Try one of the SOFO equipped rendering machines from BOXX!

JTH

I experimented building my own machines for a while. I came up with some fast beasts... but then I went over and checked out my buddies new Dell. It had one thing mine didn't - It was virtually silent.

I hate editing with tons of fan noise so I ebayed my experiments and picked up a dell Precision.

I think if it's definitly worth it to get hyperthreading.

Go here and browse...http://www.advanceddesignky.com

www.dvline.com they have some great stuff from laptops to desktops complete and tested w/ Vegas.

Also check out pcnirvana with earl foote who hangs over at the cow alot he can set up a real nice system i hear.

But I have only 12,236,232.56 to spend. I didnt want to tell anyone, but yes, I won the lotto! Just kidding. I'm looking to spend about $1500.00. Heck, this little e-monster I bought at Fry's has been treating me well! (650MHz) Thanks all, for the help!

800MHz FSB doesn't seem to be doing much to the digital creation tools stats (maybe 3d/ray-tracing excepted).

Multi-stream editing, and layered FX needs fast I/O. Fast sustained, and random access.

Consider:
SuperMicro X5DA8, dual Xeon 2.8, 512MB DDR266, 2 Seagate Cheetah 10x drives, extra U320 internal SCSI cable, striped in 2k/XP not hardware-RAID, Big EATX case, Big 400W SuperMicro Xeon PSU, or Topower (for SuperMicro Xeon) 520W PSU, OS IDE drive and Pioneer 105 DVD writer. Probably hit $1500 with no monitor, no low-impedance/6.1 audio, no keyb+mouse, no new OS.

or:
SuperMicro X5DAL-TG2, Dual or single Xeon 2.8, 512MB DDR266, 2x WD Raptor 10k SATA 36GB, standard ATX case, standard P4 (>400W) PSU, IDE OS drive, Pioneer 105 DVD writer (or NEC 1300 +/- writer).

or:
Wait for PCI Express, 2.5GByte/sec per slot, AGP killer, and either new Xeon 800MHz FSB, or SMP Opteron. All due next year together and a big turning point in computing, heralding (with right I/O) HDTV slickness. The PCI bus will seem as legacy as ISA is today.

Lastly:
For laptop editing, you'll have a job bettering your 600MHz PIII. Just the way it is with 2.5" drives. Maybe a luggable/suitcase PC, maybe i865 based like was said earlier....

Check out www.nutrend.com

System (Under $2400)

AUSA P4C800 Deluxe (800 FSB,8xGP, Gigabit Lan, 3.0GHz (800MHz) P4, Zalman Copper CPU Cooler
Chenming Case w/ 420W power supply (side window)
Plextor 12x DVD/ 20x10x40x CD-RW, Mitsumi 1.44 Floppydrive
2- Seagate 120 GB Serial ATA Drives
1Gig Corsair 32MX8 PC 3200C2 Ram (2 pieces 512 ea)
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB DVI/TV 8x AGP Video Card
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
Logitech cordless elite duo mouse/keyboard
Windows XP Pro w/ Sr 1

Should Fly......and not a bad price!

with PCI bus you get max 133MB/sec which equates to about 90MB/sec even if you have the best storage array out there. PCI-X gets you some more headroom, upto 4x that for storage controllers, effectively offering 230MB/sec sustained with maybe 3x 10k rpm 73GB SCSI U320 drives. This is enough for 8 random access uncompressed video streams. Probably about the same in DV (given the CPU has to work more with DV irrespective of the other hardware performance). If you work with digital stills or are likely to use either HD WMV or HD MPEG-2 (or uncompressed) - you need to consider these speed options. Some of the reason why you should consider the options is that PCI32 bus systems with 800MHz FSB are very economical for their performance, but for AV work, the PCI-X units are fantastic value. Dell Precision 630 are similar but the PCI-X bus and PCI bus seem to be a bit AMD-chipset like, with latency troubles possibly. Similar to the current Tyan E7505 boards.

For video manipulation, I'd go PCI-X. For 3D rendering only (and for the high performance) I'd not need the fast I/O so would think that an i865 would be enough and would gain with a 3.2GHz CPU and 800MHz FSB+DDR400. All things aren't equal, and if you have a PIII 650, you want to see a giant leap in performance for your Chris' $1500.

FWIW, P4s seem to edge out the Athlons in video. I would hesitate before going to a dual cpu system today (see prior threads). Look for 4 IDE channels on the motherboard, onboard sound/video is irrelevant. Look for something in a decent case - prefer antec brand, and this will have an impact on cooling - if it cools better, you won't need a zillion cfm worth of airflow, hence quieter fans.

For noise, there are modules available that take up a ft bay, allowing you to tailor the speed of your fans as needed. Many of the new P4 setups have variable speed fans in the power supply which quiets things down. At any rate, fans make noise, and the more fans, and/or the faster they turn, the more noise you'll get - but don't get too stingy with them or you'll have toast inside instead of intel.

Generally if you want a quiet environment for recording audio etc. look at hard drive insulators or cases with them built in (Antec makes one). Also look at enclosures for your tower designed to insulate noise.

And FWIW, MAC commercials aside, a laptop is generally going to be slower then a desktop, particularly when it comes to i/o stuff, unless one spends a lot of $.

I take your point over dual-CPU mikkie. Just that I don't just use Vegas and suspect that Vegas and/or DVDA will appreciate dual CPU over time. TMPGEnc does, and I like to set things rendering whilst I create menus, or whilst burning some media, with the more idle CPU picking up the slack.

If you could get an Intel CPU with a 64bit PCI slot (or PCI Express and the respective peripherals), I'd recommend that to follow a PIII 650. 3 PCI buses, without contention to reach the chipset channel, plus AGP8x makes E7505 attractive. X5DAL-TG2 is cheap and doesn't have the server limitations such as needing EATX case or needing specialised PSU. If anyone remembers the Abit BP6, the SuperMicro X5DAL-TG2, and to a certain extent, the I-Will DP533, are "the peoples" power machine platforms. Whether you stick one CPU in them or two (2x2.8GHz 533FSB Xeon's take up over half of a $1500 budget, so a single Xeon can help buy that pair of WD Raptor 36GB 10k SATA units).

If you are building a PC yourself, the above E7505 mobo, with PCI-X just fits a $1500 budget considering you re-use so many parts from the older PC to satisfy Vegas' generous min spec. $1500 fits if you buy Dell Prec 650 also but not at 2.8GHz, you'd get 2.0GHz and need to look for a couple of 10k RPM U160/320 drives elsewhere for about $130 each (+cable), you'd be tight with decent/fast storage with the Dell to see the performance.

A PIV machine with 4 IDE channels will serve well. It won't be as big a jump as I'd like to recommend for Chris who is coming from a PIII 650, which was probably a "workstation" spec machine when he bought it. Unless you really believe the hype, a 3.2GHz PIV PC won't be 5 times faster than his old one, mostly because of the ability to manupulate DV (or uncompressed video) through the PCI32 bus. He would have reason to be happy with it, but I'd hope he only paid maybe $800 for such an outfit with IDE drives (and much of his old PC migrated over).