Are you upgrading your OS? I would definitely move up to XP.
I don't know if XP home or XP pro matters with dual core chips. If you do networking, Pro is probably better.

The Antec Sonata II is a very well-reviewed case. It looks really good without looking like you play games all day, it's cool and quiet. About $100, with a 450 watt PS.
review

Here's a good reference on building an a PC for NLE.

Thanks VP - That's some of the info I was hoping for. How did you set up your drives (IDE channels, drive letters, OS, programs, partition, etc), and why? Are your SATA's in a RAID?

1150 loons, eh? Should be about 700-800 US. Where did you order parts from? I'm thinking newegg, or tigerdirect.

Thanks.

Phil

Hey Buster - thanks for the link - I've read the videoguys articles, and it has helped, but they seem a few months late in that their systems are all Intel, which I was leaning toward, until I started expanding my research. I seems that AMD is the way to go lately...

Yes, I AM definately going to move to XP Pro (It seems that one can buy an OEM version for less than $150). I can't WAIT to get rid of 98SE - what a pain!

The Antec Sonata II case has been mentioned many times throughout the web - good reviews

Thanks

Phil

You may be able to get a Win XP upgrade for $60.27 from OfficeDepot.com

See Techbargains and use the site search on the left side to search for "XP Pro Upgrade" (before you hit Enter, do a Ctrl-C to copy to clipboard). A long results page will be displayed, do Ctrl-F to Find "XP Pro Upgrade", this will give you full instructions.

The second item listed is XP Pro full OEM version for $80, your choice.

Thanks Coursedesign - we'll give that a try

Phil

"How did you set up your drives (IDE channels, drive letters, OS, programs, partition, etc), and why? Are your SATA's in a RAID?"

Since I am still breaking this rig in - I did the following drive wise to get the thing up and running. Here are my drive letters and types:

C: (System) 36 GB Western Digital SATA (OS and programs)
D: (Data Storage) 80GB Western Digital JB800 PATA (Data storage, docs, scripts etc)
R: (Recording) 36 GB Western Digital SATA (Dedicated Recording Drive)
S: (Samples) 250 GB Seagate Barracuda PATA (Dedicated Sample Streaming)

After doing some reading, testing and taking the advice of other studio collegues - it has been determined that a SATA boot drive has virtually no advantage over a PATA drive when using it for the OS and apps. The drive literally does very little work after Windows is up and the app is loaded.

The real action happens on the Recording drive and the Samples Drive. I also picked up a new Seagate Barracuda 250GB SATA with the new Native Command Queuing...so - during the Xmas break - here's what the drive layout will look like when I am done:

C: (System) 80 GB Western Digital JB 800 (8MB Cache) PATA (OS and programs)
D: (Data Storage) 250GB Seagate Barracuda PATA (Data storage, docs, scripts etc)
R: (Recording) 36 GB Western Digital SATA (Dedicated Recording Drive)
S: (Samples) 250 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA (8MB w NCQ) (Dedicated Sample Streaming)

Basically I want to make sure the fastest throughput drives are the ones that see the most traffic. I think this will be the final config at least for the next year or so.

"Where did you order parts from? I'm thinking newegg, or tigerdirect."

Here in Calgary, we are blessed with a plethora of great shops stocked to the hilt with awesome parts at great prices. I went with a local guy that I deal with all the time. Got a great deal too.

Cheers!

VP

Frenchy, my advice for you is the same system I just built for my wife.

--AMD 3800+ X2 - $320 - A super CPU for Vegas
--Shuttle SN25P - Small, well-ventalated and near silent PC bare bones system with NForce4 motherboard, onboard SATA2 ports, and support for RAID 0, 1, or 5. Up to three internal disks. Integrated CPU cooling (you don't have to buy all the pieces and risk noisy parts) $380
--2 X latest Hitachi 250 GB SATA2 disks, or Seagate 7200.9 disks $220. No other disks are as good as these right now.
--Nvidia 6600GT video card or similar with similar quiet or silent cooling. $200
-- Grab a Dell 17" or 19" TFT monitor off Dell.com, prices vary each week depending on the current special and online coupons.

