A computer for Video Editing

Glennmizu · Post by **Glennmizu** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:03 am

I am thinking of buying a computer just for video editing with VS9 and photos only. Also a few editing and photo programs. No internet.
The local shop can put together a nice computer for about $800.

The details are

CPU Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz FSB800 Socket 478press controller

Mother board Intel865G chip set.

Memory Greenhouse PC400 512 MB PC3200 free slot x1

HDD Maxtor 6L300SO 300GB serial ATA2

FDD Mitsumi FA405M(SV) Multi card reader.

DVD Supermulti LG GSA-4167B DVD+ - R 16x plus all the usual.

OS Windows XP home SP2

USV 2 X 4

Does this sound sufficient to use for video editing? Any ideas?

Cheers

Glenn Waters
www.glennwaters.com

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:57 am

I would suggest an extra 512 MB of RAM... which is pretty cheap these days. I assume it will have a decent sound card on it (and that you have speakers). And what about Firewire and an analogue capture card? You also don't mention what kind of graphics card it will have.

Glennmizu · Post by **Glennmizu** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:24 am

Hello Ken,

Thank you for your reply.

I have no idea about the sound card or graphics card. I will have to check that with the shop.
Can you recomend any?

It does have connections for firewire. Also audio and TV I think.
Cheers

Glenn
www.glennwaters.com

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:36 pm

Hi Glenn,

I reckon you could find a far quicker system either in the "Big Box" store offers or even a factory refurbished unit from the likes of CompUSA.

If I was to buy another pc, I would certainly go for a socket 775 motherboard and cpu if it was Intel based, but more likely go for an AMD pc using a socket 939 motherboard.

The Intel 865G motherboard is obsolete. (I have one on my pc) If you're at all interested in gaming, for example, and wish to upgrade to a better video card at some time, the latest pci Express video cards are significantly cheaper than the AGP video cards that would have to be used with a socket 478 motherboard.

In my opinion, the best price/performance ratio can be had using an AMD 64 X2 3800+ cpu. That's AMD's base model dual core cpu. Dual core processors manage to do video encoding 40% or more faster than a similarly clocked single core processor. If you don't like the idea of assembling your own system, I see that Best Buy have a $1000 offer on an X2 3800 system right now.

If you had to go for an Intel pc, the D820 is intel's base model dual core cpu. For video encoding stuff, it's just a little slower than an AMD X2 3800+ but still significantly quicker than any of the single core Intel cpu's, and a whole lot faster than the P4 3.2c suggested by your local shop.

RAM is the least significant component for video editing. The principal benefit you will see with more RAM will be faster "Smart Rendering". There is NO IMPROVEMENT in encoding speed with more RAM. Of course if you are a gamer, game levels will load significantly quicker with more RAM. 512Mb of RAM is sufficient for video editing, especially if you have a separate graphics card, and you'll see a video encoding speed benefit with RAM with faster timings. Most "value" RAM has a latency of 3, but for a little more, you can use RAM with a latency of 2.5 or even 2. (I'm not familiar with the Greenhouse RAM you mention - perhaps that's low latency)

If you go for a socket 775 Intel pc, you will be able to use DDR2 RAM. The sad fact is (for me using DDR RAM!) DDR2 RAM is quicker and cheaper than DDR RAM.

This year AMD will introduce a new 940 pin socket which they will call "M2". It will introduce DDR2 support. Although it's unlikley to bring any great performance benefit, it should have the great benefit of depressing socket 939 component and system prices - so if you can wait a bit, there may be better deals to be had.

Last of all, if you build your own system, you can use a motherboard that's optimised for overclocking. Most pc's from Dell, Gateway, HP and so on have o.e.m motherboards with limited options in bios. With boards from Asus, Msi and many others, you can benefit from built in overclocking features. Using these, you can often see a 25% speed increase in your pc. Overclocking may not be your thing, which is fine, but if you buy an o.e.m system, it's normally not feasible at all, although you can still overclock most video cards.

So, if you want any reasonable amount of upgrade potential in your system, avoid the socket 478 pc!

