I was having a hardware store some years ago....

Here is a theory about buying hardware.
Considering :
- That the prices of High end systems are set for enterprises. Spending 10k$ on a mail server is not a problem for a company. Even if a 1k$ pc will do the work.
- That top level hardware is 3 times more expensive than good hardware for less than 20% performance gain.
- Prices are going down every months.
- The price of some parts decrease more slowly (mouse, screen, keyboards)...
- Your budget is not infinite (who ever you are, and if it were, you won't have asked this question).
- Keep in mind you never buy a computer for more than 1 years and half.

My advice is :
- Plan your hardware budget over months. If you have an amount of money today and if you have more than requiered for a correct hadware. Don't spend all this money to buy the best computer. Keep some for upcomming months, years... If you can save 1k$ today, in one year you will be able to buy two time more hardware than today.
- If you start a new configuration from scratch. Take care of the choice of this components : Screen(s), mouse, keyboard, box (quiet, powerfull alim for multiple hard drives), sound card (only 4 generations since 1992, compare to 20 or more generations of video cards), speakers. These components will last years.
- For the performance critical components choose them in this order of priority
Mainboard
Ram
Processor
Processor is the least important component on your budget. =>
if you look at the difference of price between a high end motherboard (I recomend Asustek) and a low end one, there is only 100$ for a difference of 50% performance.
Wheras there is 150$ between to CPU for only 7% of performance. (PIV 2.8 vs PIV 3 today). The motherboard increase overall performance, hard drive acces, memory bandwith, PCI and AGP bandwhith... remember not to trust the feature of a motherboard. Just read hardware test or choose a good brand (Asustek, abit...)
-For each of these component there is some rules to folow :
- choose them compatible :)
- equivalent performance (do not use a 266 fsb cpu with 100 mhz memory)
- Write down a chart with a ratio (quantity or performance)/price. You will see that the curve goes down slowly to the average device then start growing... then quickly increase at the end (newest goods). Choose the device just before the peak Remember that the price of the 10% more performent devices is set very high to earn money with stupid people who need to waste their money buying the best things available to show to theirs friends. (this is a commercial technique that also applies to any kind of goods)

Regarding today configuration for video I will recomend :
- good ergonomy parts (screen(s), keyboards, mouse) remember to take care of the noise (box, CPU cooler, video card)
- 2 big CRT screens (I recomend Iiyama Diamondtron) avoid LCD for video. a good dual output video card (asusteck, matrox,....)
- 1 Ghz RAM,2.6 ghz CPU (I recomend AMD even if I have an Intel ;) ), asusteck mainboard
- one 40 gb for system and some 250 IDE GB hard drives. Yes, I say some. this disks are so cheap today (Less than the price of equivalent space using CDRWs) . You can then use them as storage for video, media bank, backup storage... IDE hard drives are fast enough to work with video. SCSI won't show a big difference. I'd rather buy 3 250Gb IDE disks than one 76gB SCSI.
- DVD burner maybee ?
!!! - avoid external firewire disks or test them with Vegas befoare (there is a bug with some firewire interfaces). !!!
- If you still have money to spend, consider having two or more computers over a gigabit network so ones can compute render when you work on the other.


Conclusion :
Buying a computer is not a one shot act.
Plan your budget as a monthy expense.
Never buy the topmost devices.

If you have too much money, you can buy holidays or give it to me... :)

Hope this helps. Folowing this I could have better hardware (over months) with a lower budget than lot of persons I know. I just change my hardware more often, and I give lot of 'old' devices to my loved ones.

Bokan

Note : anyone can copy this to any forum (providing he corrects english errors)

"- 2 big CRT screens (I recomend Iiyama Diamondtron) avoid LCD for video"

Why? is that because of this lagging in the picture you get with those (not quick enough to hold video signal without blurring) ?
Hasn't it been fixed since the problem got mentioned in numerous forums ? They didn't come up with something that's good for us ?
I planned on buying one of these in a year or so when I'll be upgrading my system...

