never built before - ideas/critique of this system

[eastie28]

I think the system below is designed for what I want as I will be doing alot of video editing and other intensive programs on it. I also want to put the money into it to ensure that it will keep up in the future. I'm just looking for suggestions or ideas and whether or not all the parts I plan to buy will work together and complement each other. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

XION Black XION II XON-103 SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply - Retail

Link Depot DVI-D male to DVI-D male dual link Cable, 10ft, Black Model DVI-10-DD - OEM

Intel BOXD945PVSLKR Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

eVGA 256-P2-N517-AX Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Intel Pentium D 930 Presler 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core Processor Model BX80553930 - Retail

x2 FOR 4GB OF RAM - CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS2GBKIT667D2 - Retail

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

LITE-ON Black ATAPI/E-IDE DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write Model SHM-165P6S RTL - Retail

LITE-ON Black IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model SOHD-16P9SV - Retail

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM

Thermaltake Big Typhoon CL-P0114 120mm Cooling Fan with Heatsink - Retail

Not sure about cooling and whether or not I should buy a sound card. I also plan on using an HDTV with the dvi connection as my monitor and I'm not looking at any of the peripherals yet. On newegg the total for that comes to $1292.94. I would go up to about 1500. Let me know what you think. Thanks

 

[eric456]

i think you may want to use 500 or 550w instead of 450.
I hear antec are really good

 

[mdd1963]

"Not sure about cooling and whether or not I should buy a sound card."

Adding an intake and/or exhaust fan is never a bad idea....

THe integrated sound on most motherboards should fill the bill for ya.....; I've used integrated sound on even older chipsets and not had any probs editing video.....

 

[maxxum]

Well, if you are just going to be doing a lot of video editing and not into the latest games then the 7800 is way overkill. The money you save just getting a mid level video card can go to pumping up the processor and memory. You could go with just about any VIVO card for input, but I like Nvidia because they’re drivers are more mature in that arena though ATI is catching up. A 7800 is about prestige if you are not a gamer and a simple waist of money for video editing.

I believe more than 2Gb of main system memory is overkill as the rest will just be used as ROM space (extended area). All windows will ever see is the first 2Gb’s.

Get a Raptor HD for a system drive and swap space drive and WD’s or Seagates for your storage drives. Raptors will be better able to keep up with really heavy video/swaping loads and at higher sustained speeds (with games Raptors are not key really because they just about never reach their sustained speed ratings).

I choose NEC and Sony for optical drives due to their typically better overall customer ratings. Lite-On’s IMO are fine for occasional burning, but from what I have heard they fail more often than NEC’s (8:100).

 

[purelithium]

Why the two optical drives? the first one you listed should be enough, unless you plan on ripping dvds 2 at a time, or copying files from one disc to another.

Make sure you replace that case's power supply. Generally, powersupplies that come with cases are bargain bin pieces of crap. Get a good Antec or Enermax. They can be had for around $40-50 and that will give you a good clean powersource for your components. You'll have less failures and more overall stability.

 

[chuckshissle]

Instead of 4 Gb, get 2 Gb of high performance ram its faster. I used 4 Gb of Corsair Value Select before for $350 then I upgrade to 2 Gb Xms2 and notice it's alot faster. Price for $370.

 

[ches111]

I do agree that the 4gb of memory is overkill unless you intend on doing some things in Linux. Also the PSU will need to be a larger size if you intend on running the 7800 given its currently rated specs. I think at this point in time i would go with a 500w or 550w aftermarket PSU to give room for expansion later.

I think the 7800 is NOT overkill since it outputs video levels nicely. You might want to look at one of the ATIs as well since their new 550 Theater chip is quite nice. Either way you position your self for a long lasting/performing video card with great video levels (I beleive both the vendors now support PC 0 - 255 and video level 16 - 255 outputs). This is important since you are going to be using an HDTV as your monitor device. They both also support the 1080i/720P at 60hz and the full HDTV color gamut.

I also second the use of the WD Raptor for your system drive. There is an article right here on the Hardware section about the new 150gb Raptor. It is a slick piece of equipment. I would also look at maybe doing a Raid 1 with a couple of larger SATA drives to allow for larger storage with a more robust data recovery capability as video editing is quite an intense operation for a single drive to handle all the time (not sure what your data storage/recovery needs are? is it mission critical data that you are working on?).

 

[eastie28]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I plan to buy a case without a psu and install a quality one separately and it seems everyone is agreed on the RAM topic about dropping to 2gb of better ram which will roughly be similar in price so i plan to do that as well. To ches the data I work with isnt anything critical and most of the data i have i put on backups when im done working with it and erase off the drive. In terms of the hard drives 2 people suggested to go with the raptor so with the extra 200 or so i have to work with that would just about cover the new case/psu and the addition of a 74gb raptor in addition to the 250gb seagate that was already included. Any other suggestions please post them and thanks to everyone for the help so far.

 

[apache_lives]

not to say that AMD is a better (or worse) choice, but have you concidered there offerings? All the BS you hear bout reliability and incompatibility is total rubish, check what they got to offer again.

Sound - Creative Audigy is loads better then any onboard crap.