Glennmizu · Post by **Glennmizu** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 3:23 pm

Hello 2Dogs. Thank you for your advice. I will talk about it with the guy at the store tomorrow.
At least now I will be able to pretend that I know what I am talking about.
Again many thanks for your detailed advice.
Glenn Waters
www.glennwaters.com

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:44 pm

Hey Glenn,

I just clocked your location! Best Buy obviously not relevant there - but I'd be quite surprised if pc's in Japan weren't even more up to date than in the US or Europe.

Let us know or PM me with what you end up with! It's always interesting to get real world actual performance figures from users.

Good luck!

tyamada · Post by **tyamada** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:40 pm

I would wait till the dust settles before purchasing a new computer for video editing.

AMD is about to release new chip, it seems the socket 939 is going to be discontinued.

Intel is about to release their new processors based on the 65nm chips.
They have just released the 975 Chipset motherboard to augment the new processors.

Your current computer should be sufficient to do what you want for the moment.

I have been looking at upgrading but am holding off till I see the reviews on the performance of the new processors and motherboards.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:19 pm

2dogs

RAM is the least significant component for video editing. The principal benefit you will see with more RAM will be faster "Smart Rendering". There is NO IMPROVEMENT in encoding speed with more RAM.

Comparing my AMD Athlon 2400XP with 1GB RAM to my Sons AMD Athlon 2400XP with 512MB RAM, there IS a big difference in speed.

However, checking the Task manager the RAM never reaches the 1GB mark but during rendering is always above the 512MB mark and so 1GB should be sufficient. Otherwise a very good and comprehensive reply.

Steve J

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:20 pm

Re a graphics card, I would be looking (personally) at the upper end of the Leadtek/Winfast range, some of which double as a capture card as well. I personally use a Winfast DV2000 capture card, which I find excellent (including its own software), though it is limited by the fact that it cannot capture in DV format, which is the desirable capture format if you can manage it from an analogue source. Others will have their own particular favourites, and I hear good things about the Hauppage range. Ideally, though, depending on your money situation, you should -- if you intend to do a lot of analogue capturing -- be thinking of a higher end stand-alone capture device (Plextor, for instance, has a range) which has a hardware encoder built into it and can convert incoming analogue video signals to digital DV. And being harware encoded, it thus does not become a drag on computer resources in the capture process.

Glennmizu · Post by **Glennmizu** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 3:26 pm

Thank you all for taking the time and for your input. I still haven’t decided. P4 3.2GHz or AMD 64 X2 3800+ cpu.
The price of the P4 is looking good though.
Cheers

Glenn Waters
www.glennwaters.com

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:08 am

What awfully good timing, I just received this newsletter from cnet.
http://nl.com.com/view_online_newslette ... st_id=e497
Which is a discussion about AMD -v- Intel.

You may have to sign up though to read it, not sure as I am already (obviously) signed up.

Steve J

Glennmizu · Post by **Glennmizu** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:14 pm

Thanks Sjj1805
that report convinced me to order a new computer today.

But it cost me double the amount of the computer that I was considering buying.

I ordered an AMD 64x2 duel core 3800+ CPU

SN25P by Shuttle with 939 socket Hyper Transport 1GHz system
bus.
http://www.thebookpc.com/product_info.p ... cts_id/311

Review link.
http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/system/sh ... c%5Fsn25p/

NVIDIA RAID
PCI Express interface 8 GB bandwidth
Mother board FN25

HDD Maxtor 259GB + 120GB

ASUS Video board

1 GB of ram DD 4333k
DVD Supermulti LG GSA-4167B DVD+ - R 16x plus all the usual.
Windows XP home

I have to keep the price from my wife. Ha ha.

Cheers and thanks all for your kind help.

Glenn
www.glennwaters.com

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:43 pm

Glenn,
It will round this thread off nicely if you let us know in due course how the computer performs and if it fullfilled your requirements.
Steve J

Glennmizu · Post by **Glennmizu** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:59 pm

Hello Steve
as soon as I can test it I will post my review here.

I should get it in three days. Can't wait.

Cheers

Glenn

KoNanSteel · Post by **KoNanSteel** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 5:18 pm

Glennmizu,

I just reviewed this thread in search of performance information. The last request on this thread was to give a response to the results of your purchase. I thought by re-making this request, you might get an e-mail nudge to do that in case you forgot.

nudge

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A computer for Video Editing

A computer for Video Editing

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