I'm in the process of spec'ing out a system for DV editing using Premiere. I'm trying to get the whole system for around $2000 which rules out certain fun things like RT cards and dual mobo's. I already have sw licences and only need HW.

I have no intention of overclocking or playing games with this machine, I need something stable (mac/linux fans feel free to email me directly and spare the forum).

After reading reviews here, this is what I'm leaning toward. Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Win 2000
AMD XP 1500+ (faster if the budget permits)
Abit KR7A-133
2x 512 MB DDR PC2100 ECC Registered
ATI Radeon 8500
2 7200 RPM HDs in either paired 60GB RAID or a 40 GB boot disk & 80+ GB scratch disk.
Sound card (brand ?)
Network Card (brand ?)
Firewire card (brand ?)
DVD/CD-rw (brand ?)
FDD

Crucial doesn't guarentee the Abit board can handle Registered 512MB DDR's, does anyone have experience either way?
With the radion 8500, is the LE version enough?
A sound blaster Audigy is probably overkill, what would be a suitable $50-$75 model with good driver support?


Thanks for your time and input.

Ed (aka gt7599a)

1. According to abit site the mobo support Registerd DDR.
2. I suggest not to go with the Radeon 8500
3. One drive for system + Programs + cache. Second for video. If you can get a Raid for the video, but making a raid for both system + video is bad design.
4. Not really matters. I am using 3COM's and DLinks.
5. Sound Blaster Audigy - It have 48Khz sampling and it's important for video.
6. Sound Blaster audigy on board DV - I hear good things about it.
7. Pioneer 103 DVR


Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

this forum is not too much about dv editing, it's mostly about encoding.
if you want another opinion: take canopus ezdv for firewire card. picture quality is the same as in the pro systems, for $199.
with this card, do not take any stronger sound card than sb 128 pci.
also, if you use your computer just for video editing, take some cheaper gf2 graphics, it can be far enough.
and, abit is for gaming and overclockers, consider epox motherboard.
more than 512 mb ram? it's not necessary if you don't use after affects. but, it won't hurt.

Barda,

The faster the board the better, as most of the work here will be done the CPU way.
Abit is one of the best main board makers on the market and there is no reason why not to use them.

Using a Sound Blaster 128 he will not have 48Khz sampling, that is the video standard. Getting a sound Blaster Audigy he will get it and a built in DV/Fire wire port, that is reported to work nice with video editing.

And from my personal experiance 512MB is the minimum.
When the project get's big you need more. Not to mention if he will ever want to try his hands on 3D-CG programs.

Lot's of premier PlugIns today are using OpenGL for exceleration, in preview mode as well as rendering mode.
In this cases, as he will not have a dedicated Video Editing 3D option like my Jeni card (2000$) he will very much like the fastest meanest display card he can get.


Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

Although there's nothing wrong with the Radeon 8500, you really don't need more than the Radeon 7500. The 7500 and 8500 have an identical core except for the 3D GPU and the RAM. Since you won't be gaming, the 7500 is good enough.

I second Scuba on the unraided systems disk + video disk. I also won't argue with him about the sound card, simply because I don't know enough to argue it. I do know that the Audiology firewire port has a lower maximum bandwidth than a seperate firewire port, but you shouldn't notice that unless you are using multiple firewire devices simultanously.

I would recommend ATI or Matrox vid cards over nVidia, as the gForce line has lousey 2D graphics. Great 3D mind you, but lousey 2D.

Any old network card should do (unless you are connecting to a large corporate LAN or WAN).



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Knowan likes you. Knowan is your friend. Knowan thinks you're great.

Well, after consulting the powers that be (that be writing the check), the much greatly appreciated input from this forum and consulting the prices & availability of parts (I'm not in the states) here is what I'll probably get... (feel free to scream if you see a major over site/blunder)

The machine is going be doing double duty as a finance machine so I'll partition the boot drive for dual boot.

My resident IT guy has had a lot of good experience with Gigabyte & read some bad things about Abit.
Since I A. trust & respect his judgement & B. the majority of the money is coming out of his budget, not mine...

Gigabyte GA-7VTX-H ('+' if I can get it)
AMD XP 1700+
2x 512MB PC2100 unbuffered DDR (Micron)
40 GB 7200 RPM HD
120 GB 7200 RPM WD HD
16X DVD-CDR
CD-RW
FDD
Viewsonic 17"
Matrox G450 DualHead 32MB
SoundBlaster Audigy value
350 W case

On my partition I'll be running Win 2000 (unless there compelling reasons to run XP. I don't have a lot of experience with either & have a spare license for both)
Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator
Cleaner EZ
SonicFire Pro

Yes, this system is well under my hoped for $2,000 system but we're still experimenting with NLE and will (hopefully) get a separate system if I'm going to be doing this full time.

Thanks all for your input. I'll let you know how things work out in the coming weeks.

gt7599a

1. I am also not in the US...
2. I also had very good experiance with GigaByte
3. If you ask me, start with 512Ram. you can allways upgrade.
4. Better to have 2 smaller drives and Raid them for video then one big 120G drive.
5. Drop the CD-RW and DVD-CDR, get a Pioneer 103 DVR.
6. I use a G450 and very happy with it.
7. Try to get a 400W+ PSU. Enermax have several nice models. you don't want to see your NLE workstation explode Like I saw mine two times allready. (A dual Xeon 1Ghz exploding can create a heart attack - and I was close to getting one)

Don't install Cleaner, Only trobels.
Try to get AlamDV. www.alamdv.com

If you have any more questions PM me. don't try to Email me as I am in the middle of changing my server host and it might get into a black hole


Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

Your 350 watt PSU should be fine for what you have. You'll only need nore that that for 2 CPU's.

1 gig of RAM may be overkill. 512 should be enough, but hey, a gig won't hurt :-)

Your 1700 processor is adequate for now. Expect to upgrade in a year or so.

I would recommend a larger monitor though. Viewsonic is a very good brand name, but I would get a 19 inch minimum. If you have trouble justifying the cost, just remind your IT guy that monitors are very often recycled into your next upgrade and that this larger monitor should last you for years to come. Short term pain for long term gain.

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Knowan likes you. Knowan is your friend. Knowan thinks you're great.

After you add the CD-RW burner and the DVD-RW burner and the 6 hard drives for Raid and replace the junky Fire Wire card with a real editing card - Normal stages of upgrades you will go when working with video - You will understand why you got a Enermax 550W (Or you will hear a boom and smoke will come from your computer - Happend to me - Not happy day).

Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>