I suggest you replace older smaller drives. You will soon anyway!

The manual that comes with your motherboard will guide you through the hard disk and RAID setup. If you get a motherboard with SATA ports, be sure to get SATA disks. It's not that hard. Install windows from CD, just after setup starts, press F6 to trigger windows setup to prompt you for the RAID driver floppy disk that came with your motherboard.

The Shuttle SN25P case I suggest above is very convenient as your PC is mostly assembled for you. A little challenge to put the final disks and pieces in at first, but you get the hang of it. The manual is written with an interesting form of the English language by our Engineering friends in Taiwan. You might have to read some parts twice. :-)

It all sounds worse than it is. Not that hard after your first attempt. After you set it all up, you should download the latest systems drivers from nvidia.com or other, depending on which motherboard you choose.

VP, it's hard to believe that NCQ (Native Command Queuing) would make any difference in this type of desktop use.

It's a cool TLA (Three Letter Acronym), but it is meant for multi-user servers where lots of unrelated requests come in, and these are then sorted for most efficient disk access. Another term for it is "elevator seek", because the requests are sorted like what you find with elevators. You enter on the bottom floor and press 7 to go to the 7th floor. The elevator takes off but stops on the 3rd floor to pickup a passenger who presses 9 to go the 9th floor. The elevator then stops at the 7th floor to drop you off, then continues to the 9th floor to drop off the second passenger.

(I have seen elevator systems in Asia that go one step further in efficiency. Elevators not in use [among a bank of say 6] are pre-positioned strategically to minimize overall waiting time for any floor.)

For the case, the Shuttle ones are cute but I find them a little expensive (at least in case).

For portability, an aluminium case would be a better idea. i.e. Centurion 5 or Antec (super LANboy). These kinds of cases are very light, based on my experience with the Antec LANboy.

Otherwise, I would go for the low-end Antec cases (which is a high end case when compared to Dell or whatever). i.e. 1700, 2700, 3700

The shuttle case does come with a motherboard and power supply, which may not come with the cases listed above.

CourseDesign,

I hear ya. I have no idea if it will help or not. All the info I could get on NCQ (Pop over to StorageReview.com for just about all the hard drive analysis one man could handle!) seems to indicate that it does in fact make a difference - but whether or not I will feel a difference is quite another thing.

I am just looking for the very best throughput that I can get for the sample streaming type apps like Kontakt etc etc.....besides - the drive itself comes highly rated , the warranty is top notch and the price was right. Mind you - I could probably just leave a standard IDE drive there and it wouldn't matter one bit....

Cheers!

VP

THanks for the additional info VP - that helps. The M-Audio 1010 is a sweet setup, but a little price for me...

PeterRabby: Thanks for the additional info. The Shuttle setup is nice, but a little small. I want to put in two optical drives, and prbably a caddy or two for removable HDD's. It sure is cute, though. I was thinking of a Dell monitor as well - I'll watch for discounts. I'll definately take the HDD and video card recommends to heart.

Glenn - I think I have settled on an Antec case - I just don't know which one yet. THanks for the info.

Any other ideas for sound?

THanks

Phil

Frenchy,

You could always go for the Delta 44 or 66. I started on the 66 and it was awesome until I needed more channels. M-Audio also has a numebr of other lower priced models (Audiophile etc) that deliver the same solid performance but with less features....

VP

NCQ seems like it would be good for both multi-user environments and multitasking. Some site was saying that the 7200 RPM Maxtor drives that used NCQ were approaching the speeds of the of the 10000 RPM Raptor drives in their tests. Raptor drives only go up to 74 gig.

The Shuttle case does seem expensive, but when I added in not having to buy CPU cooler, power supply, motherboard, USB/Media card readers, it actually seems about the same as buying all the parts individually. The best part is you know it works all together and will be silent. But can't support two optical drives... unless you go with one external USB drive.

