PC Equipment

What PC should I buy?

People often ask about what kind of PC to buy for video editing. I'm a firm believer in building your own. This is the only way to be sure of what you're getting. I recently built myself a new Quad Core system for video editing. Here are the parts for my current system:

Current Intel Core 2 Quad System:

Case: 

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black (very quiet)

Power Supply: 

SeaSonic M12-600 (600w) ATX12V (low-noise, SLI-Certified)

Motherboard:  Intel D975XBX2 Extreme Series

CPU: 

Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme (QX6700 QuadCore)
CPU Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9700 NT LED 92mm Heatsink
Memory: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB TWIN2X2048-6400C4
HardDrive1: WD Raptor WD740GD 10,000 RPM SATA150 

HardDrive2: 

1TB Western Digital WD10EACS SATA2 5400-7200

HardDrive3&4: 

1TB (2 x WD 500GB WD5000ABYS) SATA2 in a Raid 0 configuration

Floppy: 

1.44MB SAMSUNG SFD-321B/LBL1 OEM

DVD/RW: 

Pioneer DVD Burner DVR-110DBK
Blu-ray/HD DVD:  Pioneer Blu-ray BD-RW BDR-220; LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM Model GGC-H20L
Graphics Card: ASUS Geforce 8600GT SILENT/HTDP/256M (HDCP Ready)
Video Monitors: 2x Samsung SyncMaster 215TW (1680x1050 Widescreen)
Video Capture: ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link (Firewire)

Sound: 

M-Audio Firewire 410
Speakers: M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 System + LX4 5.1 Expander System

Keyboard: 

Logitech Black Internet Pro Keyboard

Mouse: 

Logitech MX510 Optical Mouse
Operating Sys: Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/SP2

This new Intel Quad Core system is scary fast. How fast? Here are some rendering times in Sony Vegas 7:

Convert 1 minute (01:00) From:

To:

Time

HDV 1080-60i

MPEG2 DV Widescreen video stream

01:13

HDV 1080-60i

AVI DV Widescreen

01:17

HDV 1080-60i

AVI Cineform intermediary

01:23

DV Widescreen AVI

MPEG2 DV Widescreen

00:19

As you can see from the times, HDV renders are slightly over 1x but darn near real-time. They were 3x longer than real-time on the AMD Dual Core below. Also DV AVI to MPEG2 encoding is less than half real-time. That is impressive.

I replaced the the Antec Sontata II SmartPower 450w power supply with a SeaSonic M12-600 so that the Quad Core had plenty of power. I wanted this PC to be "whisper quiet" so that I could do voiceovers with it sitting right next to me and I succeeded. The Antec Sonata II case and SeaSonic power supply have very quiet fans and the case itself has some great features like rubber grommets for mounting the hard drives, that keep the case quiet. Likewise the Zalman CPU cooler has a large quiet fan that keeps the Intel Quad Core idling at 41° C. The toughest part was finding a graphics card that was powerful yet didn't sound like a jet plane. The MSI 6800GT has a speed regulator on the fan so I was able to lower it so that its barely perceptible. If you don't do any 3D work or gaming you are probably better of getting a Matrox card but I like to game so Geforce was the only option for me. (I will never buy an ATI card again. Their drivers are the worst I have ever encountered.) In total I am very happy with this build and you can barely tell this PC is on. Many of the parts were re-used from the AMD system I built below.

Fortunately I did not have to sacrifice performance for quiet. The Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme is a screamer. It is almost 3x faster than my AMD X2 4600+ system outlined below. (that's right a Quad Core 2.66Ghz Intel is 2.8x faster than a Dual Core AMD 2.4Ghz!) I ran the rendering test on both and my new Intel completes it in 0:14 sec and the AMD Dual Core took 0:39 for the same test.

As usual I bought all my parts at Newegg.com!

