New computer

newbe wrote on 3/25/2006, 6:30 AM
As I am still thinking of getting a new editing PC who can handle HDV.
A store here made me this offer:

CHIEFTEC midi tower with 400W silent power supply
INTEL Black Creeck D955XBK motherboard
INTEL Pentium D940 3.2Ghz 2x2Mb cache processor
APACER DDR2 PC5300/667 2048Mb memory (2 x 512Mb)
2 x Western Digital 7200rpm 250Gb SATA-II 16Mb cache hard disc
1 x Western Digital 7200rpm 80Gb SATA-II 8Mb cache hard disc
LITE-ON DVD +/-RW dual layer, light scribe 16 speed
LITE-ON DVD reader 16speed
Gforce PCI-E 6200 128Mb DDR VGA card

Windows XP Pro

They sell this mostly with an "EDIUS NX PC-E HDV editing card.
I of course want to do my editing with VEGAS 6, but the guy tells me this will do fine although he does not know VEGAS.
What do you experts think about this proposition?
Thanks for any info.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 3/25/2006, 8:02 AM
How does 2 x 512MB add up to 2048MB?

Make sure he doesn't sell you the Edius card since you won't be using it.

If it was me, i'd spend the few extra bucks to get two DVD writers. With Nero you can burn more than one disc at a time. It's a real time saver if you have a few copies to make.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/25/2006, 10:26 AM
I would see if he has something with an AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core. It will significantly outperform the Pentium D940. As long as you’re buying a new PC for HDV you might as well get the best performance you can. If you were just using this for DV I’d say you were fine but for HDV I would go AMD X2.

~jr
busterkeaton wrote on 3/25/2006, 11:49 AM
Is 400W enough power these days?


I know that it used to be considered enough, is that still the case?
GlennChan wrote on 3/25/2006, 7:59 PM
1- silentpcreview.com has some measurements of systems at full load... they get up to around 150-200W max for older single-core systems. The new AMD dual cores draw about that much power or less. The Intel dual cores draw more power.

400W should be good enough since the power supply isn't overrated. i.e. some companies will fudge the specs so that a power supply has "more" wattage.
I doubt Chieftec is fudging their specs like that. You could double check things by reading the specs.

2- With only an entry-level video card in there, the system isn't going to be drawing that much power.

3- I'd go for bigger hard drives... 300GB seems to be the sweet spot for capacity/price (or maybe not, this changes).

4- AMD dual cores are likely the better buy if you're going with Vegas.
newbe wrote on 3/27/2006, 11:23 AM
It should be 1048, my mistake.
I don't intend to go for Edius, much too expensive.
Thanks.