Ok let's come up with recommendations for the most bang for your buck Vegas system. I'm bored. :)
(price are approximate newegg.com prices)
***Processor: Pentium 2.8"C" 800FSB Hyperthreading $187***
Processor speed is the best factor in determining render speed, so I wouldn't skimp here. Pentiums seem to be faster than AMD64 and AMD XPs/Bartons at rendering and DVD encoding with the Main Concept encoder. Prescotts run really hot, cost more, and are slower clock for clock, so I don't think they're a good idea. Xeons are not bang for your buck, and are costly. Vegas isn't multithreaded well so you really see diminishing gains with Xeons.
Other choices: Pentium 3.0"C", 3.2"C"
***Case + PSU: Antec 3700AMB $79***
This case comes with a 350W power supply, so it's great value. It has lots of room and a 120mm fan in the back. Bigger fans move more air at lower noise levels.
Other choices: Antec 3700BQE (updated model with a few improvements, costs more), Antec Sonata (quiet design, 380W PSU), other case + bigger PSU
***Motherboard: Abit IS7 $94***
This otherboard uses the Intel 865PE chipset, not the 875. The 865PE offers the same performance since it has PAT unlocked, without the price premium of the 875 chipset. Features: good for overclocking, firewire, SATA RAID (Intel ICH5 RAID controller). Only the firewire port is useful for most people. You can get a cheaper motherboard like the MSI Neo2, but for a few extra bucks firewire is already on the motherboard and doesn’t take up a PCI slot.
Un-features: Northbridge fan (good for extreme overclocking, but creates noise)
Other options: MSI 965PE Neo2 ($83 @ newegg) – it has a nice bundle (rounded IDE cables, USB bracket), no IEEE/firewire, no fan
***RAM: 2X512MB of PC3200 RAM - Crucial/Kingston $156***
Just get normal, name brand RAM. 2 sticks of the same model for dual channel. Low latency RAM and overclocking RAM are a waste of money, even if you want to overclock.
Other options: 2X256MB (hey it'll work with Vegas)
***Hard drives: 160GB 8MB cache (Hitachi PATA 160GB is $113)***
The 8MB cache boosts performance ~30% for your operating system + applications (according to storagereview.com). Bigger drives are better (more future-proof/better for upgrading, faster, more capacity). You can always use the extra capacity.
Hitachi, Western Digital, and Seagate are all good. Hitachi is on top of storagereview.com's leaderboard right now (best drive for OS + applications use in their opinion). WD is second fastest, then Seagate. Seagate is the quietest, followed by Hitachi and then WD. Maxtor is noisy and generally not as reliable, and Samsung no one uses. There are lots of hot deals on Western Digital drives (check hot deals sites).
Some people like having 2 drives since you avoid:
A- fragmentation on your video drive
B- 2 programs trying to access the hard drive at once can choke one drive and cause dropped frames. You can avoid this by closing unnecessary programs.
SATA or PATA: PATA is usually cheaper, although SATA has nicer cabling. Performance is virtually identical. I'd lean towards PATA for now.
Other choices: 80GB system drive 8MB cache + 1 big second drive for video storage
***Sound Card?***
No idea. It really depends on your needs. M-Audio Audiophile 2496? ($149)
I assume on-board sound will be ok if you’re just doing basic mixing. (Is it ok?)
***Video card: Albatron GeForce4 MX440 64MB dual head- $47***
This card supports dual monitors. It has no fan, so that means no noise.
Some programs like Boris Red and After Effects can use the video card for real-time acceleration, but can’t use the card to render. You might want to look into a higher-end gaming card (i.e. ATI 9700pro) or workstation card (ATI Fire GL, Nvidia Quadros) in that case.
Other Options: ATI Radeon 7000s for $35/$40 will do either 2XVGA or VGA+DVI; Matrox P650 for dual DVI (it also supports a third VGA or video output too I think)
***DVD-ROM - Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM $35***
"It doesn't cost much more than a CD-ROM, and you need a second drive for CD to CD copying. 40X CD performance isn't a slouch either. You can get one in a slot load (DVD-120S) or a tray load (DVD-120) version, take your pick." http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/hotrod.html
Other options: CD-RW (for archiving to CD-Rs) – there are sometimes hot deals on those (check hot deals sites)
***DVD Burner - Pioneer 106 $102***
For burning DVDs.
Other choices: Lite-on (cheaper), Sony's DVD burner, Plextor 8X burner (the best), Pioneer 8X version (107/A07)
***Keyboard + mouse - Microsoft mouse + keyboard combo $38***
Get whatever floats your boat. Some people like Logitech mice.