2 DVD ROMS? WTF FOR?

Yeah - get raptors!

 

[hashv2f16]

By the way why the Intel motherboard?

Soon there'l be a bigger range of 3rd party boards that support the 930 with more features like Creative Audigy onboard audio, RAID, gigabitLAN.. and good overclocking options for later on when your 930 feels like its slowing down. (I'm assuming here that Intel don't have many OCing features in their boards.)

 

[eastie28]

Like i said i barely know anything when it comes to building a computer so i figured i would just match the intel cpu with the board but if u have some other suggestions on what board i should get i would appreciate it. I also went with the intel cpu because I heard theyre better with video editing and similar tasks but i dont know how true that is so if u have a better idea for the cpu/mobo together let me know. also if someone could explain the difference between just ide and e-ide/atapi when it comes to choosing an optical drive. thanks

 

[purelithium]

ide and e-ide/atapi

Same thing.

 

[hashv2f16]

Now I'm not saying that the Intel board is bad or anything, but other stuff just gives you more options The Intel 955x chipset is a gooder and if you have the money it would be worth looking at the Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal. Only con is: not sure if Tt Big Typhoon will fit on this board.
However you can always use a Zalman CNPS9500 air cooler instead.

There are a couple of reviews on the Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal here:
http://www.insanetek.com/review.php?id=145&page=1
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1834&page=1

Intel's chips are generally known to be better for applications/video encoding etc, whereas gamers prefer AMD. So the PD 930 is a good choice.

 

[hashv2f16]

Don't get the Intel motherboard. See AnandTech.com
for their recent review of Intel's newest motherboard
with 975 chipset: prepare yourself to be disappointed.

Yeah but why should he waste the money on something he's not going to use? A few frames in games that he's not going to play. He said he's mainly doing video editing and not so much games.

 

[linux_0]

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1888742

about $1400 delivered

The Opteron 170 and 7800GT are a bit overkill.


Less overkill:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1888746

about $1182 delivered

 

[maxxum]

90% of video decoding is done on the processor (for that matter most decoding save 3D), so yes, just about any modern (new) video card would be overkill. Therefore, the best option for video is a card that gives you all the tools necessary to do video editing and a strong processor to do the decoding. Thus me saying a 7800 is really just for games. Most ATI and Nvidia cards from the past 4 years will push out HD quality video at 1080i, it really just depends on the CPU. I was doing video editing on an Nvidia 5500u until late last year when I finally upgraded to a 6600GT w/ VIVO.

I guess a good example would be people that buy Hummer's for city driving; its all about bragging rights unless you live in the mountains (or play alot of 3D games). :roll:

 

[linux_0]

Yes Indeed.

I would maybe stick with the Opteron 170 or better and go with a 6800GS or maybe a bit lower, it depends on the OPs gaming needs.

Make sure you are using a codec that can take advantage of the Dual cores too! Some codecs can use 2 cores or 2 or more CPUs at the same time, while some cannot.

 

[ches111]

I don't know Linux_0,

I think the Intel dual core would be a little bit more appropriate for video editing. In some of the benchys the high end Intels outpaced everything from AMD in the encoding/decoding portions of the tests. Some of these tests were not even close (five plus seconds difference). That could be a substantial amount of time savings over even a single project.

Don't get me wrong if the Op was not specific as to "video editing" I would be recommending the AMD over the Intel for general/gaming use.

This happens to be the ONLY application where the Intel SHINES in comparo with the AMDs.

 

[ches111]

PS..

Linux_0 I am still running Fedora Core 2 as my native Linux distro at work. I also have a windoze based laptop that I have yet to convert. I know core 4 is out and stable but why fix what aint broke

 

[linux_0]

This is partially true if the code is optimized for Intel CPUs and even then the difference is pretty small.

If the code is AMD64 optimized the AMD is a LOT better.

 

[linux_0]

FC3 and 4 are better, newer and more up to date

I would suggest upgrading to FC4 ( FC4 x86_64 if you have AMD64 systems ).

AMD64 + FC4 x86_64 works VERY well and is 20+% faster vs i386

Check out:

https://66.235.243.163/bench/index.html disk benchmarks on a Dual Opteron 252 with 4GB RAM and HW RAID 5

FC3 i386 is on the LEFT

FC3 x86_64 is on the RIGHT

You can see x86_64 is WAY faster!

 

[purelithium]

FC3 and 4 are better

Pffft! Whatever! Mandriva all the way!

Vive la Mandriva!

 

[linux_0]

Hey Linux is Linux

I love Linux, *BSD and *nix regardless of distro.

Semper Fi Linux on!

 

[unsmart]

I think ATI X1*** cards are at the top of the video editing right now, they take some of the load off the cpu. Check out the all-in-wonders If your looking to rip from alot of diffrent input types. I think this card would beat a 7800[ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102642 ] has alot of inputs and a remote :lol:

 

[unsmart]

I think ATI X1*** cards are at the top of the video editing right now, they take some of the load off the cpu. Check out the all-in-wonders If your looking to rip from alot of diffrent input types. I think this card would beat a 7800[ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102642 ] has alot of inputs and a remote :lol: