Spec my dad a £500 monster

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Soldato
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I have done a little spec so far, is there anything you lads would do better.

My dad needs a new family pc to order in the next 2-3 weeks, mainly to get him into video editing, but also to be the main family pc for him and my mum. He already has:

- My old HIS X1900XT
- 17 Tft
- keyboard + mouse
- WIndows XP 32-bit

And needs, Case, Mobo, Cpu, Ram, HDDs, PSU, Blu/hd-dvd drive (for dvd backups and eventual Blu backups from his new Panasonic HD9 1080p camcorder). He will mainly be backing up hi-8 and digital 8 tapes from his old camcorders to start with.

Another note, I will probably steal the E5200 and overclock it to within an inch of its life, and will sub in my E6300 and clock it up to 3ghz for him.

Questions?
1.) XP won't handle all 4gig but he doesn't want vista, it eats budget, and better to wait for Windows 7 ?
2.) Also what software should he buy for editing that is easy to use ?
3.) I suppose the E5200 retail cooler will work fine on my E6300 ?


Ok so far from Ocuk:
- Lian Li PC-A05B case (Wants a small case) = £68.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-087-LL

- C2D E5200 = £68.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-251-IN

- Corsair 4GB DD2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 = £39.09
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS

- PC Power and Cooling 470W = £43.69
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-005-PP

- LG Blu/HD-dvd drive = £66.69
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-074-LG


From another supplier:
- Gigabyte i31 EP31-DS3L = £51 (I have this board and it is great for the monies)
- 640gb WD 6400AAKS = £55
- 1TB WD 10EACS (for main video storage)= £72

TOTAL (free del from both :D) = ~£460
 
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its nothing to do with which version of windows it is as to how much RAM it can see, its to do with whether its 32-bit or 64-bit, windows 7 will be just the same. You can still use your 32 bit XP, it will only be able to see/use 3.5 gig of the RAM though, better to get the 4 than the 2 though as 3.5>2.
Yes the standard stock cooler is the same for both CPU's as theyre both socket 775
I'm not sure about what software to use 'm afriad
Your components look good though
 
thepeganator said:
You have to remember you might not get 3.5gb, I only got 2.2gb seen in 32 bit Vista when I had 4gb in :/
Click to expand...

Something has gone wrong then unless you had a 1.8gb graphics card, could it possibly have been 3.2gb Ram available to Windows? A 32bit OS can only address/see 4gb total system Ram so if your graphics card is 512mb then you get marginally less than 3.5gb of Ram to use, if it is a 1gb graphics card then you get around 3gb Ram etc.

-Ad- that looks basically fine there from what I know of it, just check that the E5200 is supported in whichever motherboard you will be using.
 
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Blu/hd-dvd drive (for dvd backups and eventual Blu backups from his new Panasonic HD9 1080p camcorder). He will mainly be backing up hi-8 and digital 8 tapes from his old camcorders to start with.
Click to expand...

-Ad- said:
- LG Blu/HD-dvd drive = £66.69
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-074-LG
Click to expand...

Just for your information - that drive only writes to cd/dvd, and is read only with blu-ray/hd-dvd. You will need to buy a blu-ray writer in order to write to bly-ray disks, both of which are still pretty expensive at the moment.

For instance - cheapest writer here is this one :- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-081-LG
 
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Thanks for the advice, it seems the component choice is good enough :D

Loque said:
for video editing software, theres no competition. get Sony Vegas.
Click to expand...

Will check this out and see if there is a trial version for him to try out and get used to :D

fizzy said:
Just for your information - that drive only writes to cd/dvd, and is read only with blu-ray/hd-dvd. You will need to buy a blu-ray writer in order to write to bly-ray disks, both of which are still pretty expensive at the moment.

For instance - cheapest writer here is this one :- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-081-LG
Click to expand...

Ahhh I see, wondered why that drive was soo cheap, plus disks cost a lot. Will put a standard DVD drive in then for him to copy onto dvds, and get him to buy a 100 pack of taiyo yuden DVD-R.

I can't believe the price of the PSU though from PC power and cooling, even cheaper than an equivalent corsair. WIll get one for my brother too, as his tagan blew up and is currently running his C2D rig off a 320W PSU that's 6+ years old :D
 
95thrifles said:
Yes but the guy saying he can only see 2.2 gig out of 4 clearly has something wrong there
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I had nothing wrong, it's just to do with the components I had in at the time.

My friends laptop, which I upgraded at the same time (only core duo so no 64 bit) saw 3.65gb, I just got the bad luck of the draw.
 
thepeganator said:
The graphics card has nothing what so ever to do with it, I wish people would stop using that excuse.

See:

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showpost.php?p=3274540&postcount=11
Click to expand...

Sorry, realised my post before might have sounded like I was being a tool when that wasn't what I intended. I thought there was a direct correlation between the amount of devices with Ram in the system and how much would be available but apparantly not, oddly though it seems to work as a general rule of thumb though, coincidence though that may be it is handy for a rough approximation.
 
That's because most people have cards with around 512mb of ram, and 3.5gb seen is very common.

Everything you have in the system eats up what windows can see, things on your mb, raid cards, sound cards, hdds, disk drives.
 
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