***Floppy - $7***
Mitsumi, Sony, Teac are all good. You may not need a floppy, but some drivers only come on floppies, and you might need a floppy to carry around work. USB flash drives are cool but not as widespread as floppies.
Other options: no floppy, USB flash drive
***Operating System - WinXP Home $92***
I don't think XP offers much over home. There are more things you can tweak and you can log onto corporate networks. Both OSes support hyperthreading, but Home doesn't support SMP (dual processors).
Win2000 is good if you already have it.
***Speakers - ???***
Avoid headphones for mixing. As far as speakers go, I don't know which are good.
Other people recommend Tannoy Reveal Passives ($300 at B&H) or Yorkville YSM1 Passives. Then you’d need an amp.
***Mixer?***
Behringer UB series is the cheapest. You may not need a mixer. It’s helpful for dealing with multiple inputs and outputs, and for voice-overs.
***Deck?***
Sony DSR-11 gets the most recommendations, then the Panasonic decks.
If you don't shoot a lot, then a cheapo camcorder will work. Probably eBay is the best place to get one?
***Contour Shuttle Pro?***
***Monitors X 2: Viewsonic P75f+ PerfectFlat CRTs - $169 X 2***
This is the most beautiful CRT I have seen. Cheap CRTs are annoying afterwards.
CRTs are better bang for the buck than LCDs, even after you consider other costs: furniture, electricitiy, air conditioning, possible eye strain, dual DVI video card, and inflated screen sizes (15" CRT = 14" LCD or something)
I chose dual monitors because they’ll give you a lot more screen real estate than one large monitor.
Other options: NEC Diamondtron 17" CRT 791SB $198
Samsung might also be good?
***Firewire card – (on-board)***
The Abit IS7 has firewire on-board, and so do some sound cards like the Sound Blaster Audigy’s. Firewire cards are all pretty much the same. On older operating systems (i.e. not XP), some chipsets may have some configuration issues. Cheapest firewire card at newegg is $23.50 (including shipping). Pricewatch.com lowest price is about $8.
***6pin-4pin firewire cable- Belkin $12***
You can get generic ones for $7. Crappier cables might mess up your cameras??? For hooking up firewire drives (6pin-6pin), definitely get quality firewire cable. I don't know which ones are better quality though. I figure the most expensive cable has a higher chance of being better quality.
***NTSC Monitor?***
***UPS?***
Un-interruptible power supply. Any recommendations?
***Price: $1319 excluding tax and shipping if I added right (newegg has shipping charges on some items, but I didn't calculate that)***
Many items were not included in the price, including sound card + amp + speakers (which also implies acoustic treatment of the room), NTSC monitor, mixer (which may imply voice-over equipment like a VO booth and a mic), Contour Shuttle Pro, Deck, DVD Media, software
--------------------------------------------------------------
***Alternative approaches:***
You can get even more bang for your buck by overclocking.
Replace recommendations with:
***Pentium 2.4"C" instead of 2.8C***
All the Canterwoods overclock about the same, but have different multipliers. With the 2.4C you want to run at a 3:2 divider, which is faster than the 5:4 divider. Overclocking will put RAM slower than 200mhz which is ok. RAM that can run faster than 200mhz costs a lot more and doesn't add much performance (a few %).
The Canterwoods should top out at least 3.4ghz-3.6ghz depending on what reports you believe. Overclockers.com has a CPU database with overclocking results.
***Thermalright heat sink- SP-94 $48 without fan at newegg***
Fan: Lots of choices. You can go with a quiet 92mm fan like a Vantec Stealth or a Panaflo (Panaflos are more expensive and need to be change to get the right connector)
The Zalman copper cooler is also good, possibly more bang for your buck
Another option is to just overclock mildly. Use the retail Pentium heatsink of the Zalman copper CPU cooler and change your FSB to 250 and the memory divider to 5:4. This turns your 2.4C into a 3.0C (RAM runs at normal DDR400 speeds). The 25% overclock is mild and you shouldn't have to worry much at all about overclocking issues.
***The Dell barbones route:***
This I think is actually cheaper than a complete do-it-yourself route. The parts + software are cheaper than buying the parts seperately. Check hot deals sites like xpbargains.com and wait for a hot deal on a Dimension 8300 or 4600. You may end up with a non-flat Dell monitor, but you might be able to eBay it off or just use it.
