New Build for 60p HD video Editing and Maya2011 Under2500$

Your starting point is an Intel i7 system. Personally I use Intel (gaming and general use), but I thought for your apps you might want to look at an AMD 6-core review done by the real staff here, and see a tool that might help you focus in on a processor, and therefore a motherboard et al:

Review Conclusion http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-890fx,2613-14.html

Obviously, selected data on earlier pages is interesting.

Bench Tool http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=46

As linked, shows i7 940 quad vs AMD 1090t hex. Can be changed to show other cpus as well.

Does your budget include the monitor(s)? If so, please let us know what screen(s) you want to reserve budget for. If not, please describe the screen(s) that will be used.

Hopefully someone with more video experience will stop by to help and that info will help. If not, I'll be back.

What's your typical ram usage pattern? Is this a hobby or pro work? How much storage do you need (active projects, scratch, output, archive, programs).

This is for home use but I guess I'll admit I want a pro level capability.
I am in the 3D animation industry by trade. I use a professional HP workstation with pro graphics etc every day at work. (I dont know all the specs for this machine but I'm not expecting the same performance for home)

I have a Dell 20" 2007WFPb but I just realized the max resolution on this is 1680x1050
I also have 2 LG Flatron 19" L1980Umonitors that I currently use for a typical dual monitor Maya setup. Nothing special but they work.

I guess none of these really solves the HD preview problem.........

In any case I guess I can leave the monitor(s) out of the price equation for now.

I don't really know the storage requirements because my camerqa is so new I have not been able to use it much and my current machine is overloaded and has no room for new content.
The camera itself has 32gb internal and 32gb SDHC or SDXC cards for total 64GB
It can fill up pretty quick, but after editing down I will not keep much source data after making an edit. I assumed a 120GB SSD for OS and software would be overkill, and a performance based RAID would be ideal for projects and scratch, then a second maybe smaller mirrored RAID for finished projects photo storage etc.

I'll review the links thanks!!!!

The basics of my HP machine at work that I use every day.
8GB memory
Quadro FX5600
and what seems to be an intel SkullTrail based dual Xeon Quadcore x5482 3.2ghz (8 cores) system
It's sort of hard to tell without opening it up but this is a Red Hat Linux system and I only have info via HINV at my disposal.

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+DIY7+Intel+C...


found this build here.

maybe I'm answering all my own questions

Yes, it seems so. The focus here seems to be gaming . . . plus. While it may turn out that a great gaming system . . . plus a couple of cores/threads . . . might make a great vid station, many of us here would only be guessing. They'd be good guesses, but we prefer numbers and qualified reviews.

Looks like you found at least one. If you need to verify general comparative performance or quality/value of parts, we can probably help more.

Good luck.