LCD TFT monitors are OK if you have a TV monitor too to check the video signal.

FWIW, i have two editting workstations, both running V4. System one is a TYAN/AMD duallie running 1.2 Gig Athlon MP's and system two is a 3.06 Gig P4 on an ASUS P4PE mobo. Given a choice, i'd opt for the single 3.06 P4....it's a no brainer. V4 has a limited multithreading capability that can't fully utilize the resources of a duallie system. My biggest problem with the duallie system is the cost of upgrading the CPU's when faster CPU's became available. With the singly CPU P4 system, I can replace the cpu, when intel makes a faster one, for less cost than replacing two. As far as rendering speed, the hyperthreading 3 Gig P4 is a real speed demon.

I do think CRT screens are better for some reasons. One is that their gama is closer to a video screen and when you have a monitor to check the result you see that a modification on you CRT screen give the same kind of result on the monitor. Whereas the behavior is not he same on a LCD.
The other point is that LCD color depend of where you ar looking the screen from.

Despite this, I work on a Asus notebook 1400*1050 and it does the work :) And having such a resolution and sharp pixels is a delight :)...

Maybe hires CRT + TV should be perfect.

I forget something very very important :
there is no need to upgrade only CPU.
- RAM+CPU+Motherboard is a whole
If you buy a 2.4 ghz CPU today on the best available motherboard you could then change to a stronger CPU in 1 year. And you will have a certain performance increase, right. But this CPU won't give it's best on this motherboard and this ram. It's better to change the whole.

I just finished (literally about an hour ago) building my latest system. Its a real screamer. I decided on the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe with a P4c 2.8 Ghz.

This really isn't the place for high tech chatter, but I spend I few minutes on my reasoning.

Why Intel and not AMD?
My last two system were AMD and while I was happy with them and think the processor in rougly on a par with Intel, (speed and feature wise) the reality is motherboard development seems to lag behind the features found in top of the line Intel boards. I'll assume that's because Intel still far and away has the lion's share of the PC biz, so more than anything else I felt I was missing out on some of the latest features.

I picked a ASUS board for a several reasons. I've had them before for both AMD and Intel processors and to sum it up: QUALITY. They are rated hightly and considered by most the number one producer. On the P4P800 Deluxe, it has 3Com Giabit LAN build into the card. Also built in firewire, USB 2.0, and RAID. That means I can ditch three external cards... benefit, right now only the AGP slot is in use and that supports 8X or nearly 2 GB a second transfer potential. I've lost nothing in features, and STILL have 5 slots open. It doesn't hurt that it supports the latest chipsets, runs at 800MHz FSB and it don't use Award BIOS! I HATE AWARD BIOS. The included AMI BIOS is much more user friendly and you can overclock easily and without messing with the CPU directly.

There are similar good boards made by other companies. The point is, if you're going to build your own, spend a few extra dollars and get a premium motherboard.

Memory
Dual Channel 400 MHZ DDR (premium grade). Again, don't skimp on this. Everything your computer does involves data going to and from the memory. Trying to save a few bucks on some bargain brand simply isn't worth it. I got a version with copper heat risers. Again, if you're going to run fast, that makes extra heat, and the shroud of copper that sits atop the chips throws it off.

A Pentium 4c 2.8 Ghz CPU
Why not a 3.0 or 3.2? It isn't worth the price premium. The minor difference between the 2.8 and the higher rated chips can easily be overcome with some minor overclocking. Again, the motherboard I picked makes that a snap. Haven't tried yet, but should easily get a extra 12-15% maybe more, and that means it will run as fast or faster than the much higher chips and the money I saved pays for both the motherboad and RAM.

Part Two.

Maybe I should mention I only bought 3 components:

a. new motherboard
b. new CPU
c. new memory.

