ULTIMATE NEW COMP (Video / Photo and genral use)

[sighnbox]

Hello,
I'm wantimg to build a new ultimate comp for video/photo editing and genral use. At the moment im using
Intel quad core Q8200
Asus P5E3 Motherboard
2 Gig Corsair DDR3 1333MHz RAM
Asus silent Pro 850 PSU

Sapphire Radeon x1600 pro 512mb Grapphics card

1 western digital caviar black 1TB for storage

1 western digital caviar black 1TB for windows 7

and a 250 Gig for Windows xp

Ive been looking at the new i7 920 processor with poss the Asus Rampage 2 Extream or the Asus Rampage 2 GENE or the Asus P6TD Delux Or would I be better going with a i5 processor and geting a faster one for the same money all so what would be a good Graphics card to use ?? Case wise Im going to go with the Coolermaster 1000 cosmos version 2.

 

[sighnbox]

That should have been 4 Gig Ram not 2 lol

 

[shravankale]

When you say ultimate....my suggestion think i7 9xx series, get a Raedon HD 5970 or Raedon HD 5870....the case is a matter of personal choice, just see that it's big enough to fit all your components and leave some place for ventilation.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Please list the mainstream professional applications you will be using for photo and video editing. The choice of applications/software makes a difference.

 

[sighnbox]

Mainly use pinacle studio ultimate 12 for DVD editing/ Burning for photos adobe photo shop. I all so burn loads and loads of DVDs

 

[13thmonkey]

perhaps the biggest gain would be from some raided hdd/ssd? depends what your bottleneck is for your applications, i think your cpu is ok, more ram, more storage speed would probably help.

 

[sighnbox]

Im working with 32 Bit XP and 32 Bit windows 7 as I was told 32 bit is better for video editing etc than 64 bit system Which is why I only have 4 Gig of ram. The reason Im looking at a new comuter is when I start xp between the XP logo at start up and where you put in your pass word screen ....sometimes this is instant at other times this can take a 3-4 mins and when running 7 its worse at times. we have tries udeing the old ram (corsair 2 Gig 1066MHz) no diffrance and even upgraded the PSU from 650 to this 850 CoolerMaster one no diffrance tried a brand new hard drive to put 7 OS on and was the same . So all it leaves is MY mothe Board or the processor. I can replace what I have for £100 or upgrade to a Asus Striker 2 Extream for £214 but if I spend £214 and then its the processor surly I may as well get a new MB and New processor i7 920 ..........

 

[djcoolmasterx]

Im working with 32 Bit XP and 32 Bit windows 7 as I was told 32 bit is better for video editing etc than 64 bit system.

You were told wrong.

 

[sighnbox]

Ok well I have the retail version of 7 so im better installing the 64 bit version then.

 

[13thmonkey]

there is no real reason why your machine should be slow, resolving that would be a lot better than buying new,have you installed the chipset drivers?

 

[sighnbox]

Its not slow in XP once up and running but 7 its locking up some times on stupid things like opening a photo yet other things its like lightning well point me in the direction and will do

 

[13thmonkey]

back up your data, reinstall everything, you were going to have to do it anyway? if you want a bit more speed, splash out on a good small (40/80Gb) ssd

 

[13thmonkey]

oh and run memtest and check out your ram throughly

 

[moody89]

Agree with the above, your current system should be more than sufficient for what you need. Windows 7 should be a bit quicker at boot-time. As 13th Monkey said, a small SSD for your system partition would be a major performance boost. There's no way you would need more than 80GB for a system partition.

 

[sighnbox]

When you say SSD you mean as the OS drive as obveously for Vid I need loads of storage as use AVI

 

[moody89]

Yeah just install your OS and programs on the SSD and keep your data on your other HDD(s). If I'm correct in thinking you have 2 1TB HDDs then this would provide plenty of storage. As suggested above maybe a RAID array with these two drives would be an option to improve read/write speed.

 

[sighnbox]

Ok thanks yes good Idea but still dont solve why windows xp is sometimes slow in that stage of start up and why 7 is as well and is locking up on me. My comp guy sugested it may be a faultering North bridge on my MB

 

[13thmonkey]

I was thinking, ssd for OS, 1x1tb for programs and swap, 1xtb for data.

without hours and hours of diagnosis i'd have suggest a rebuild to solve issues.

what are you hdd's set up as in bios, compatible, raid or ahci?

diagnostic suggestions:
which order did you install xp and '7 in, and did you shift the xp install from diskto disk? can you start in safe mode in step by step mode? and see what causes issues? Do you have any yellow triangles in device manager,? administrative tools - event viewer for any noted events during startup?

please don't take it to pc world...

 

[13thmonkey]

if xp is slow and win 7 is locking up it could be a hardware issue, memcheck and hdd bios settings from above are most likely, my other ideas are less likely.

 

[sighnbox]

Ok Xp was installed on the 250 HDD and has been on the comp for just over a year now and is still on its original disk. Windows 7 has just been installed on a new WD Caviar Black 1TB in the last 2 weeks there in caddies so can be swopped around. OH and yes I would never ever go to PC world it would come back worse than when I tolk it lol.

Im deff going to look into a SSD for the windows 7 tho never thought by useing a large 1TB drive it would slow things up at start up. Found the event Viewer and ussing XP

In APPLICATION I have a red circle with white cross with
Error 25/02/2010 21:12:17 Application Hang (101) 1002 N/A Paul-5D 1D

and a Yellow triangle with
Warning 01/03/2010 00:59:42 Userenv None 1524 Paul Paul-5D 1D

What all that means Not a clue lol

Thanks for all your help by the way I am a real novice when it comes to fidling with comp all I want is a nice spec comp that works well is fast and is a joy to use which it genraly is.

 

[13thmonkey]

did any of those warnings strike you as being during a windows startup?

can you look at how your HDD's are setup in your bios? i've seen the wrong mechanism for accessing hdd's causing odd hangs whilst booting.

if you put the win 7 disk in, i think that there is a repair option, within that there is a memory test option, use it for a few hours, win7 is are more senstive to memory issues as it decides which portions of memory to use differently to xp.

 

[sighnbox]

Nope none of them seamed to be start up related ...When you say check how there set up how you mean ? ......you say use windows 7 for a few hours so its like running a car in .

 

[13thmonkey]

memory testing will take a few hours so let it run, and this is from the win7 dvd and booting from that.

alternatively you could try booting with just one stick of ram and seeing how that works and then the other and seeing how that works. This sounds like faulty ram to me as it is effecting two operating systems intermittently, really is worth testing.

 

[sighnbox]

Thanks Ill give it a go the RAM test as well tho did put the old ram back in to try and rule out Ram but guess it could be the slots them selves

 

[13thmonkey]

virus? is only other thought. let us know how you get on, will be back online this evening (UK) for a little while.