Intel Processor ....

[Yeldarb]

If you are going to run graphics editing programs, have 2 HDD's, run the application from one and use the other for actual storage and running the rest of the PC. All Photoshop studio pc's are recommended to be set up this way. You will see a marked increase in speed. My CCTV cameras (4) run off a seperate HDD and I don't loose any real speed.

Oh and go for something like ESET for your security. It will never ley you down. For proof look at http://www.eset.com/products/compare-NOD32...competition.php

Hope this helps a bit.

[Anees]

Pardon the Tyger impression, but have you considered a Mac or is the price too prohibative. The Video Editing software (iMovie) on there is ACE and really easy to use and doesn't seem to bog down like it does on most PC packages I have used :D

[reganlives]

I thought kaspersky was meant to be the best....cant believe theres something better lol

[Y2Kanjar]

ok so i can't get the raid op coz the mother board does not suport it

should i get a 160 drive for the xp and 1 tb for just storage

and this pc will not be conneted to the internet.....as it will be manaully updated

****software fight ***** whoo hoo

[reganlives]

Not connected to the internet and manually updated?!! hmmm...how u gonna manually update it? Theres another option mate....you could get an aftermarket raid card if u really want raid lol. I think tbh with the development of hard disks etc u should be able to get away without anything like raid really.

[Y2Kanjar]

Not connected to the internet and manually updated?!! hmmm...how u gonna manually update it?

Dude i have other pc in the house and laptops....

This is my keep safe pc and i i hahve a laptop to surf the net

[Mike_B]

Just to clarify a point which I don't feel is crystal clear above - if you go with RAID 0, then you do gain some performance but you are dependent on BOTH disks (or more, there is no limit on the number of hard drives) staying alive. If either one fails, you lose *everything* as the other will only contain half the data. With two drives, the risk of losing everything is doubled, and tripled if you use three, etc etc. So get busy with the backups...

What OS are you planning on running? You may want to investigate the possibility of going 64bit so you can take advantage of having more than 4GB of RAM (which won't show up in 32bit Windows as 4GB anyway) which if you are working with very large video files, might be a significant performance boost as well.

As Anees said, Macs were born to do this stuff, though I can't comment on iMovie having never used it on mine. There is a cost implication though, you won't get a Mac Pro with those specs for that price.

[Yeldarb]

and this pc will not be conneted to the internet.....as it will be manaully updated

****software fight ***** whoo hoo

No that would be Thus the link :winky:

I also own an on-line publishing company, security is rather important for my clients.....

[Tyger]

Ooooh what a nice thread I just found!! :)

I think the DUAL Quad Core Mac Pro is just the ticket

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

iMovie is a very capable editing suite however if you have a Mac Pro then why not do it like a Pro....?

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/

If you go the PC route bear in mind that most of those cores and RAM will be just sitting there rotting.

XP can't use more than 3.2GB RAM, and all Windows versions are USELESS at utilising all those yummy processor cores.

Even a 2nd hand Mac Pro is a better machine for this job than a Windows box.

The Mac Pro can have up to 32GB of RAM all useable by the pure 64 bit Mac OS X, and all your 8 cores will be used. You can pack each of the 4 drive sleds full of TB drives and RAID it all up to your hearts content.

I know cos I have one. *suprise suprise* ;)

PS As for drives how about a pair of Dual X25-M SSDs... :)

http://barefeats.com/hard103.html

[Geoffers]

Mac would be better without question. Budget denies this as said earlier.

[Anees]

All very nice kit Tyger, but with a limited budget a Mac is out of the question, although I agree and do like Final Cut Studio and iMovie.

A PC will do the job here fine. :D

[Parthiban]

Yep that Mac does seem to be the solution in the ideal world - what's so fancy about the memory though? Why does it cost £320 to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB of RAM? It's also got a bizarre specification, it seems odd for a machine with so much power to only have 2GB RAM............

But it's probably what I'd get if I were to get a serious video editing machine, except one slightly serious drawback (what is it with apple and leaving off vital components) - where's the bluray writer?! With all that power it's screaming HD video, but what am I going to do with a DVD writer! :P

Back on topic though, is a duo core with a higher clock speed quicker overall in normal tasks than a quad core with a lower clock speed, or is the quad always faster?

[Tyger]

I didn't see anything related to price, apologies.

However lets not forget the most important thing when purchasing ANYthing - value for money.

This most important thing seems to evaporate from the brain when buying computers in particular for some reason.

Parthiban: One product apple DO overcharge without question is their RAM. Crucial sell EXACTLY the same RAM for 1/3 of the apple price. I guess they just don't like selling RAM. Yeah 2GB is stingy for such a beast, but I guess it's to keep the cost below a certain price point. ANyone buying such a machine will upgrade RAM themselves cheaply from another vendor.

apple don't offer Blu Ray native yet for a very valid business reason that is for another thread. A 3rd party drive will fit into your second optical bay.

The useful "speed" you can generate from the processor is down to what OS/apps it is running. For those amongst us running XP with >3.2GB RAM on multicore machines - your box is not doing what it says on the tin.

