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Video PC spec

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Bazanaius, 4 Sep 2008.

  1. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    hey guys, I am building a pc for my dad, on which he will edit videos from his video camera, and store and touch up pictures from his digital camera. He will then burn them to DVD. This is all that the pc will do, as he has a laptop that he uses for office work.

    The PC will run XP, as my dad is used to it and he just wont use it if he isn't!
    I'm carrying over a 19" screen, speakers, keyboard, mouse, case and DVD and floppy drives from our previous pc.
    He will only be doing really basic editing of the video, like cutting out scenes he doesn't want, and maybe putting a title page on. For this reason, he'll be using WMM2 - simple, and free :)
    He will only really be archiving the photos and maybe taking out some red eye, so I'm going to download picasa 3, and I think he'll love the new face tagging feature :)
    We'll use onboard sound from the mobo as most of the video he is editing is home video.

    Onto the hardware then...
    These are bits I've specced, I'd like to know peoples thoughts on them and how they fit together. Any reccomendations would be great!

    MOBO: Asus P5Q pro P45 socket LGA 775 - £85 (ebuyer)
    CPU: intel E8500 Core 2 Duo - £125 (ebuyer)
    PSU: Corsair 620W HX Modular - £83 (ebuyer)
    GPU: Force 3D HD 3850 512MB DDR3 - £56 (ebuyer) + Accelero S1 arctic cooler silent (£17 ebuyer)
    RAM: OCZ 2GB reaper memory kit 1066mhz DDR2 - £37 (ebuyer)
    HDD: 3x Seagate ST3100340AS 1TB drive in RAID 5 - £290 (ebuyer)
    2x Xilence Red Wing 120mm fan - £5 each (ebuyer)

    Total = £703

    I'll also be getting an external HDD to backup files as we've had problems with HDD's dying in the past.
    I'll also be getting a PCI-e 1x wifi card so it can talk to the network, enabling us to look at photos & videos from dad's laptop when he's elsewhere in the house. I will not be connecting it to the internet tho.

    Thoughts?

    cheers,

    B
     
  2. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    Lol, already changing things...

    I'm thinking of changing the memory to 1333mhz as it will match the FSB of the CPU. So thinking this...

    OCZ 2GB kit - DDR3 1333mhz - £58(ebuyer)

    and I forgot to include the cpu cooler...

    Asus silent knight 2 Cu heatsink - £42 (dabs)
     
  3. oasked

    oasked Stuck in (better) mud

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    Couple of things I would change:

    1. Downgrade the PSU to 520W - more than enough power, but cheaper.
    2. Install 4Gb of RAM. On XP he'll only see 3Gb, but that's still better than 2 - the more RAM the better for video editing.
    3. You can get a cheaper graphics card if you want - it won't help at all for that kind of video editing
    4. Do you really need that much hard drive space? It looks like total overkill to me.
     
  4. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    Hi oasked,
    thanks for your reply.

    1. I originally specced the 620w because of the no of connectors, but I agree - the 520w will probably do fine.
    2. ok - I wasn't sure how xp would react to 4gb, whether it would just say no. if it just sees three thats not ideal, but worth it for the exra 1gb
    3. can you reccomend any? I havnt got a graphics card for ages, and so I got confused looking at them all! I have a passively cooled 7600gt in my pc at the moment and its great because it's silent and deals fine with most things I throw at it - would this be ok? I guess it's ok to put a pcie card in a pcie2 slot?
    4. the only reason I have three is so I can use RAID 5. So it will actually show up as 2TB. My dad hasn't downloaded his video for ages, he just bought more tapes - currently they've all been downloaded to my pc, which is taking up around 500Gb. Maybe I can downgrade to 3x750gb disks I think.

    thoughts?

    B
     
  5. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    DDR3 won't work on that board - it's DDR2 :)

    I'd also recommend a quad core, but it depends on what software you're using.
     
  6. oasked

    oasked Stuck in (better) mud

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  7. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    hey guys, thanks for your help with this.

    In response to bindibadgis keen eyesight, i've changed the board to a p5qc, which will offer DDR3 at roughly the same price point from dabs.
    That 3650 looks good as well oasked.

