Right, first of all, going on experience, I'd avoid AMD, and go for an Intel P4 800FSB system. As said above, AMD's are useless for video editing and are generally poor chips for multimedia. Secondly, drop that 9800PRO crap, you don't need fangled crap like that. If you really want to burn money, do it. I'd recommend an ATI 9000 All In Wonder - which has RCA inputs for the analogue camera, and a TV tuner to shove the VCR into if need be. As for firewire, most new P4 boards have it onboard anyway. Thirdly, Don't skimp on harddrives. Get at least a 120GB 8MB CACHE hard drive. The cache is important!! Finally, get fast RAM. It's a key factor when rendering. 512 would run well, 1GB would run like a dream. Definately get the P4 though - I've used them and they're very, very good for video editing.
1st time modder: I own a DRU510A, and while its a good drive, its not as fast as some other 4x burners. I've researched and the DRU530, compared with other 8x burners, is slower at burning than other drives. As for the Pioneer drive, there was somewhere I read, (but I can't find the link) that the Pioneer actually burns 4x media at 8x speeds. Regardless of whether it does or not, you can also get a patched firmware download that allows for 12x rips. M3G4: 1: Why don't you people make up your mind My inital thoughts were to get an Intel system, but people I talked to (outside of these forums) recommended AMD as well. I've researched some and I think I'll change and go with the 2.8C. 2: I never considered a 9800Pro, I was first going to get a 9600Pro (much cheaper). Our camera has a firewire connection, so I don't need an AiW for the camera. I have an AiW card and the only thing that might be useful for me is the TV tuner (for VCR, as you said), but that would cost me an additional $100 and I can get a TV tuner for half that price if I need it later. 3: I was always going to get an 8mb cache hdd. The 1200JB (which I was originally going to get) has 8mb cache and the 1200JD (which I am getting) has 8mb cache. 4: I'm getting 1GB, but valueram. This machine doesn't need to be a video editing machine exactly. It's just got to be capable to do it pretty smoothly. 1GB valueram should be fine. Edit: CPU: Intel P4 2.8C - $178.00 MB: Abit IS7-E - $87.00 RAM: (2x) Kingston 512MB DDR PC-3200 - $200.00 HDD: Western Digital 120GB 1200JD - $99.75 Video: Powercolor ATI Radeon 9200 128MB - $74.00 Optical 1: Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD±RW (Black) - $151.00 Optical 2: Samsung SD-616EEPB 16x DVD-ROM (Black) - $32.00 Case: Antec Sonata w/ 380W PSU - $84.00 Total w/ shipping: $922.75
heonstly, go with a mac. they were designed to do this type of stuff. eMac - Superdrive - 265MB memory - 17" screen $999.00 iMac - Superdrive - 256MB memory - 17" screen $1,799.00 my dad just got a mac... it is the finest computer i have ever seen
dude, someone hit you on the head lately? I am seriously going to stab the next person who says "macs are for video and graphics editing" in the face with my soldering iron. Also look at those prices. Those systems have a dvd burner... sure, whatever. BUT THEY ONLY HAVE 256MB OF RAM! For cryin out loud look at the last system this dude just speced out. It has four times the RAM and is perfectly capable of handling video and graphics editing for just a bit less. I have used plently of macs at my school, so dont say that I'm the stereotypical mac hater. Hell I own an ipod (which btw, itunes is only compatible with certain cd drives. WTF!). In my programing class we used to have little competitions between each other to see how severly or frequently we could crash the mac. My record was only 3 lines of simple pascal that completely rendered the mac useless and made it nessessasry to power it off. But that is unrelated to the discussion here, so to stay on topic. There is a much more diverse range of graphics and video editing software packages available for the PC. Because of Apple's proprietary nature, there is even more peripherals available for the PC than on a MAC. I will ahve to look around and dig the article out, but I saw a comparison between a top of th e line dell workstation and a top of the line mac a whil back. The PC trounced the mac in video encoding and the time it took for certain filters and effects to complete in photoshop. sorry for the little rant, but people who say that macs are THE graphics editing computers irritate me. Hell, I am building 10-20 workstation pcs for an advertising agency in vegas because they hate their G5sand want me to replace them. I think its hilarious that a 17 year old can build more power systems for $300 less than what Apple can.
I did some image editing at work recently (I usually do a light bit every know and again but this was a little heavy), so I pinched a g5 and it blew me away, it took 23 minutes to do on my pc (1.6 celeron so its not amazingly quick), but its took 26 SECONDS to do on the mac (g5).
its those comparisons that apple loves. Oh sure lets compare a 1.6 celeron with a dual cpu 2ghz machine on a server board with good RAM. The graphics workstations I am building for this ad agency use a dual cpu board (not relying on intels HTtech to simulate a dualy setup) with two barton core MPs in it. I thnchuck in 1-2gb of RAM, and an IDE raid 1 array. The performance from a beastly workstation like that beats the G5 any day. Oh yea, it costs less to ANNND..... they are not limited by which peripherals and software hey can run.
