Video Editing PC

[bigmaz]

I am going to be building a video editing PC for my dad, could anyone comment on the spec i have so far. My dad already has his DVD Writers etc to add to the machine. Will be using Pinnacle Studio 11, so not a major peice of software but its more the rendering side of things, he needs a fast machine for around £400 and this is what i have come up with:

Antec Three Hundred Silent ATX Tower Case
Intel Core 2 QUAD Q6600 2.40GHZ 8MB Cache Retail BX80562Q6600
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 4GB (2 x 2GB) Vista Performance Gold Dual Channel Memory
Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Asus P5QL PRO Intel P43 DDR2 Motherboard
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3450 512MB PCI-Express 2.0
Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 1000GB SATA II 32MB Cache
Cheers
Bigmaz

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hi,

Would probably drop the 1TB hard drive for a 320GB or a 500GB and then use the money to get a slightly better graphics card, you can pick up a

256mb 8800GT for £60

or

512mb 3850 for £60

You got a power supply picked out as well?

Looks like a good build though.

 

[JaLing]

I'd drop the 1TB HDD but for a different reason. Get 2/3 smaller HDDs and setup a RAID.
Audio and video editing has a suprising habit of hitting a bottleneck in the data through-put area at hi qualities.

 

[Adywebb]

I will leave the graphics card stuff to those who know more about these things, but I would imagine that as the main use is video editing then the best one within your budget would be preferable.

As regards Hard Drives - I would think you will be needing alot of storage for videos, so the 1T Samsung is ideal - however I would also get a smaller HD up to 80GB (hard to find much smaller these days) and use that to set up your operating system and programs, leaving the Samsung for storage only.

Other than that I like the rest, and don't forget to budget for an operating system, and as Waynos said - have you got a good PSU in mind?

 

[Abarbarian]

Aria have Geil Black Dragong 4GB memory on special at the moment.

 

[Adywebb]

So they do - good stuff it is too, even if a few quid more expensive than the OCZ

 

[floppybootstomp]

I am going to be building a video editing PC for my dad, could anyone comment on the spec i have so far. My dad already has his DVD Writers etc to add to the machine. Will be using Pinnacle Studio 11, so not a major peice of software but its more the rendering side of things, he needs a fast machine for around £400 and this is what i have come up with:

Antec Three Hundred Silent ATX Tower Case
Intel Core 2 QUAD Q6600 2.40GHZ 8MB Cache Retail BX80562Q6600
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 4GB (2 x 2GB) Vista Performance Gold Dual Channel Memory
Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Asus P5QL PRO Intel P43 DDR2 Motherboard
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3450 512MB PCI-Express 2.0
Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 1000GB SATA II 32MB Cache
Cheers
Bigmaz

Perfect

 

[psd99]

Looks good to me you got a decent CPU, enough storage and then memory to match that.

 

[bigmaz]

Ok, i have respecced my machine. Can you please comment, everything compatable? I have changed memory, how will this kind of memory do when it comes to performance compared to the OCZ that i originally spec'd? I already have DVD Writers and other personal extra's.

Scan.co.uk

Abit IP43, iP43, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX - £46.40

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, Kentsfield Core, S775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, 9x Multiplier, Retail - £120.90

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18 - £51.28

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual/Quad Core Ready - £14.91

Ebuyer.com

Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 460W PSU *SPECIAL OFFER* 135101 - £49.99

Force3D HD 3650 512MB DDR2 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card 148213 - £38.98

Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM 143288 - £71.99


Comes to a grand total of £407.08 inc. VAT and Delivery

 

[floppybootstomp]

The new memory is a little better but there really isn't much in it. For video encoding you don't need ultra fast memory, just lots of it.

In my opinion, your first choice of parts was better, just add a Corsair 520W PSU to it and you have a good system.

And as Ady pointed out, it's worth considering a smaller hard drive for your operating system to reside on, like an 80Gb drive. Other than that, partition the 1Tb drive giving, say, 50Gb to take the OS & software. Then use the rest of the big drive for storage.

Do you have an operating system? (Windows, usually)

 

[bigmaz]

I downgraded the motherboard as i am not going to be overclocking, so this new mother board will do the job just as well. The case change is also to save money, going with the Ebuyer special offer of case and good PSU together. The £10 extra for the GPU is worth it considering the performance difference, and will come in handy when upgrading to Vista. My dad already has a 250GB hard drive ready for the OS, the 1TB drive is for storage only

 

[floppybootstomp]

I downgraded the motherboard as i am not going to be overclocking, so this new mother board will do the job just as well.

Will it? Possibly.

The Asus you listed is a much better board than the Abit. There's more to motherboards than overclocking.

The Abit will probably be ok but Abit boards have declined in quality over the last five years or so.

The case change is also to save money, going with the Ebuyer special offer of case and good PSU together.

How do you know that PSU is good? I've never heard of CM Extreme and I don't trust any PSU I haven't read good reports on or have used them satisfactorily myself. Cheap PSU's, as a rule, are usually not very good and your whole machine depends on the PSU, imo it's more important than the motherboard. And 450W is pushing it a bit, if this PSU only peaks at 450W then expect glitches during your video encoding.

The £10 extra for the GPU is worth it considering the performance difference, and will come in handy when upgrading to Vista.

Would agree with that, although you don't need a high spec video card for video processing, the influential components will be CPU and memory, mostly.

My dad already has a 250GB hard drive ready for the OS, the 1TB drive is for storage only

Good stuff

Oh well, it's your money, good luck

 

[bigmaz]

So what Case would you recommend if i was to get the Corsair 520W PSU on a budget?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Dunno really, I favour Lian Li and Antec myself.

If you're on a budget just go for something you like the look of I guess.

Aria do some good cheap cases.