I gutted my last system reusing the hard drives, power supply, case, video card, DVD burner, keyboard and track ball. Total time, to gut the old system and rebuild, a record for me. just about twenty minutes, not couting the installing of the OS and I have yet to transfer the software. The main thing was I upgraded to a state of art system for a little over $600. If you are considering this route, remember the newer P4's have very close. very tiny, very short pins... 478 of them. And my first attempt at inserting the CPU, horor of horor I managed to bend a corner pin just a bit... I was able to fix, but that scares you. What I like is the included heat sink/fan is a dream. A couple new style clamps that merge with the bottom half already build into the motherboard, bing, bang, zoom, took grand total of 10 seconds to install the heatskink/fan on the CPU and no screwdriver to slip.

I'm starting to babble... later.

interesting babble for me at this time.

I am about to buy a customer built PC, heres my thoughts fo far

Abit IC7-G 875 motherboard, give me 800 FSB, 4 x USB2, Firewire and LAN they also supply a PCI card that connects to the motherboard for an extra 2 x USB2 and 2 x Firewire - thats all my UBB devices connected and firewire with one left over.

I was going to go for the latest 3.06GHz but as Billyboy mentions overclocking can give you the same I have a review of overclocking the 2.8/IC7-G to 3.51GHz with rock solid stability!

I was going to add 4 x 200GB drives and the new Sony DVD+/- burner so I have all the options

Two areas I can't make my mind up on are

1. Best device for Archiving - The DVD capacity/media cost is not that attractive, anyone have any recommendations?

2. The Case - I can't make up my mind

I want to build a system that allows me to upgrade easily in the future, as you have done Billyboy, 18 months from now I amy want the 895 motherboard with 6GHz CPU :-) whilst protecting the investment and making it easy to move without a complete new system

The cases a I have in mind are either one of the Lian-Li cases or the one that interests me a lot is the water cooled X-Aqua H20 Extreme. The X-Aqua has loads of disk expansion plus it is supposed to be really quiet even with the Radiator fans and hard drive fans.

Any thoughts anyone? Am I barking mad or do my thoughts stack up?

Cheers, PAW

I went with a Antec full tower case. Tell ya why.

As I've said many times I'm a big fan of removable drives in drawers. Well, when building the previous system, I did much of the same thing, gut parts from its oldest brother. However the system I had 3 or 4 back was in a mini tower case or about 8 inches shorter and more importantly, a couple inches less wide. That was a problem.

When putting that system together trying to install the two removable drawers I could not. Why? No matter how I shuffled them around they would either bump into the power supply cage on top so they couldn't slide all the way in or worse not clear a couple big capacitors on the motherboard below.

So by going with a full tower, they have plenty of space on top that allows to have 3 large devices slide into the top 3 slots (the top most slot even clears the power supply totally, so could be 18 inches or so deep) plus what I like that's kind of neat is there are 2 removable drive cages that slide in and out with a little clamp device. No more messing around trying to force a hard drive in or out and worrying about the cable jungle or bumping into the MB in the process. Takes a grand total of 10 seconds to slip a drive in and out, because I just push the clamp, the whole drive cage slips right out. and because the case is plenty deep, you don't have to worry about banging into the installed motherboard. My particular case is also heavy duty in construction and comes with a premium 430 watt power supply. Its a couple years old, think I paid about $160 or so which included the power supply.

Be careful if you haven't bought a aluminum case before... The quality ones are cool, but expensive. $225-300 and up. But several companies offer cheaper ones that are very badly made and the aluminum is very thin with the case not being that sturdy. I got one buddy that bought one and he hates the thing. To get at the insides you need to also remove the top, besides the back and sides. And in his trying to put it back together he bent it and it shows. If you can bend a case that easily, gosh... I wouldn't want one.

The one downside about a bigger case in while they give you plenty of room, standard IDE cables may be too short if you try to have a master slave pretty far apat. I got extra long (30 inch) round ones which add extra space between the master/slave connector.

