So I am finally upgrading my computer.

[OzzieAlThor79]

My computer is 6 years old. It has 500 mb of Ram(!) and onboard video.

I really only do like 1 or 2 AMV's a year, my wife however wants to be able to take footage from our Video Camera and input that onto the computer (and edit away).

Do I need a new video card for this? I don't think so myself since I really don't need something that can handle video after video that I might make. A newer computer should be able to handle my wife's request i would think as well. We are not looking to do anything super fancy, I have my Magix editor so she can use that to make her videos as needed.

The kind of computer we will get will have 3-6 mb of Ram, tons of hard drive space and run Windows 7. It will not come with a video card.

Am I right or wrong do you think? If I am wrong, what kind of card do you think I should get? PRice Rang for that to me would up to $200 (the cheaper-yet-effective the better).

Thanks!

[Qyot27]

While some might want to skin me alive for saying this, video cards are overrated for what they do. A little over a month ago on New Year's I put in a graphics card on my ancient setup (even more ancient than yours, mine's almost 9 years old), and aside from a couple of really noticeable perks*, it's not changed much. Onboard video for much newer motherboards/CPUs are going to be more than capable of handling basic or even intermediate video tasks. It's heavy-spec gaming (or hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding for 1080p) where a graphics card will come in handy. Or if you're expecting to do editing at 4K.

*it supports 32-bit depth (before I was limited to 24-bit, and would have to hop down to 16-bit to play some of my games/emulators) and I can play pretty much all of the Touhou games at full speed now, whereas I could either not run them or do so at subpar fps'es before.

If you're wondering about the way the camera would interoperate with it, most camcorders should have either USB or FireWire ports, and do transfers through those, so the video card would be irrelevant.



For an economy-priced model, I think I calculated that it's possible to build a basic setup for about $250-300 (but you'd need to supply your own HDD, optical drives, and copy of Windows) that would be fairly up-to-date.

Intel BOXDG43GT LGA 775 motherboard, 86.99
Pentium Dual-Core E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache, 65.99
Kingston 4GB DDR2-800 Dual Channel Kit 2x2, 81.99

That comes to about $235. Throw in a Micro-ATX case (or use an existing one), and there you go. The above looks awfully tempting to me, except I would prefer going with a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad because I've wanted a 'Core 2' branded processor for a long time, and getting slightly beefier RAM (an 8GB Dual Channel Kit of 2x4, considering the mobo can take a maximum of 16GBs). If push comes to shove, though, that Pentium would also probably give me more power than I'd know what to do with, so it would be worth buying.

If you go with an eMachines from Best Buy you can spend about $400 on a comparably-equipped model (because it does come with Windows, 750GB HDD, and DVD-RW drive):
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/eMachines+- ... Id=9703523

[OzzieAlThor79]

Thanks. I am not brave enough to try and put together my own computer anymore. 8 or 9 years ago sure. I just don't care enough anymore to try. I'll pay extra for the convinence.

Thanks for the heads up about the emachines. I have spent plenty of time on BestBuy.com and in their store looking at computer models (seeing as how there is no circuit city around here, I have limited choices about where I can shop for pre-packaged) stuff.

[ZephyrStar]

You should be able to get a pretty decent pre-built rig these days. If you do that, just invest in a few extra hard drives, and you'll be set. HD's have gotten insanely cheap, even externals. So if you don't want to buy a couple of OEM drives and throw them in the pre-built machine, you could get a couple of externals, like one for editing and one for archival.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136284

Throw a couple of those in there... 10 cents per GB :O

[OzzieAlThor79]

I have been considering an external hard drive. It would allow me to keep any of my AMV stuff on that and let the Mrs have the rest of the space.

Really though, most of the pre-built things we have looked at have like 650 GB of space.

Considering we have been living off of 120 GB for 6 years and still have like 40 to 50 gb of free space. WE aren't hurting here. I figure an external drive would allow me to keep AMV files off of the hard drive and allow that not to get bogged down with anything I might do.

[OzzieAlThor79]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavili ... merreviews

DGIndex and Virtual Dub actually work smooth.

Seeing as my former computer had 6 year old on-board video and 500 MB Ram, I am greatly pleased.

[CaedenVintori]

I am assuming that you are not looking to spend a small fortune on your computer so if you haven't bought your computer yet here are some practical ideas:

You are right, your graphics card will not speed up your editing process much unless you are running software that uses graphics acceleration (Like Premere Pro CS4, or various hardware editors provided by matrox, canopus, etc).

The largest factors in editing time are your HDD, and your proc. Make sure that you have a 2nd hard drive for your project files (1TB HDD's have been seen on sale for $80, so it is worth it!), and get the fastest processor you can afford (i5 at LEAST, and i7 is worth the money, though they are expensive).

Lastly, if you are buying a windows7 computer be aware that some older audio programs may not work. As they have improved win7 more and more of my older software works, but I still cannot record audio with my nicer software because win7 handles audio very differently.

Lastly (again), screen real estate is important. I bought a 28" screen about a year and a half ago and it has made my world a better place. Less strain on the eyes, can have multiple things up at a time, etc. Best single computer purchase ever, and when I eventually update my computer again the monitor will still be coming with me.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Alternatively you could maximize your cost/performance ratio and go AMD. Phenom2 CPUs are damn cheap when compared with core i#s and they're in the same level of sub-server level processors.