Anyway, Frenchy is getting good advice from everyone in this thread. That rarely happens :-)

For NCQ, it is true that it actually hurts performance for almost everything outside of a high IO server usage scenario. See http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html benchmarks for proof.

But... I still use NCQ on my workstation RAID array and can't tell that I'm losing 5% of my perf most of the time....

Multitasking just means doing this for a while and then do that for a while and so on. Each app gets a time slice. If there is only one disk intensive app, there isn't even a theoretical benefit. (There is also pre-emptive multitasking in Windows since 10 years and on Macs since OS X, but that is a driver benefit rather than an app benefit.)

Multi-threaded applications could benefit from NCQ, if they were written to take advantage of it (and the application could use it).

Multi-threading will become more common in high end apps thanks to the introduction of multi-core CPUs, because these amplify the benefit of it. It is not a trivial rewrite though, and this rewrite process has long been a recipe for creating massive amounts of bugs (you go from troubleshooting logic problems to troubleshooting logic + time dependency problems).

I'm back - I think I've decided on these components, and am looking for any feedback. Remember, this is going to be a multi-use machine, i.e., Vegas editing, general home use (including telecommuting), and some minor games:

--ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: A8N-SLI

--AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4200BVBOX - Retail

--CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX1024-3200C2 - Retail

--eVGA 128-P2-N354-TX Geforce 6600LE 128MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

--Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail

--Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM (For OS & Programs)

--ZALMAN CNPS7000B-CU 92mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail

--HP Black IDE LightScribe DVD Burner Model DVD740RI - Retail

--MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal 8 in 1 Floppy Drive - OEM

--Logitech LX300 967427-0403 Black PS/2 RF Wireless Standard Keyboard Mouse Included - Retail

Everything from Newegg - about $1200, including shipping

I'm also looking at this Dell Monitor (from Dell):
UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD for $460

OS - Win XP Pro from here for $85 (found through Techbargains.com):
http://www.edirectsoftware.com/product.php?product_id=16239
Has anybody ordered from these guys? Do I need to be concerned? Is there any advantage to paying an extra $10 for the same thing, but with a COA? I missed the earlier bargain...

I have a couple of Seagate IDE HDD's still in the boxes (a 120 GB and a 200 GB) for capturing, media and rendering, and like I mentioned above, another pair of existing 120GB HDD's in Firewire boxes, which I'll just move to the new machine.

In my existing box, I have a Sony DRU510 mutli-format DVD/CD burner, which I'll move over as well.

My questions:

1) MOBO:
Asus website techs specs: http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=382&l1=3&l2=15&l3=148

I started by picking the X2 processor, and from the AMD website, picked a relatively inexpensive Asus MOBO (I've read good things about Asus with regards to BIOS, documentation, support, overclocking, reliability, etc.). I'm not a big gamer, so I realize I don't really "need" SLI, but it's there...

Anybody have experience with this MOBO with regards to:

Expansion Slots:
- 2 x PCI Express x16 slot (i understand this is for two identical video boards - I will only be using one - again, I'm not a big gamer)
- 2 x PCI Express x1 (what are these used for?)
- 3 x PCI (are three slots enough?)

Onboard audio? To save some $$, I'm planning on using the onboard audio for now, and will probably get an Echo Mia card in the next few months. Anybody see any MAJOR problems with this idea?

Onboard LAN? I have been on dialup, and we finally have DSL available in our area (from Qwest), so they will supply a modem. Can I just plug this modem into the onboard LAN (and FINALLY surf at greater than 28.8k?

Onboard Firewire for capturing/PTT (to/from a Sony D8)? There is one internal connector (for the front jack on the case, IU assume?), and one back panel port. Since I have two FW boxes and a DV cam, I'll have to either unplug an external FW box, when I want to capture, or daisychain the two FW boxes. Should I consider getting a 3 port PCI firewire card? Any experience with the onboard FW here?

