Need Feedback On Self Build Vs. Special Build

It's compatible, but it ain't good. A GeForce 6600GT is better than that card. Go for a GF7xxx series card.
 
If your just doing DVD Editing, then i would go with the nVidia 7400 series. There really cheap but they have the latest technology.
 
[-0MEGA-] said:
If your just doing DVD Editing, then i would go with the nVidia 7400 series. There really cheap but they have the latest technology.

7400? Isn't that just for laptops, or am I missing something?
 
I am about to get a new computer for MUSIC and MOVIE creation
What sound and/or editing equipment will you be packing?

A high end desktop on here with 3 gigs of RAM, 4 harddrives like a terrabyte of memory, and all the fixings including sound dampening and everything put together is about 5,000 total.
How much sound dampening do you need? (i.e., are you running in a 20db ceiling environment or 10db or what)

So is the extra cash invested in worth all the tweaking they do to the system to make it a multimedia beast?
Well it depends on the quality of the sound dampening and how much of it you need and how much effort you would put into it

If you're going to get a PC, an Intel dual core processor would probably be better for you. AMD's are more for gaming- Intel's more for multitasking and running intense programs, such as video editing, just like you'll be doing.
For the record, AMD procs do better at multitasking. As for intense programs, AMD boxes tend to have a FP advantage while intel boxes have an Int advantage ... and since multimedia stuff is generally a FP domain task, AMD chips are generally more suited for the task

With this sort of budget i'd be looking at a Dual - Dual Core Opteron solution, rather than a single CPU.
Absolutely. Although make sure that the stuff you're doing is SMT/SMP optimized ... no point running 2xOpt280s and using Creative WaveStudio.

Also, what is Lightscribe, and whats the difference between the pcaudiolab dvd burners with and without that?
Lightscribe is a silly make-your-cd-personalized-pretty feature which, while is nifty comes with the following two costs (their impatc is dependent on your requirmeents)
- You'll have, for the most part, higher P0/P1 error rates when burning
- You're paying for the burner and discs to um ... do what you could do with a marker

3. I definately want 2 lightscribe burners because of that imaging power very important.
Imaging power? Well id have a look at Plextor's PX755

4. I want to spend about 3000-3500 on the basic computer, and 1500 on monitor, speakers, and sound hardware.
What kind of sound hardware are you dealing with here?

5. I was thinking about an athlon 4800+, and 4 gigs of ram, but I'm not sure if ill need all that ram or cpu with what I will be doing. The audio video collage isnt going to be Hollywood pretty, I like it to be a bit lo-fi, but also have the option of going quality with things as I upgrade video camera etc.
1. What is your source? Your output?
2. What encoder will you be using?
3. What editoing program will you be using?

8. Would the 10,000 rpm drive really help with video and audio collages a lot?
Not really.


Ok, so nothing really intensive.
That depends on how the task is done and to what calibre (i.e., 6pass CCE vs 2pass TMPGEnc)


For a monitor I would say at least a 19" flatscreen. I'll build the comp up first, and see what a good monitor would be.
Absolutely, and you'll prolly want a CRT for better color reproduction but that's probably a personal preference since you can use Kodak color on most decent monitors)


If all the programs will easily fit on the 74GB hard drive, then why would you need more space? The way that i had it built, that hard drive is just for Windows and the programs. It will speed up boot times and program load times. The 500GB hard drives would be where you are storing stuff. How much space do you need, and do you want RAID?
The increased space is useful for when you need buffering (Premier can easily chew out 8GB of memory ... and thats for short 5minute clips). This increases significantly if you make multiple calls to something like AfterEffects. Another example is when you're working with a program say like SoundForge which makes autobackups ....


The first one is an exceptionally good motherboard with 16x SLI, which gives incredibly performance in everything, but it has a strange layout and runs hot. The second board is a Lanparty board. I know you won't be going to lanparties, but it is a rock solid board, DFI is very good quality.
Actually the ASUS is better choice since [1] it's got a better thermal profile, [2] is fanless (recall one of the target purposes is for audio use). Furthermore the dual PCIE is only useful if there's gonna be a PCIEx8 RAID card involved

Get them in SLI (two cards) and you have a great setup.
While something like Premier can use 7900GTs to accelerate the OpenGL tasks of previewing and such ... why SLI for a nongaming system? Especially one that may be in a sound sesntive environment?

Media Center is much more tailored to your needs than XP pro or home.
MCE is tailored for playback not for creation (not for serious creation at least)

It increases performance quite a lot, and your budget can easily handle it. It is not needed at all, just something nice that you can have with a $3000 computer
1. Increases the performance in what?
2. Just because he has a budget doesnt mean you need to kill it ;)

Whats the Raid option vs. the 10,000 rpm drive plus 2 x 500 gig hd?
Running 10K rpm drives will introduce drive noise (again dependent on your sensitivity). It's also a waste of money (as is the SLI which I think was included because he doesnt quite realize this isnt a gaming box and wants to virtually spend the money)

You won't need an extreme video card, but I'd get one with at least 256mb, dvd and sampling use alot of memory.
It uses system memory (and you are right, a lot) - not videocard memory

sli 7900gt for video editing?? I
Glad to see im not the only one picking that

And just so you know, that PC was total overkill...
And poorly customized

Yes, I am 14 (and a half) years old.
No comment.




Now, for a system that might be actually useful I need the following summary questions answered:
1. What programs will you be using?
2. What is the tolerance for noise?
3. What is the harddrive capacity requirement?
As a temporary stopgate at the SLI silliness above, here is a much more useful spec:


From a noise perspective:
- Motherboard is passively cooled
- CPU cooler puts out 16db
- Harddrives are fairly quiet (subjective)
- The power supply puts out 22db and is reccomended by SilentPCReview
- The case fans put out 13db and 8.7db respectively
- The case was chosen as it's a very good silent PC case
- The videocard is passively cooled

Got a ton of useful stuff for roughly the budget you allocated for the mainbox.
 
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