    I don't think the extra cost of the quad core will be worth it tbh. Does WMM2 even utilise 4 cores?

    so now we're looking at...
    MOBO: Asus P5Qc P45 socket LGA 775 - £89 (dabs)
    CPU: intel E8500 Core 2 Duo - £125 (ebuyer)
    Cooler: Asus silent knight 2 Cu heatsink - £42 (dabs)
    PSU: Corsair 520W HX Modular - £65 (ebuyer)
    GPU: Sapphire HD 3650 512MB DDR2 - £35 (ebuyer)
    RAM: 2x OCZ 2GB kit - DDR3 1333mhz - £116(ebuyer)
    HDD: 3x Seagate ST3750640AS 750GB SATAII Hard Drive in RAID 5 - £201 (ebuyer)
    2x Xilence Red Wing 120mm fan - £5 each (ebuyer)

    total = £683

    Thoughts?

    B
     
  8. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    I can't find anything that expressly says WMM2 does, so I can only assume the route you're going down is the best one - faster cores.

    For £42, the Silent Knight 2 is an incredible rip off - grab yourself a Noctua or Thermalright Ultra Extreme for that price, or check out our heatsink reviews here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/

    To be honest - the Corsair 520W HX is quite an old PSU now and it's efficiency will be lower, check out the Be Quiet! ones.

    What case are you putting it in?

    :)
     
  9. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    The case is the one left over from the PC I'm replacing. Basically we had a pc that mum & dad use, but it's on its last legs and mum now has a laptop. Dad said he wanted to start sorting out his videos and would like more space in the room our pc is in atm. So dad gets a laptop and we get a pc specifically for video and photos in a different room. The case is a Dell from a few years back. tbh it looks ok and there's plenty of space in it for 2+ 120mm fans and the HDDs so I'm happy that it will be ok. Nothing special but everything should fit -it's pretty wide.

    I agree with the cost of the silent knight 2 - I'm really looking for something quiet as the old one is like sitting in a wind tunnel. Can you comment on the noctuas or thermalright ultra extreme as far as noise goes? I'm not going to be overclocking (unless I get bored... unlikely :p) so as long as theres no heat issues noise is the real thing I want to minimise.

    The be quiet psus look cool - do you know of anywhere that supplies them in the uk? - even tried looking on bit-tech.net/shopping but no joy... ;-P

    B
     
  10. oasked

    oasked Stuck in (better) mud

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  11. eeevan

    eeevan Dremel Master

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    Don't know if you're still going with the Accelero S1 or not, but I'd say it's unnecessary for your needs. Stock cooling will definitely suffice.
     
  12. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    I was going to originally as I'm looking for a quiet system, however reviews I've read of the 3650 suggest it is already stupidly quiet so I'll just get the stock and if it is noisy I can always change it later.
    I think the arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 is a good bet oasted, particularly as hopefully it shouldn't need to run anywhere near full speed.

    so is this it then?...
    MOBO: Asus P5Qc P45 socket LGA 775 - £89 (dabs)
    CPU: Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo - £125 (ebuyer)
    Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
    PSU: Corsair 520W HX Modular - £65 (ebuyer) - [Unless I can find a dark power one somewhere]
    GPU: Sapphire HD 3650 512MB DDR2 - £35 (ebuyer)
    RAM: 2x OCZ 2GB kit - DDR3 1333mhz - £116(ebuyer)
    HDD: 3x Seagate ST3750640AS 750GB SATAII Hard Drive in RAID 5 - £201 (ebuyer)
    2x Xilence Red Wing 120mm fan - £5 each (ebuyer)

    NB The timings on the ram are 9-9-9-24. This seems fairly par for the course on these components, unless you spend silly money.

    B
     
  13. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Bleh. Old now, there are better ones. Great in 2005 but things have come a way.
     
  14. Bazanaius

    Bazanaius What's a Dremel?

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    Can you reccomend any? Unfortunately all the coolers I seem to look at never have a product line history, so I couldn't tell which were new and which were old.
    If we stay with arctic cooling, would something as slimline as the Freezer 7LP do the job? I like the look of it but not sure if it's up to getting rid of the heat.
     
  15. mrbungle

    mrbungle Undercooked chicken giver

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