Water cooler? It sounds good, but if it leaks... water and computers don't mix well. If you go with it, less us know how it works. <wink>

Memo to PAW...

I was looking around on some site and just by chance came across what seems to be the case you had in mind. It looks like the one my buddy had trouble with, so I don't know, maybe you should check some reviews on it, see if there is just one or two models that aren't too hot.

Again, the one my friend had was so poorly made just screwing down the motherboard he said he pulled out two or three of the little rivets that hold in stand offs for the MB. Not a good sign. Probably again because of how thin the case is. Heavy gage aluminum it isn't.

bubblemower, sorry for jumping your thread.

Billyboy - bottled out on the water cooled chassis, I am based in the UK and realised that if the pump went I could be down and out of pocket for some time

New favourite is the ThermalTake Xaser III

Cheers, PAW

PAW,

I just ordered the same motherboard you are talking about. I did alot of research and compared the Asus P4P800 Deluxe and the Abit IC7-G. Decided to go with the IC7-G.

Seemed the the ASUS was able to match speed even though it has 865PE chipset and not the 875PE.

But the reason I swayed to the IC7-G is that the transfer rates on the RAID configuration were way down on the ASUS board, both for IDE PATA RAID and for and for Serial ATA RAID. They did not come close to the performance of the IC7-G RAID speeds. I'm really sold on RAID-0 configuration for my video drive and ABIT shines in that area.

I did end up ordering the 3.0 P4. I've always been afraid of the overclocking. I should have read the posts here before I ordered. The 2.8 P4 would have been alot less!!

Thanks for everybody's posts!!

Galen

galen

I did not realise the IC7-G did RAID on the IDE interface I thought it was SATA only - thanks for your reply it changes my options

Trying to build your own system keeps you up at night - I don't think there is a perfect system otherwise we would all have the same kit.

I may well go with the 3GHz for the same reason as the case - if it does blow up or blows up the processor after six months at least I am covered with the warranty.

But then again the 3.2GHz is around the corner and the overclocking multiples are better and I may be able to clock up to 4GHz....

:-)

I'd have to agree with Bokan that the motherboard and graphics systems are more important than getting the fastest possible processor.

For motherboards I'd be looking for something with an 865 or 875 intel chipset. That means you'd be looking at a single intel processor. Go for an 800MHz fsb cpu and ddr400. The ddr400 should be good for any cpu you put into the board, now or in the future.

For graphics I'd just be looking at dual monitor capable cards. Most acceleration features are aimed at games and won't be a big help when editing. Matrox seems like a good bet although I use an inexpensive nvidia card at work.

Cases? Big, quiet, good power supply, 4 or more 5.25" bays. Front IO options would be handy. Easy acces to drives would be good.

Raid? I have IDE raid on a system at home and I say don't bother. You'll do what you need without it. Keep your disks separated and put them in removable bays. For THAT SATA might be better if it'll support hot swapping.

SCSI disks? I've wondered about it. Some of the render tests came out faster with scsi disks. Probably because the CPU overhead was lower, leaving more for renders.

Fastest CPU? 2.8x800fsb Vs 3.0x800fsb? Think of it in proportions. How much faster can it be? Would you have upgraded from a 280MHz PII to a 300MHz PII? I'd buy the less expensive CPU if I thought I'd see a 4GHz cpu for my motherboard next year. Who knows, maybe you'll be so busy next year that you'll get a second system and move this one to a secondary render machine.

This is not to say that you shouldn't get a very fast CPU. You should.

Dual Processors? expensive to upgrade so my guess is that you won't. Duallies don't currently help with Vegas renders but maybe they will next year. Duallies ought to help in other ways-like working while vegas renders-but still, it's pricy.