***Refurbished Dells:***
are these a good deal?
(price are approximate newegg.com prices)
***Processor: Pentium 2.8"C" 800FSB Hyperthreading $187***
Processor speed is the best factor in determining render speed, so I wouldn't skimp here. Pentiums seem to be faster than AMD64 and AMD XPs/Bartons at rendering and DVD encoding with the Main Concept encoder. Prescotts run really hot, cost more, and are slower clock for clock, so I don't think they're a good idea. Xeons are not bang for your buck, and are costly. Vegas isn't multithreaded well so you really see diminishing gains with Xeons.
Other choices: Pentium 3.0"C", 3.2"C"
***Case + PSU: Antec 3700AMB $79***
This case comes with a 350W power supply, so it's great value. It has lots of room and a 120mm fan in the back. Bigger fans move more air at lower noise levels.
Other choices: Antec 3700BQE (updated model with a few improvements, costs more), Antec Sonata (quiet design, 380W PSU), other case + bigger PSU
***Motherboard: Abit IS7 $94***
This otherboard uses the Intel 865PE chipset, not the 875. The 865PE offers the same performance since it has PAT unlocked, without the price premium of the 875 chipset. Features: good for overclocking, firewire, SATA RAID (Intel ICH5 RAID controller). Only the firewire port is useful for most people. You can get a cheaper motherboard like the MSI Neo2, but for a few extra bucks firewire is already on the motherboard and doesn’t take up a PCI slot.
Un-features: Northbridge fan (good for extreme overclocking, but creates noise)
Other options: MSI 965PE Neo2 ($83 @ newegg) – it has a nice bundle (rounded IDE cables, USB bracket), no IEEE/firewire, no fan
***RAM: 2X512MB of PC3200 RAM - Crucial/Kingston $156***
Just get normal, name brand RAM. 2 sticks of the same model for dual channel. Low latency RAM and overclocking RAM are a waste of money, even if you want to overclock.
Other options: 2X256MB (hey it'll work with Vegas)
***Hard drives: 160GB 8MB cache (Hitachi PATA 160GB is $113)***
The 8MB cache boosts performance ~30% for your operating system + applications (according to storagereview.com). Bigger drives are better (more future-proof/better for upgrading, faster, more capacity). You can always use the extra capacity.
Hitachi, Western Digital, and Seagate are all good. Hitachi is on top of storagereview.com's leaderboard right now (best drive for OS + applications use in their opinion). WD is second fastest, then Seagate. Seagate is the quietest, followed by Hitachi and then WD. Maxtor is noisy and generally not as reliable, and Samsung no one uses. There are lots of hot deals on Western Digital drives (check hot deals sites).
Some people like having 2 drives since you avoid:
A- fragmentation on your video drive
B- 2 programs trying to access the hard drive at once can choke one drive and cause dropped frames. You can avoid this by closing unnecessary programs.
SATA or PATA: PATA is usually cheaper, although SATA has nicer cabling. Performance is virtually identical. I'd lean towards PATA for now.
Other choices: 80GB system drive 8MB cache + 1 big second drive for video storage
***Sound Card?***
No idea. It really depends on your needs. M-Audio Audiophile 2496? ($149)
I assume on-board sound will be ok if you’re just doing basic mixing. (Is it ok?)
***Video card: Albatron GeForce4 MX440 64MB dual head- $47***
This card supports dual monitors. It has no fan, so that means no noise.
Some programs like Boris Red and After Effects can use the video card for real-time acceleration, but can’t use the card to render. You might want to look into a higher-end gaming card (i.e. ATI 9700pro) or workstation card (ATI Fire GL, Nvidia Quadros) in that case.
Other Options: ATI Radeon 7000s for $35/$40 will do either 2XVGA or VGA+DVI; Matrox P650 for dual DVI (it also supports a third VGA or video output too I think)
***DVD-ROM - Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM $35***
"It doesn't cost much more than a CD-ROM, and you need a second drive for CD to CD copying. 40X CD performance isn't a slouch either. You can get one in a slot load (DVD-120S) or a tray load (DVD-120) version, take your pick." http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/hotrod.html
Other options: CD-RW (for archiving to CD-Rs) – there are sometimes hot deals on those (check hot deals sites)
***DVD Burner - Pioneer 106 $102***
For burning DVDs.
Other choices: Lite-on (cheaper), Sony's DVD burner, Plextor 8X burner (the best), Pioneer 8X version (107/A07)
***Keyboard + mouse - Microsoft mouse + keyboard combo $38***
Get whatever floats your boat. Some people like Logitech mice.
