Does this PC have the right stuff?

accelv wrote on 4/11/2003, 1:05 PM
I'm thinking of getting VV4+DVD but I need a PC. I saw one at Tigerdirect: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?sku=H27
-F108%20P
It's a P4 2.4 with 512 ddr ram. If you follow the link, is this PC good enough to host the VV card and software? What kind of a hard drive would you recommend for video storage? I was thinking of a 180 gig WD Caviar 7200. Do I need a RAID controller? Thanks!

Comments

FuTz wrote on 4/11/2003, 1:14 PM
You don't need RAID but be sure to have 7200rpm hard drives, ideally with ATA133 (bigger pipe).
Concerning memory: the more the better, up to a certain point; you don't necessarily need 3Go but 1Go would be very convenient. But read me there: 512 is not bad either, it's a good start. With dynamic RAM previews, the more you have, the longer the clip you can preview.
But other people will give you more specific advice for the rest of the kit here I suppose.

Anybody ?
cyanide wrote on 4/11/2003, 1:58 PM
I think managing a lot of ram ends up putting more of a load on a CPU than the benefits- I would't go over 1G
Jsnkc wrote on 4/11/2003, 2:05 PM
VV card??? There is no card that comes with Vegas Video. Other than that it looks like a pretty good system to run Vegas. I have a mobo with onboard raid and I use that to hook up a 120GB Maxtor 7200RPM drive and I haven't had any problems with it. Looking to get a second drive with the same specs very soon.
frank_jarle wrote on 4/12/2003, 8:03 AM
"I think managing a lot of ram ends up putting more of a load on a CPU than the benefits- I would't go over 1G"

This is wrong, why do you think big servers have lots of memory, thats why you have something that is called memory controller. So dont worry about more then 1GB of memory.

Ok, i cant manage to go to the site, but i think its few things that is important with a system. The CPU, and memory.

The faster CPU you have the faster render time in Vegas, the more memory the longer clip you can handle.

Another notice, do not go for memory that is slower then PC2700 (DDR333), its better to have fast memory like DDR400 (PC3200).

I wouldnt go for a system that is slower then P4 2.4Ghz (equalent AMD that can give same performance is also good) and minimum 512MB memory

Frankie
Singapore
way2slo wrote on 4/12/2003, 12:06 PM
my rock solid system:
P4 2.0A
Asus P4b533 mobo
Samsung 1024 pc2100 ddr ram
Matrox G550 dualhead
Seagate cuda 40g hd(dual boot xp) 80g(audio and video files)
Ibm 60g hd external mounted(via 1394/usb2)
Echo Gina 24 audio interface
Adapter firewire card
LG dvd rom
Pioneer A05 dvd writer
Zalman 300w quiet PSU
XP pro SP1

gruby wrote on 4/13/2003, 3:08 PM
A FireWire port would be welcome...

Anyway can't you find a similar system for $150 less on pricewatch.com ?
TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/14/2003, 7:08 AM
I've got an ESC p6s5at MB, p3-667 with 512mb DDR233mhx ram, 2x80 GB drives (one duel boot Win2000 and 98SE), a Hercules Muse XL sound card, Radeon 8500LE, and an el-cheap capture card. I've NEVER had vegas crash on me. I can playback and edit no problem. Rendering is a bit slow though...
riredale wrote on 4/14/2003, 10:38 AM
The nice thing about Vegas is that it works very well on pretty much ANY system. In my view, the only real difference between systems is whether you get your rendered file back in 5 minutes or 20.

Here are the official requirements, taken from the SoFo web site:

Minimum System Requirements
400 MHz processor
Windows-compatible sound card
Supported CD-Recordable drive (for CD burning only)
Supported DVD-r/-rw/+r/+rw drive (for DVD burning only)
OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394/DV capture card (for DV capture and print-to-tape tools only)
128 MB RAM
30 MB hard-disk space for program installation
Microsoft® Windows® 98SE, Me, 2000, or XP
Microsoft DirectX® 8 or later
Internet Explorer 5.0 or later
ASIO compatible sound card (for record input monitoring only)
Microsoft .Net framework or Windows XP (for application scripting only)


Note that you can't even buy a system with a 400MHz processor any more. The entry-level cheapo E-Machines $399 special uses a 2.2GHz Celeron.

It's fun to tweak PC systems and argue the merits of 333DDR ram versus Rambus, but given the amazing evolution of PC technology over the past few years, let's face it: pretty much any system will work with Vegas very nicely, in sharp contrast with NLE systems in general a few years ago.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/14/2003, 1:55 PM
Oh, we should mention DON'T buy a Celeron. They only have a 66mhx bus. You're just buying a fast Pentium MMX chip. Buy AT LEAST and AMD K7 or P3 chip.
NateC wrote on 4/14/2003, 3:09 PM
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but what do you guys think would be the best investment in hard drive used for video. I am buying a new drive, and have the choice of an ATA133 drive, or a firewire drive. It's not really important that I can take the media with me, so is the firewire drive worth the additional expense?

tserface wrote on 4/14/2003, 4:13 PM
Western Digital has a good rebate deal going on the 200GB/7200/8MB cache drive. I bought one on Friday for $269 and got a $120 rebate leaving the final price at $149. I think this is a great deal for a 200GB drive ($.75/GB).

Tom
riredale wrote on 4/15/2003, 12:11 PM
Wow. That's a great price for so much storage. Makes me wonder just how big these things are going to get.

Perhaps the real limitation 2 years from now will be the transfer rate--can you imagine how long it will take to format a 10 Terabyte (~10,000GB) disk?

TheHappyFriar:
I think 66MHz is what Celerons started with years ago. The Intel web site shows Celerons to have a bus speed of 400MHz now.