I need help with building a computer...

How much tight is your budget..?? Which software(s) is used by you mostly..?? The critical elements required for video editing is a fast processor and a nice amount of RAM.. It'll further help to've a quick hard disk.. GPU computations are still not that strongly relevant to video encoding/editing tasks but still, having a dedicated GPU will surely help..

Itz difficult 2 tell without knowing ur budget, but here's a good start :

Processor : Intel i7 920 ; $279.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Motherboard* : MSI X58 PRO E ; $199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

RAM : Patriot Viper 6 GB ; $154.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Graphics : ATI Radeon HD 5750 ; $144.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Storage : Internal : Seagate Barracuda 500 GB ; $54.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

External :WD Elements 1TB USB 2.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Case + PSU - Antec 600 & Antec Earthwatts EA 500D ; $119.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...


* the motherboard is strictly for the rock bottom budget.

so there u go. best of luck!

well my budget is pretty minimal...i was hoping to keep it in the 5 to 6 hundred dollar range. My wife is strictly against me spending anymore...she dosent understand that it costs to make art...lol.

From what I understand, video editing on a timely basis requires the better processors...it is why people suggest the i7 920 over the i5 750 , for example.

Are you near a Microcenter? Their instore deals can save you a lot of money. For example, i7 920 is often 200 dollars there...

no ive never even heard of a Microcenter...is that the actual name of the store?

For video editing 3 harddrrives are recommended. OS, Scratch, and work disks.
You can skimp on the video card if you only plan on runing CS4, like an older ati 3850, but if CS5 is on your horizon then a GTX285, Quadro fx4800 or other cuda based card should be added to your budget. (+300 to 600). In CS5 the gpu will be taking over much of the processing. Its really sweet technology!! But limited to Cuda based NVidia adapters until OpenCL comes to fruition.