2) MEMORY: There are a lot of choices here...To keep it simple (in my simple mind) I went to the Corsair memory configurator (from an older post that JohnnyRoy provided), and just went with the Corsair-recommended memory. I think 1GB should be enough (at least for now).

3) VIDEO BOARD - again, I'm not a big gamer, so I don't need a lot of the bells and whistles that can be had.
Website: http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=128-P2-N354-TX
My main question about this board is about the max digital resolution on the specs - (1600 x 1200 Max Digital). The widescreen Dell monitor I'm considering says (on the website: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=20053YR&c=us&cat=snp&category_id=6198&cs=19&l=en&Page=productlisting.aspx)

"To optimize this monitor's performance, your system must be able to support WSXGA+ resolution (1680 x 1050)."

If I use the DVI connection, am I going to lose 80 pixels horizontally, or should I just plan on hooking it up with the analog connecors?

Any other Video card recommendations? I would like to go with two monitors, but I'm a little shy on room, so that's why I'm looking at the widescreen. Currently, I've got a 19" CRT that takes up a LOT or space on the desk, and because of this issue, I'm sure two monitors would be met with resistance from my better half as well... (Getting rid of the CRT to gain more space on the desk is one of the goals here)

4) OS vendor - see above

5) For the two new Seagate HDD's, I'm considering getting a pair of "IDE to Serial ATA Converters" here, in order to use the drives on the SATA controller:

http://www.shopaddonics.com/Itemdesc.asp?CartId={770697D4-46B9-4EVEREST4C4-9793-FC73767F444D}&ic=ADIDESA

Will I gain anything by getting these? I'm considering this because of potential bandwith issues. The MOBO has only two IDE (ultra DMA) connectors. If I put one hard drive on each (as the master), and one DVD/CD drive on each (as the slave), wont I run into bandwidth issues when I burn a DVD from data on the HDD?

You guys kind of lost me on the NCQ discussion - it's way over my head, but it seems like a rather esoteric discussion, especially for my needs :-o

Sorry about the long post, but I don't want to overlook anything obvious, or make a glaring error - you're right PeterRabby - there has been some great advice here; but I wouldn't say it "rarely" happens ;-)

Any other questions, comments, queries, complaints, advice?

Thanks again.

Phil

I do alot of audio and just starting into vegas+dvd
My system is an a8v asus mb. amd x2 4400, 2g of fast ocz mem., pci firewire card, two delta1010 audio.7200 rpm drives.msi fx5200 dual video card.
x2 updates, patches, four in one.etc. xp pro sp2.

Phil,
I just finished a new build with lots of the same components. My system was based upon JohnnyRoy's specs. From what I can see, you will get a very nice system, fast and dual core. My system has been running for a couple of days and early render tests are very fast (same Mobo, X2 4400processor, 2 GB of the same type RAM). I'll try to answer some of your questions:

1) MOBO: "This is an excellent board".
Asus website techs specs: http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=382&l1=3&l2=15&l3=148

I started by picking the X2 processor, and from the AMD website, picked a relatively inexpensive Asus MOBO (I've read good things about Asus with regards to BIOS, documentation, support, overclocking, reliability, etc.). I'm not a big gamer, so I realize I don't really "need" SLI, but it's there...

Anybody have experience with this MOBO with regards to:

Expansion Slots:
- 2 x PCI Express x16 slot (i understand this is for two identical video boards - I will only be using one - again, I'm not a big gamer)
- 2 x PCI Express x1 (what are these used for?)
- 3 x PCI (are three slots enough?)

Response - I'm using one (7800 card) and it's working fine.

Onboard audio? To save some $$, I'm planning on using the onboard audio for now, and will probably get an Echo Mia card in the next few months. Anybody see any MAJOR problems with this idea?

Response - I'm using on board audio (6.1) and it works great. No need for another audio card unless you want to do some recording or PRO level work.

Onboard LAN? I have been on dialup, and we finally have DSL available in our area (from Qwest), so they will supply a modem. Can I just plug this modem into the onboard LAN (and FINALLY surf at greater than 28.8k?

