HOT PC $2499 4gb ram 1TB storage intel core 2 Duo

damn thats a BEAST. imagine running Edius, on that with its fast ass HDD. that would be crazy.
 
I built a much better system for myself for less.

If you want a custom computer at a good price, just dare a geek friend to buid it for you at the price you can pay. Dare him, challenge his manhood, and tell him: "Bill Gates could do it...". He'll be pouring over the internet in search of deals before you can ask "Why do you have a T1 line in your home?".

Don't have any geek friends? Really? Come on, you are amongst friends here. We know you do because we all do...

Tips to get your geek friend started:

www.silentpcreview.com, cause you are going to spend a lot of time around it so it should be as quiet as possible.

Antec P180B computer case: big, quiet, beautifully plain
Western Digital SE16 500GB drives: big, quiet, brutally dependable
Antec Power Supplies: also big, quiet, brutally dependable (has to be big enough for all of those disks you will put in it!!!)
ASUS Motherboards and matching Kingston memory: Comes with (software) RAID to get started. (Your geek friend will understand). AM2 please...
AMD Athlon CPUs: Just as fast as Intel and a 64 bit go forward option
nVidia Quadro video cards (or GeForce if you are budget minded)
Aftermarket heatsinks on everything that needs it: Upgrade that noisy video card fan and swap in a Ninja heatsink on the CPU ducted to the compter case fan. Yes, you should use duct tape, thats actually what its for.

When you are ready for it...
Adaptec hardware RAID
Dell 24" 1080 monitor

Tips to keep your geek friend going: Dominos and caffine. Don't buy any high dollar pizza, it will just confuse him. Also, do not leave him alone with the duct tape and anything that is inherently slick, cause he'll just have to know.

Don't ask me how I know that last part, I just do...
 
Nik,

The problem with the Systemax is that it is not exactly what I want for a video editor. For example, it will come with two 500GB drives in a RAID 0 set for performance. That doubles your risk of a drive failure because if either of the drives fail you will loose everything. You can (and should) fix this once you get the computer, but it will require rebuilding the software array in the BIOS (to RAID 1) and reinstalling the OS and all necessary software. This will leave you with 500GB of total storage, but if you are storing your work there you should do it. You will also take a performance hit, but it will probably not be noticible. If 1TB is a requirement then you will have to add 2 more disks, as RAID 5 is never an option on motherboard / software RAID systems. Another big question is how noisy is it? You also will be limited by the power supply if you want to start adding more disks to it.

You should also undersand what the onsite warrenty is. There are companies of nothing but computer nerds who get a little training and are sent out to fulfill these contracts for hardware companies. Recently, CompUSA, Best Buy, and Circuit City have brought this obscure practice to the masses buy branding and marketing these services (Geek Squad, Firedog, etc.). The point here is that the person they send out will not be an expert on your system, rather they will be a well skilled individual who may or may not be able to cure your problem. You could just as easily call one of these companies and pay for the service if you should ever need to.

I build computer systems for a living, and what all clients must do is stand back and ask a few questions like "What is the impact if a specific server or component fails" or "What kind of outage can I tolerate". Brainstorm on it for a while...

I am planning on doing 1080p feature length projects, and I am going to offsite my footage on external drives. But when editing, I want my editor to have access to everything, which means a big internal array, a big computer case, and the proper system bus. For me this is easy, and I can understand your point of view, but an editing workstation is a very specific and important tool so I still stand by my advise: get a knowledgible friend (or friends) and have them build a system for you that perfectly fits your needs.

Bob
 
Bob Gruen said:
Nik,

The problem with the Systemax is that it is not exactly what I want for a video editor. For example, it will come with two 500GB drives in a RAID 0 set for performance. That doubles your risk of a drive failure because if either of the drives fail you will loose everything. You can (and should) fix this once you get the computer, but it will require rebuilding the software array in the BIOS (to RAID 1) and reinstalling the OS and all necessary software. This will leave you with 500GB of total storage, but if you are storing your work there you should do it. You will also take a performance hit, but it will probably not be noticible. If 1TB is a requirement then you will have to add 2 more disks, as RAID 5 is never an option on motherboard / software RAID systems. Another big question is how noisy is it? You also will be limited by the power supply if you want to start adding more disks to it.

You should also undersand what the onsite warrenty is. There are companies of nothing but computer nerds who get a little training and are sent out to fulfill these contracts for hardware companies. Recently, CompUSA, Best Buy, and Circuit City have brought this obscure practice to the masses buy branding and marketing these services (Geek Squad, Firedog, etc.). The point here is that the person they send out will not be an expert on your system, rather they will be a well skilled individual who may or may not be able to cure your problem. You could just as easily call one of these companies and pay for the service if you should ever need to.

I build computer systems for a living, and what all clients must do is stand back and ask a few questions like "What is the impact if a specific server or component fails" or "What kind of outage can I tolerate". Brainstorm on it for a while...

I am planning on doing 1080p feature length projects, and I am going to offsite my footage on external drives. But when editing, I want my editor to have access to everything, which means a big internal array, a big computer case, and the proper system bus. For me this is easy, and I can understand your point of view, but an editing workstation is a very specific and important tool so I still stand by my advise: get a knowledgible friend (or friends) and have them build a system for you that perfectly fits your needs.

Bob
Click to expand...

Well Bob I wouldn't be storing anything on this setup long term. Shoot tape and backup project files to dvd or cd. Sometimes computers fail and desktops are very easy to upgrade so I have no problem with a trained yound punk fixing it.
Plus Raid 0 is the way to go for any DVCPROHD work using multiple streams because one hardrive slows down fast. Even 1 main drive and 1 storage drive slows down fast. I recommend this system because it is fast, affordable, nice specs out the box, and provides a longer warranty than most manufacturers provide.
I use to work at bestbuy and circuit city and some of those PC repair guys are FREAKING AMAZING! One guy I use to work with fix my computer by emailing registry info to my computer as it wouldn't accept any external devices. He literally went into the registry of a similiar computer copied some code and pasted it into my registry. Reboot and I was amazed (he was too)!
Everyone else suggested I just give up and wipe it clean, but there was some stuff on their I didn't want to loose.

I am sure you are great at what you do but don't underestimate these young geeks. Having no girlfriends, not playing sports, and not partying gives them a lot of time to perfect their craft. :)

The reason that bestbuy can send out these geeks is because we normally have the same problems again and again. To many viruses install avast, to many pop ups install firefox, to much spyware install adaware. And the greatest recommendation for many PC problems is to get a mac. PEACE
 
The price performance ratio makes the core2 duo a better choice nowadays.

If you edit 720p one hard disk works....but not for 1080, not for me anyways...

Never use your editing station for internet or anything other than editing, you wont get any spyware or viruses. I have both mac and pc. Both are tools that u can use....neither is perfect!
Now if they could make a version of vegas for mac i would be a happy camper!

Peace
 
Well, there are Core 2 PC/Laptops. And if you get a firewall there shouldn't be any viruses or spyware.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top