SPEC ME - need to soup up my computer for VIDEO EDITING

Suspended
Joined
3 Nov 2002
Posts
3,092
Right, these are my current specs:

Soltek nForce 2 mobo, couldn't precisely tell you which one
AMD XP 2800 2.14 GHz
1 gig generic DDR RAM
Maxtor 250 GB 7200rpm IDE HDD
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis
Generic PSU


My hobby is video editing, and come September I am going to university to start a 4 year degree in digital visual effects. While I like the odd game, this takes priority. So obviously I'll need LOTS of storage (SATA would be nice for speed), processing power and RAM, and the graphics card takes the back burner (I would use my current Radeon, but after a power surge it's a bit broken and needs replacing)

I'll also need a new PSU as the one I'm currently using is borrowed; said power surge killed my old one.

So, I've got a budget of about £400, I'd really appreciate it if someone who's familiar with current hardware (I'm about 3 years behind in knowledge terms) could have a look for me. Cheers.
 
If you are doing video editting I would go dual core... either Conroe or AM2 (3800 x2)... either or I would get 2Gb of DDR memory, everyone seems to be getting Gskill memory these days...

I would also upgrade your PSU to either a Seasonic or Enermax, everyone seems to think that these are the best..

Unlucky about the power surge... how about something like Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB??

Stelly
 
Last edited:
ok might of changed my mind a little here but ah well..

Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN) £72.95
Enermax Liberty 400W ELT400AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-026-EN) £40.95
Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (VS2GBKIT533D2) (MY-096-CS) £108.95
Gigabyte 8N-SLi Pro nForce4 SLi (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-044-GI) £69.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB ST3200827AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-056-SE) £47.95
XFX GeForce PCX6600 Extreme XXX Edition 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT43-PUDS7) (GX-058-XF) £69.95

Delivery £9.95

VAT £73.62
Total £494.27

I know its a little over but I think thats cool :)

Stelly
 
Looks good, looks very good - dual processor is clearly the way to go for rendering, but my only gripe with that spec would be the only 200 gigs of SATA disk space. With my 250 gig IDE that makes only 450, which is a lot for your average user but not much at all for someone editing a lot of video - 10 second of uncompressed 720 x 576 footage takes 300 MB.
 
Look at several 320GB (for cost per GB)
Or 500GB or 700GB if cost isn't a issue.

That X1800XT is OTT, a ATI X700 128MB dedicated RAM is more than good enough.

I would also get a UPS... ;)
 
MasterMike said:
Looks good, looks very good - dual processor is clearly the way to go for rendering, but my only gripe with that spec would be the only 200 gigs of SATA disk space. With my 250 gig IDE that makes only 450, which is a lot for your average user but not much at all for someone editing a lot of video - 10 second of uncompressed 720 x 576 footage takes 300 MB.

Then I would think about upping your spendage a little and get a better HDD :)

Stelly
 
squiffy said:
Look at several 320GB (for cost per GB)
Or 500GB or 700GB if cost isn't a issue.

That X1800XT is OTT, a ATI X700 128MB dedicated RAM is more than good enough.

I would also get a UPS... ;)

I disagree with ATI x700 is a little pants and I doubt that its less then the specced Gfx card that I have put in the spec

Stelly
 
Why spend £80 on a card when integrated will do just fine? Forget the graphics card, spend as much money as possible on the cpu.
 
Just use stellys spec but use a mobo with integrated graphics that gets you to about £400, as for the hdd space, why would you want to capture in uncompressed format when capturing in mpeg2 and 4 is just as high quality or using a lossless video encoder?
 
Energize said:
Just use stellys spec but use a mobo with integrated graphics that gets you to about £400, as for the hdd space, why would you want to capture in uncompressed format when capturing in mpeg2 and 4 is just as high quality or using a lossless video encoder?

I think you misunderstand the kind of work I do - captured video goes through hundreds of filters, effects layers and the like - and once I've captured DV footage, I can't compress it further until my final render. This means I have to render footage uncompressed once I start working on it. Even the slightest compression will create horrible artifacts. THAT'S why I need loads of hard disk space.
 
Stelly said:
I disagree with ATI x700 is a little pants and I doubt that its less then the specced Gfx card that I have put in the spec

Stelly


Not playing games! Video editing only needs a standard card, no 3D acceleration. No need at all for a decent card, in fact the X700 overkill. A X300 128MB dedicated will be sufficient.
 
MasterMike said:
Doesn't work so well when you're juggling 5 different effects programs. I'm lucky hard disk space is quite cheap these days.

Cant imagine it being that bad, its always managed more than 60% compression for me on the lowest compression settings.
 
squiffy said:
Not playing games! Video editing only needs a standard card, no 3D acceleration. No need at all for a decent card, in fact the X700 overkill. A X300 128MB dedicated will be sufficient.

As quoted thought, I do enjoy the occasional LAN night...
 
Back
Top Bottom