Response - Yes, just be sure to install the programs that come with the MoBo on disk after you install the OS. Has 1Gigabit LAN. Works great.

Onboard Firewire for capturing/PTT (to/from a Sony D8)? There is one internal connector (for the front jack on the case, IU assume?), and one back panel port. Since I have two FW boxes and a DV cam, I'll have to either unplug an external FW box, when I want to capture, or daisychain the two FW boxes. Should I consider getting a 3 port PCI firewire card? Any experience with the onboard FW here?

Response - I stayed with two ports and will daisy chain if I need to. I have an external ADVC 300 so I use that for connecting my cameras and external monitor to.

2) MEMORY: There are a lot of choices here...To keep it simple (in my simple mind) I went to the Corsair memory configurator (from an older post that JohnnyRoy provided), and just went with the Corsair-recommended memory. I think 1GB should be enough (at least for now).

Response - The one you have is great. You can upgrade later if you want to do HDV and need the RAM.

3) VIDEO BOARD - again, I'm not a big gamer, so I don't need a lot of the bells and whistles that can be had.
Website: http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=128-P2-N354-TX
My main question about this board is about the max digital resolution on the specs - (1600 x 1200 Max Digital). The widescreen Dell monitor I'm considering says (on the website: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=20053YR&c=us&cat=snp&category_id=6198&cs=19&l=en&Page=productlisting.aspx)

"To optimize this monitor's performance, your system must be able to support WSXGA+ resolution (1680 x 1050)."

Response - I'm using the 7800 card so don't know about your card's capability. I'm running at the highest resolution I can. I have two Samsung 740B monitors (DVI).

If I use the DVI connection, am I going to lose 80 pixels horizontally, or should I just plan on hooking it up with the analog connecors?

Response - I'd go DVI. You'll have to buy DVI cables probably as most monitors don't come with them (even my Samsung DVI montitors didn't).

Any other Video card recommendations? I would like to go with two monitors, but I'm a little shy on room, so that's why I'm looking at the widescreen. Currently, I've got a 19" CRT that takes up a LOT or space on the desk, and because of this issue, I'm sure two monitors would be met with resistance from my better half as well... (Getting rid of the CRT to gain more space on the desk is one of the goals here)

Response - Get the big Dell monitor. Dual monitors are great but not at the expense of bad will with the boss especially if you are not using the system to support the family. The big monitor will be fine.

4) OS vendor - see above

Response - $85 is a good price. Don't know about that vendor.

5) For the two new Seagate HDD's, I'm considering getting a pair of "IDE to Serial ATA Converters" here, in order to use the drives on the SATA controller:

http://www.shopaddonics.com/Itemdesc.asp?CartId={770697D4-46B9-4EVEREST4C4-9793-FC73767F444D}&ic=ADIDESA

Will I gain anything by getting these? I'm considering this because of potential bandwith issues. The MOBO has only two IDE (ultra DMA) connectors. If I put one hard drive on each (as the master), and one DVD/CD drive on each (as the slave), wont I run into bandwidth issues when I burn a DVD from data on the HDD?

Response - I'm using SATA drives. Don't think bandwidth will be an issue but I'm no expert. Check to make sure but I think there are two IDE controllers (primary and secondary) and a separate floppy controller on the board.

Hope this helps. This is my first build and I had some problems, most of which were self induced. The first MoBo had a bad channel (channel 2 or B) in the RAM area but I think I know why that happened. Once we got the new MoBo from Newegg (who are great by the way), my son put everything together in about two and a half hours. I hit the power button and voiala, everything worked great. What a feeling to build your own system. Hope it all goes well with you.

Randy

Phil,

You have inspired me to finally building my own system (after buying Dell since the 90s). I have really learned a lot from your thread and am feeling pretty confident.

That is, until I got to the MOBO. I've read a lot from other threads as well but find myself still lacking on the tech talk. The ASUS boards sound great but what's the main difference in the socket numbers (i.e. 754, 939, 940)? Can anyone suggest a good net resource for searching this stuff out?

