping. They have user comments on products purchased also.

[AlfB]

Try this:

AMD Athlon 2400+ $102
Asus A7N8X Deluxe MB $135
DDR Ram PC2700 1GB $120

HDD, watch specials at CompUSA, Best Buy, Staples etc. I caught a Western Digital EIDE 180GB for $99 (after rebate) at CompUSA. Similar deals are available if you watch ads.

If you are not a gamer but still want to stay with all-in-wonder, think about the Radeon AIW 7500 to save money ($120). Same capture capabilities but not as much speed for the gamer (not important since you state you don't need it for that). Asus board has built in Firewire so the 8500DV is not necessary. It also has two LAN ports and six USB 2.0 and built in sound. It is nForce2 based which is the fastest current chipset for the Athlon. See www.anandtech.com for reviews and information on hardware.