LCD vs CRT? I'd want to keep at least one big crt for color critical work for the web. For NTSC (or PAL) output nothing beats an NTSC or PAL monitor. That makes three monitors-and you shouldn't be using a consumer TV to as a monitor.

One thing I suspect about an LCD is that it might not pick up interference from an adjacent NTSC monitor. Something to consider. It seems like most NTSC monitors will induce a flicker in a nearby CRT.

Firewire? I think the ADS line is pretty reliable overall (with some caveates) The boards based on the chipsets above will have onboard 1394. I don't know how reliable it is but it's probably fine. (I have a test machine here at work that is 865 based and I see that the onboard 1394 uses a TI chip. That's good.) 1394b (firewire800) is something to keep your eye on because it should support peer to peer transfers and longer cable runs. Longer cable runs may mean you can take the stuff on shoots I wouldn't go out of my way to upgrade to it yet but I'd watch it. If you HAVE to buy a card I'd think seriously about it.

Gigabit ethernet? some of the 865/875 based boards will have GB Ethernet built in. If it is what Intel offers as a chipset option then it'll be driven off the Northbridge. There's an advantage to it but only if you are actually using gigabit ethernet. Who knows, maybe you could be mirroring your media and project to a second machine for renders. Currently Vegas doesn't do anything special to justify GB eth.

Rob Mack

I just completed my 3rd V4 system. This system is utilizing the ASUS P4C800 Deluxe MOBO w/ 875P Chipset 800MHz FSB; Pentium 4 3.0GHz 800MHz FSB; GeForce FX5600, 256 MB, 8x AGP Graphics card; 1.5 Gig 400 MHz PC3200 DDR; 3- 120Gig ATA 133 Hard drives- 1 as system, 2 as Video Raid; Promise MultiRAID: 2 UltraATA 133 Ports / 2 SATA Ports; Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sound card... CPU temp runs between 97 and 104 degrees.... So far this has been a very fast, reliable system. The Hyperthreading is nice when rendering- I can be doing other things like Photoshop or Acid 4 music.
I am also using Sony's DRU-500A for DVD recording- also very reliable- but sebsative to media. I can't use cheap DVD-R or DVD+R- they tend to produce errors. So far- the cheapest, relaible DVD has been Memorex...strange but true!

Hope this helps

Memorex? Test it across several systems. We found that we could burn it but not all our computers could read it. Similar problems with memorex audio CDs.

Do you feel that you get some benefit from using a raid 0 array? How does it compare to just a single disk for media? Is there a point where it really shines-like at x number of tracks?

How about memory? It looks like you have 3 DIMMs. Can you use memory in dual channel mode? Do you think it would make a difference?

Rob Mack

Rob,
Actually I use the DDR in dual channel mode. Sounds crazy but I purchased 2-512's and 2-256's for that reason. I should have gone for all 512's ... oh well.
Memorex was used in a test we conducted with our clients... DVD-R played in APEX, Sony, Sharp, Pioneer, Panasonic, Mintek and Toshiba table tops; Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Teac, Pioneer and Lite On computer models. Imation discs recording the same exact media, same burner and process would not play back in Sharp and APEX table top and in a Sony Vio (I think it was a Mishusta??) . Hey- it could just be a fluke, a bad batch- who knows... seems like black majic when it comes to DVD media at times. I tried using Optidisc DVD-R General Purpose gold at about $1 per DVD and I had nothing but errors and usually near the end of the process! When they did finish- they played in most table tops and some computer models- not worth the few bucks you save on the media to loose compatability.

The Raid is more a personal preference - I feel they are slightly faster than the single drive and makes for worry free digitizing. Plus it probably has something to do with my days using a Henry and Avids Illusion system- knowing I had to have SCSI Raids for uncompressed work I once did. Since I have always used raids, I am not sure how they compare to the single drive- I suppose I could test it using my system drive- maybe we can conduct a test if you want... I'm game. Sorry- I know you were looking for facts- but it's always been a throughput issue...