***Floppy - $7***
Mitsumi, Sony, Teac are all good. You may not need a floppy, but some drivers only come on floppies, and you might need a floppy to carry around work. USB flash drives are cool but not as widespread as floppies.
Other options: no floppy, USB flash drive
***Operating System - WinXP Home $92***
I don't think XP offers much over home. There are more things you can tweak and you can log onto corporate networks. Both OSes support hyperthreading, but Home doesn't support SMP (dual processors).
Win2000 is good if you already have it.
***Speakers - ???***
Avoid headphones for mixing. As far as speakers go, I don't know which are good.
Other people recommend Tannoy Reveal Passives ($300 at B&H) or Yorkville YSM1 Passives. Then you’d need an amp.
***Mixer?***
Behringer UB series is the cheapest. You may not need a mixer. It’s helpful for dealing with multiple inputs and outputs, and for voice-overs.
***Deck?***
Sony DSR-11 gets the most recommendations, then the Panasonic decks.
If you don't shoot a lot, then a cheapo camcorder will work. Probably eBay is the best place to get one?
***Contour Shuttle Pro?***
***Monitors X 2: Viewsonic P75f+ PerfectFlat CRTs - $169 X 2***
This is the most beautiful CRT I have seen. Cheap CRTs are annoying afterwards.
CRTs are better bang for the buck than LCDs, even after you consider other costs: furniture, electricitiy, air conditioning, possible eye strain, dual DVI video card, and inflated screen sizes (15" CRT = 14" LCD or something)
I chose dual monitors because they’ll give you a lot more screen real estate than one large monitor.
Other options: NEC Diamondtron 17" CRT 791SB $198
Samsung might also be good?
***Firewire card – (on-board)***
The Abit IS7 has firewire on-board, and so do some sound cards like the Sound Blaster Audigy’s. Firewire cards are all pretty much the same. On older operating systems (i.e. not XP), some chipsets may have some configuration issues. Cheapest firewire card at newegg is $23.50 (including shipping). Pricewatch.com lowest price is about $8.
***6pin-4pin firewire cable- Belkin $12***
You can get generic ones for $7. Crappier cables might mess up your cameras??? For hooking up firewire drives (6pin-6pin), definitely get quality firewire cable. I don't know which ones are better quality though. I figure the most expensive cable has a higher chance of being better quality.
***NTSC Monitor?***
***UPS?***
Un-interruptible power supply. Any recommendations?
***Price: $1319 excluding tax and shipping if I added right (newegg has shipping charges on some items, but I didn't calculate that)***
Many items were not included in the price, including sound card + amp + speakers (which also implies acoustic treatment of the room), NTSC monitor, mixer (which may imply voice-over equipment like a VO booth and a mic), Contour Shuttle Pro, Deck, DVD Media, software
--------------------------------------------------------------
***Alternative approaches:***
You can get even more bang for your buck by overclocking.
Replace recommendations with:
***Pentium 2.4"C" instead of 2.8C***
All the Canterwoods overclock about the same, but have different multipliers. With the 2.4C you want to run at a 3:2 divider, which is faster than the 5:4 divider. Overclocking will put RAM slower than 200mhz which is ok. RAM that can run faster than 200mhz costs a lot more and doesn't add much performance (a few %).
The Canterwoods should top out at least 3.4ghz-3.6ghz depending on what reports you believe. Overclockers.com has a CPU database with overclocking results.
***Thermalright heat sink- SP-94 $48 without fan at newegg***
Fan: Lots of choices. You can go with a quiet 92mm fan like a Vantec Stealth or a Panaflo (Panaflos are more expensive and need to be change to get the right connector)
The Zalman copper cooler is also good, possibly more bang for your buck
Another option is to just overclock mildly. Use the retail Pentium heatsink of the Zalman copper CPU cooler and change your FSB to 250 and the memory divider to 5:4. This turns your 2.4C into a 3.0C (RAM runs at normal DDR400 speeds). The 25% overclock is mild and you shouldn't have to worry much at all about overclocking issues.
***The Dell barbones route:***
This I think is actually cheaper than a complete do-it-yourself route. The parts + software are cheaper than buying the parts seperately. Check hot deals sites like xpbargains.com and wait for a hot deal on a Dimension 8300 or 4600. You may end up with a non-flat Dell monitor, but you might be able to eBay it off or just use it.
***Refurbished Dells:***
are these a good deal?