[Y2Kanjar]

So much info, and i don't know what to do now.

i want to buy a blu-ray burner but not yet as they are expensive

so should i or shouldn't get the

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 (4 x 2.66 GHZ) 1333FSB - 6 MB - £ 47.00

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (4 x 2.66 GHZ) 1333FSB - 12 MB item selected

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (4 x 2.83 GHZ) 1333FSB - 12 MB + £ 13.00

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (4 x 3.0 GHZ) 1333FSB - 12 MB £ 151.00

[stuie]

WAIT STOP ETC ETC

Intel have just released their new core the i7 wait till after christmas if you can and pick up a few deals on the new i7 and x58 chipset. It will without a doubt be worth waiting for

[Y2Kanjar]

i've look at the i7 and it looks good but it's out my price range

[Y2Kanjar]

......double post may bad

[Geoffers]

However lets not forget the most important thing when purchasing ANYthing - value for money.

This most important thing seems to evaporate from the brain when buying computers in particular for some reason.

Unfortunately, in the real world it ISN'T the most important thing. It's not a question of evaporating from the brain. If the money isn't there, it isn't there. If its out of somebodies budget then it is unachievable and people have to get what they can get.

Anyway, we have established he can't go down the apple route so discussing apple further is just hijacking the thread really. (No surprise there then)

Soz Y2k

[Y2Kanjar]

no worryies mate...I'm not getting a apple or a Bannana

i got one more question

it is ok to use my IDE drive, get a converter to SATA....

ie one like this : tip tap 350131105213

[DJ Wozza]

If I were you I would go for the processor you highlightd on the previous page.

BTW that coverter looks a real bargain if it works !!

[Dan_Harris]

Imo I would get the cheaper Quad and overclock it mate, can't beat free performance :D

Re: the IDE-SATA converter should be fine although I wouldn't recommend it personally, I would just get a new SATA hd mate, also I would recommend Gigabyte motherboards>Asus

Also going back to your original spec I would advise a SATA optical drive as they are no different in price and are more cable friendly (thus giving greater airflow), also ditch the coolermaster hsf and get a Arctic cooling freezer7 pro probs the same price and much better performance :).

FYI my spec is - Antec 900 / 650w Corsair PSU / Asus P5Q pro (rubbish motherboard) / 2x2gb pc6400 OCZ reaper / XFX 9800GT / Intel Q6600 stock at 2.4ghz but mines overclocked to 3.2ghz on stock volts and with a Artic cooling freezer7 pro :)

[reganlives]

This thread is getting extremely interesting now. I totally forgot about the new i7 core but as thats too expensive yet then I understand your current choice. We have to remember people what the purpose of the machine is and what will work best together. Y2K I'd suggest you research into each component and see whats getting better reviews when it comes to performance etc. Look at the benchmarks. Apart from that as mentioned above by Dan, make sure your choice of motherboard is spot on as if its a crap board then it'll be a crap system. Its really each to their own opinion on which brand boards are better as I'm more of an Abit person myself but then again its been ages since I built a system for myself. Look into the functionality of each board and where you would stand if you wanted to upgrade.

I think the choice of a quad core cpu is good but when it comes to cpu speed its all personal preference really. You wont notice much difference between a couple of hundred Mhz so therefore you may as well just overclock but that then brings in warranty issues and if not done properly you could fry ur cpu, also if overclocking you have to take into account cooling. The list goes on and on so its kinda difficult to pinpoint on the spec you should go for.

As mentioned by many people though take into account the amount of RAM as it wont be used entirely by XP. In my personal opinion, what I think I'd do is go for a decent speed quad core cpu, nothing OTT as it may not get used to its full potential, a couple of gig ram which could then be further upgraded in the future for little cost if needed, a fast hard drive as your main one and then a big one as your storage drive. At a later date if you wanted to increase performance you could always add a raid array which would increase your data rates and considerably help performance. Hope that helps mate but as said a lot of it is personal choice/opinion really.

[Tyger]

There is no point whatsoever going for a Quad or even Dual core machine if you are not running an OS that can utilise it properly.

Some versions of Windows do it better than others, but as far as I know the best for the job is the 64 bit version of Vista. This would remove some of the memory limitations too. You should cost this in or you will be spending a lot of money on

a box that is only using a fraction of it's potential.

As far as the Nehalem (i7) platform is concerned - there is about a 30% gain to be made in certain operations with this new processor at the same clock speed above the current Harpertown platform. But of course the premium price of a new processor and the architecture of new motherboards will break the budget. Not worth looking at for another year.

Overclocking is asking for trouble.

[reganlives]

I cant believe you just recommended vista either but you have a point...wonder if he'll use it in the end lol

[Mike_B]

Wow, Tyger and I agree on something! :D

Overclocking is asking for trouble, IMO. Sure, lots of people do it successfully, but I never feel comfortable with doing it and you never quite know if any little niggles you get are down to the overclocked CPU struggling. Editing video is seriously CPU intensive so will be stressing the chip hard enough as it is.

64bit is the way to use large amounts of memory, which is relatively cheap these days and very easy to add more later if you need to. If you go with XP or Vista 32bit and 4GB then there is no way to add more later, but if you start with a 64bit copy of Vista (preferable to 64bit XP) then you can add as much RAM as you like down the line knowing that it will make proper use of it. There is only a very small price difference between 32 and 64bit Vista editions. Plus, benchmarks on ZDnet magazine show the 64bit OS is faster anyway when doing the same tasks.