Thanks,

TomG

Phil,

I think you did you homework well and this will be a nice system.

> If I put one hard drive on each (as the master), and one DVD/CD drive on each (as the slave), wont I run into bandwidth issues when I burn a DVD from data on the HDD?

Not if you burn to the opposite IDE channel. That is, burn from the HDD on IDE1 to the DVD-RW on IDE2 and from the HDD on IDE2 to the CD-RW on IDE1. You see the way IDE works is, if you use IDE channel 1 and have a hard drive as the master and DVD burner as the slave, it will serialize access to those two devices meaning it can read or write only one at a time (i.e., it will stop reading the hard drive in order to write to the DVD). But if you use two devices on separate IDE channels then they are not serialized.

The beauty of SATA is that there is no serialization like the primary/secondary connections on the IDE bus. It can read one device while writing to the other simultaneously. So I think getting IDE to SATA adapters for your IDE hard drive will help with throughput.

One thought is to use one of the IDE drives as the boot drive and put that on IDE1 as the master with your CD-RW on IDE1 as the slave. Then put your DVD-RW on IDE2 as the master. Finally make all other drives SATA. This will allow simultaneous access to all drives.

TomG,

> what's the main difference in the socket numbers

The key to socket numbers is that the socket on your motherboard MUST match the socked on your processor. So first you decide what processor you want (let’s say an AMD X2) and them because the AMD X2 requires a 939 socket, you must buy motherboard that has a 939 socket. It’s that simple.

~jr

so what motherboard supports 2x dual cores (giving you basically a quad core system) I need to pick up another mb and x2 but dont have the fund for (2) x2s. Oh yeah, do both x2s on a mb have to be the exact same speed when I go to fill the other slot later on?

Thanks for the responses all, getting closer...

Randy:
Thanks for the detailed response - first hand experience is VERY helpful
Your experience with the MOBO is great - Newegg has some great user reviews, as well.

TomG:
Thanks for the compliment - it's nice to hear I can inspire someone to to something...
Like JR said - once you pick the processor, you can search for the appropriate MOBO. To add to what JR said, a socket 939 Proc/MOBO has 939 pins - (wow, something that makes common sense!!)

Patrick:
I have no idea - I'm not even considering Dual Processors, let alone dual, dual-cores. You may want to start with the AMD site, check for MOBO compatability, and go from there...

JR:
"I think you did you homework well and this will be a nice system."

LOL - I used YOUR posts on this forum from a couple of months ago, and your homepage as a basis for the system I want to build, only on a lower budget.

Thanks for the additional info on my IDE bandwidth concerns. I was aware of the limitations (based on prior experience, having two CD drives on one IDE channel, trying to copy from one to the other, and running into "issues"). That's why I was asking if it was in issue with a HDD o the same channel as the burner. If I set it up like I was asking about, even I manage to keep track of where my files are, I'm sure I'll forget which is connected where over time. I may take your last bit of advice to heart:
" use one of the IDE drives as the boot drive and put that on IDE1 as the master with your CD-RW on IDE1 as the slave. Then put your DVD-RW on IDE2 as the master",
except that I was thinking that having the 10k RPM WD SATA Raptor as the boot drive would really speed up boot and program access times. Any comments about this?

Still looking for a few more answers:

- Any first hand info about the "IDE to Serial ATA Converters" I'm considering? This way, I can use my brand new IDE drives as SATA drives. I realize I will not get the performance of a true SATA drive, I just don't want to take a throughput hit...

- If I use the PCI Express x16 for the video card, what are the PCI Express x1 slots used for? I assume they cannot be used for "traditional" PCI cards?

- Still wondering about the monitor/video card combo - Is the card going to throttle down what I can see on the monitor (in DVI mode, that is), or should I look at upgrading the card. If I do this, I'll probably downgrade (to a less expensive SATA drive) from the WD Raptor HDD, and/or delete the Zalman CPU cooler (and stay with the stock CPU cooler). Any further comments?


Thanks again

Phil