wideo editing/gaming/photoediting build

[FrankieF21]

Lian Li Silver Mid-Tower Case, Model "PC-60" -RETAIL

TDK Indi Black 8X DVD+/-RW Drive, Model AID+880N, Retail

SONY Silver 16X DVD-ROM Drive, Model DDU1621, OEM Drive Only

SONY Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive, Model MPF920, OEM

Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD800JD, OEM Drive Only

Western Digital 200GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD2000JD, OEM Drive Only

Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, 184Pin 1GB(512MBx2) Registered DDR PC-3200 - Retail

MSI "K8T Master2-FAR" VIA K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for Dual/Single AMD Socket 940 CPU -RETAIL

Antec 430W Power Supply, Model "TRUE430" -RETAIL

(2) AMD Opteron Model 240, 1MB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS GAMER Limited Edition PCI Sound Card, Model "SB0350" -RETAIL

Logitech Z-5300 5.1 THX Certified Speaker System -RETAIL

ATI AIW RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/CATV/VIVO, 8X AGP, Model "ALL-IN-WONDER 9800 PRO" -RETAIL

for around 2100 what do u think any suggestions.Planning on water cooling. The pricec for the above is around 2100 all from new egg. AAny suggestions or did i forget anything besides a monitor or OS.

[tony_j15]

For DVD writers, you cant beat the plextor!(but you'll pay a pretty penny for it too)

I'm not to thrillede about your speaker choice, I'd sooner dump the money on the Z-560 (4.1). The 5300's really dont deserve the THX certification.

Also consider that for photo/video editing, Intel is the way to go. A single 3ghz HT proc can possibly outdo the work from the dual Opterons, depending on the app. Dont expect dual CPU's to mean dual performance, its far from it. You will see absolutely no benefit on the gaming side. You will see much better performance in multitasking situations, say encoding a video and playing with photoshop at the same time.

[FrankieF21]

in that case any suggestions for a processor. Would this be a good choice.

Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0E GHz 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology - Retail

ASUS "P4C800 DELUXE" i875P Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU -RETAIL

What makes plextor such a better drive. Thanks for the response

Do you think the Plextor Black 8X DVD-RW/+RW Drive, Model 708A-BPS/BL

or the

Plextor 12X DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model PX-712A

[Dputiger]

Hmmmmm. For single-CPU work I'd go P4 over AMD, but for dual CPU work, AMD will beat Xeon, thanks to superior Opteron scaling. I'm not just saying that, either:

http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=487&pid=1806

[phenious]

I would also recommend going for a P4 HT E edition. I work lots of video stuff and I can say that I see a large difference when working with the P4 2Ghz with the 800Mhz FSB compared to working with my AMD XP2000+ (the P4 is at my school and I am fairly sure its a 2.0ghz) anyways. For hard drive storage if you are serious about doing video editing you will probably need more space. For a quick break down of my video storage needs...

Capture of 100Min in DV via Firewire = ~17GB
Edited down and compressed to Mpeg2 = ~4GB
ISO of DVD = ~4GB

So at any given time to capture video in high quality and then work with it I need at least 20GB open or break it into sections and then recompress deleting the DV file but that takes longer. You can also capture in Mpeg2 and convert the video as you capture but you need at least 2 GHz and I still find that some frames get dropped and the audio sync can seem a little off at times but that’s just me. The reason I suggest more storage is because I like to keep my ISOs on my Hard Drive for easy duplication but you may not need it. I also noticed a slight increase in speed when I am rendering my video to my hard drives that are striped in Raid 0.

Also keep in mind that dual layer DVD burners are just around the corners so it may be more wise to purchase a cheaper 4X dual format burner like the Pioneer A06 (Great drive I use it my self ) and wait to spend the bigger bucks on the Dual layer DVD burners that should be out around mid summer 4.3GB for standard DVD and 7.9GB for the dual layer DVDs

Let me know if any clarification is needed, I typed fast

-: phenious :-

[ppdes]

>Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0E GHz

Might want to consider the 'C' versions (Northwood) instead. The 'E' (Prescott) has a ~30 stage pipeline instead of a ~20 and so performs worse in many cases.

It does have slightly better memory bandwidth use and cache, though, so maybe for video it redeems itself somewhat. It's designed to eventually have higher clock speeds than the Northwood, but isn't there yet.

>ATI AIW RADEON

AIW doesn't work well with hyperthreading processors. There are better capture cards anyway.

>SONY Silver 16X DVD-ROM

Might want to consider a slot drive, slot drives rock! Hehe.

[FrankieF21]

What capture card would work better instead