Shopping for a new Computer, what should I look for?

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 8:38 pm

Well, I'm finally in the market for a new computer. One optimized for video work (that means AMV editing of course). Now I think I've heard that Hewlett Packard, and possibly some other computer manufacturer, was releasing this holiday a commercial desktop system designed for people who primarily use it for video editing and the like. I don't know, but..

Simply put, what should I look out for when shopping for a new computer? What kind of specs (harddrive, RAM, processor, etc.) should I keep in mind?

Everything that's out there in the market is already better than what I currently got, but what I want is the best I can get, for what I plan to use it for, at the most reasonable price.

Can any of you Technophiles out there help me out?

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:05 pm

Okay, my suggestions are build it yourself, you'll probably save 40%.

If you don't want to, here are some suggestions:

P4 CPU, needs to be greater then 2Ghz
Athlon XP, needs to be greater then 1.6Ghz.

Ram:

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET ANYTHING WITH PLAIN SDRAM!!! ESPECIALLY A P4. You will want DDR for a Athlon and RDRAM(Rambus) for a P4, DDR will also work with a P4, but it's slightly slower.

Hard Drive:

80GB atleast. You may not need that much(you always need more actually), but it's so fucking cheap that alot of vendors are screwing people over with old stock 40GB that they purchased months ago at higher prices. You'll also be better off with a 7200RPM drive, though 5400RPM will not kill you I guess

Sound:

Really doesn't matter much, most stuff is pretty good, even onboard things.

Video:
Don't get anything that has "LE" or "MX" or "PRO" in the name. Also avoid anything with the word "integrated" or "onboard". You'll want either a Radeon 8500, or a Geforce4 ti4200. Both are cheap enough that they shouldn't be out of your range.

DVD-ROM:
Faster the better... Should be able to get a 16X for cheap.

CDRW:
whatever it comes with :p

Monitor:
17" BARE MINIMUM, 19" or large is very nice. I can have 8 full expanded video tracks open with the Premiere video preview full expanded @ 720x480, it's very nice.

~klinky

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:07 pm

BTW I have a 21" monitor.

~klinky

The Wired Knight · Post by **The Wired Knight** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:24 pm

I agree with Klinky, building one yourself is much better. You CAN save money on it (depends on what you are doing) but more importantly you can get a computer taht meets your requirements much easier than you could shopping around and having to compromise one way or the other.

CaTaClYsM · Post by **CaTaClYsM** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 5:37 pm

7200 rpm HD, CPU above 1 GHZ is a must, if you are getting 256 megs or less of RAM then DDR is a must but once you have 512 SDRAM works fine. (My dads comp is a p3 1.1 GHZ with 512 megs of ram and it does better than my athalon xp 1600+, which has 256 SDRAM.) And considering one stick of 512 will run about 30 bucks, I say pay 60 and get the 1024. other than that, I can't think of anyhting else. Onboard video realy doesnt make a difference in the editing department, I know since my video is onboard, when I play games I can see exactly how much it sucks, but in the video editing department it all comes down to the memory and HD speed.

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 5:41 pm

What I meant by getting a good video card is that there is no reason not to. Price is really not a limiting factor. With good video card for around $130 and for the price you pay on a pre-build you should get good gaming performance. You're right that it doesn't matter when editing, but there is no reason not to have it with such cheap prices.

It's also nice to have nice 3D capabilities just in case a game does come out that you would like to play.

~klinky

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 5:43 pm

klinky wrote:Okay, my suggestions are build it yourself, you'll probably save 40%.

If you don't want to, here are some suggestions:

P4 CPU, needs to be greater then 2Ghz
Athlon XP, needs to be greater then 1.6Ghz.

Haha, that's it? I'm running a 450MHz and I can edit! Hehe. Even when my chup is 4 years old and my mobo is 3, haha.

CaTaClYsM · Post by **CaTaClYsM** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 6:07 pm

yes, with windows movie maker you could edit with a chip that slow, but for us that use adobe premiere the chip needs to be a bit faster.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 6:09 pm

I'm using Adobe Premiere. Look in my member profile.

CaTaClYsM · Post by **CaTaClYsM** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 6:24 pm

and nowhere in there does it say how much memory you have.