Depends if the software was written specifically for it. Tbh, comparing anything to a cele will get its butt kicked. Go check out some reviews as to whether its worth getting the AMD or P4. [H]/Anandtech reviews will have such info, moreso the latter. Please, for the love of god dont by ****ty valueram. I'll admit Macs are nice, and OSX is a lovely smooth thing to work on, but they are too expensive, and non-upgradible. Also, its a bitch to run some windows software on em.
Morphine, I disagree, I think Macs are much better for video editing, but I'm not spending $1200 on a fcking emac! It's got a 1.25ghz proc ffs! If I could afford a G5, it would be my first choice, but emacs are pieces of ****, period. bindi - If I do get expensive ram, it will have to be only 512mb, b/c it would run up the costs too much. 1GB valueram is still better than 512mb of a high-quality ram. Also, I've changed dvd burners to the Plextor PX-708A; updated list and price above.
I would have to disagree that 1 GB of shat RAM is better than 512 MB of good RAM.........guess for the most part it depends how well your mobo deals with crappy memory - some do and some dont so well.
the spec seems good, but i'd use a samsung hdd instead of a wd. get better ram though, the faster timings on some bh5/ch5 will really show. Any radeon all in wonder would be a better choice of graphics card aswell, i read this posted above. none of the all in wonders will be too slow for your needs. as for mac: some love them some hate them, but you can NOT compare things like clock speeds with pcs, as they are completely different.
aaronkelly - faster ram with tighter timings might gain you a few seconds when running tests, but 1gb beats 512mb flat out, whether its valueram or not. xen0 - same goes for you about the ram . I usually stick with WD or Maxtor b/c of their reliability. If I was looking for the best performance, I might look otherwise, but I need stability and reliability Like I said before, I own an AiW card and the only advantage to this setup I think would be the TV tuner for a VCR hookup. But an AiW is $100 more, and I can get a capture card for less. You don't need to tell me about macs, I'm a fan of them and know plenty about them. But there is no way in hell I'd pay that much for an emac when I can get a 2.8ghz p4 for less. In fact, I wouldn't buy an emac at all, maybe a couple of years ago, but not today.
if anyone is unfortunate enough to find themselves with a mac, remember you can get linux for that architecture too. so no need should you be stuck with that horrific OSX cack. A64 would serve well for editing, as it doesnt suffer from the memory bandwidth problems of the socket A chips that crippled their editing performance, but you can't go wrong with the 2.8c oh, and that article about the dell raping that mac in video editing.. http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/07_jul/features/cw_macvspc2.htm this also illistrates the uses of dual proc. i cant wait to run some rendering becnhies in the summer when i finish the duallie setup!
Okily dokily. Any more talk of macs and the police will find you in an alley with a cracked head. Mmmk?
Despite the fact that I don't want to be found in an alley, I must argue this point. Have any of you actually taken the time to use a Macintosh with OSX? Fiddling with it at the local computer shop does not count. OSX is a lovely operating system, and my dad - who owned an ISP for nearly 6 years, www.august.net - was convinced to use Macs after just 2 days with the G5. Keep in mind, he uses Linux all day. His laptop was a Windows machine, all the computer in the house and office were Windows, but just 2 days after getting the G5, he won't be found dead using a PC One thing that I love about the Apple computers is that all the software for them looks and runs so nice. All the GUIs are identical, the OS is smooth looking, and they just feel like they were built by hand and fine tuned. Another advantage of the Apples is that all the hardware and some of the software is made by one company. Think about it: with PCs, there are too many variables. Apples use only Apple hardware... kinda like a Dell, but better. And the last thing that I enjoy about Macs is that it is all run on a command line that the OS lets you get to! If something froze, go to a command prompt... ps-ax... kill <pid>. Fun stuff! </mac blab> As for the computer, I really don't know a whole lot about video editing, but a Seagate Barracuda is always a fast and reliable choice. Also, being an AMD fanboy, I would prefer you to get an Athlon, but whatever.
i have used macs in my school music department for 3 years, and OSX for a while. the whole single click thing does my head in, i find the interface annoying, and as for doing stuff in the command line, i also use BSD and linux. Dont even think about comparing the macs command line access with that of BSD/Linux. As for being like dells, but better, well, you seem to be strengthening my point of view (As easy as Hell, i errr, mean... Dell). Apples use only apple hardware? eh? 'fraid not... more components means more competiton for customers and lower prices, plus better quality. It also allows more choice and better availablility. you can skin XP, or KDE or gnome to look however the hell you want, i have altered the boot screen, log in screen, skin and rendered a background to be exactly personal. Why didnt you get a Mac if you had enough money to buy an FX51, etc?
heh heh, exactly! Ordered everything, but changed ram to mushkin ...not sure why... The final price is a bit higher b/c I added floppy, mouse and keyboard: $991.99 (and the b@stards raised the price of the case by $16 but wtf )
They always have the case on sale. My dad got it when it was $105, but I'm always seeing it on sale around $80-$90. That's the nature of buying stuff.
Yeah, it was $84, but I'm not about to delay my shipping by a whole day for $16 (I should have waited till tomorrow for it to go back down then pay overnight but wtf )