Previous ASUS/AMD X2 Dual Core System:

Case: 

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black

Power Supply: 

SeaSonic S12-500 (500w) ATX12V (low-noise, SLI-Certified)

MoBo:  ASUS A8N-SLI Premium

CPU: 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Socket 939
CPU Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm Heatsink
Memory: CORSAIR XMS 2GB Twinx2048-3200c2pt
HardDrive1: WD Raptor WD740GD 10,000 RPM SATA150 

HardDrive2: 

160GB Western Digital SATA 7200 WD1600JD 8MB

HardDrive3&4: 

2 x WD 250GB WD2500JS SATA II (in a Raid 0 configuration)

Floppy: 

1.44MB SAMSUNG SFD-321B/LBL1 OEM

DVD/RW: 

Pioneer DVD Burner DVR-110DBK
Graphics Card: MSI Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3
Video Capture: ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link (Firewire)

Sound: 

M-Audio Firewire 410
Speakers: M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 System + LX4 5.1 Expander System

Keyboard: 

Logitech Black Internet Pro Keyboard

Mouse: 

Logitech MX510 Optical Mouse
Operating Sys: Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/SP2

Important note: The Antec Sontata II comes with a SmartPower 450w power supply but it is NOT SLI-Certified. Since I selected an SLI motherboard this PSU is really not appropriate. I used this for about 6 months before it started to fail on me and I purchased the SeaSonic S12-500 which is SLI-Certified. If you do not get the SLI motherboard you can just stick with the PSU that comes with the Sonata II. Otherwise make sure you get an SLI-Certified power supply (it's not just hype).

This AMD system was the fastest system around prior to Intel introducing the Core 2 Duo/Quad processors. It is still a solid system that can be had cheap given today's prices. The AMD X2 Dual Core is quite fast. It is almost 3x faster than my Pentium system outlined below. (that's right 1 dual core 2.4Ghz AMD is 3x faster than a single core Intel 3.0Ghz!) I ran the rendering test on both and my new AMD completes it in 0:39 sec and the Pentium 3.0 took 1:29 for the same test.

Previous Pentium 4 3.0GHz System:

This system was a killer in it's day, but that day as 2 years ago and it was starting to show its age.

Case: 

Antec PlusVIEW 1000AMG

Power Supply: 

Antec TrueBLUE480

MoBo:  Gigabyte GA-8KNXP i875P ATX

CPU: 

Intel P4/3.0CGHz 800M 478P/512K HT
Memory: 2x512MB Kingston HyperX DDR400 PC3200 CAS2 (2-2-2-6)
HardDrive1: 160GB Maxtor ULTRA DMA/133 HARD DRIVE MXT-L01P160 

HardDrive2: 

160GB Western Digital SATA 7200 WD1600JD 8MB

Floppy: 

1.44MB SAMSUNG SFD-321B/LBL1 OEM

DVD/RW: 

PIONEER DVR-106BK DVD+/-RW BLK
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800 PRO (128MB)
Video Capture: ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link (Firewire)

Sound: 

M-Audio Firewire 410
Speakers: M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 System + LX4 5.1 Expander System

Keyboard: 

Logitech Black Internet Keyboard

Mouse: 

Logitech MX 310 RTL
Operating Sys: Windows XP Home w/SP1a

The case needed to be big enough to hold lots of hard drives so I went with a full tower. This Antec PlusVIEW 1000AMG has room for 4 3.5" drives and 4 5.5" bays. It also can hold 5 fans so I bought 5 (two blowing in the front, two blowing out the back, and one blowing in the side over the video card). The power supply is not an area to skimp so I went with the Antec TrueBLUE 480 watts. This should be plenty of power for all my internal devices. (Unfortunately, it sounds like a jet aircraft so when I started doing audio recording again this was a big problem)

My brand selection of hard drives was driven by what was on sale. I originally was going to use Western Digital for both the IDE and SATA drives but Maxtor was running a $50 rebate and hey, $50 is $50 so I bought the Maxtor. The Logitec MX 310 optical mouse got rave reviews with the gamers and I figured if its accurate enough for fragging, it should do fine with precise video frame editing. It is one smooth mouse.

I selected Windows XP Home over Pro because I don't really have the need for the advanced networking capabilities of Pro and XP Home was $100 cheaper at the time.

So where do I buy the parts?

I bought all of my parts from NewEgg.com and I was very impressed with their service and professionalism. The day after I placed my order they lowered the price on two of the items I had purchased. I called them and they credited my account! I placed my order two days before Christmas and it arrive two days after Christmas (and they don't work Christmas day) so their regular ground shipping was very fast. The site also has a customer feedback on all the product so you can easily tell which are the best parts and which to stay away from. I actually purcased the memory from ZipZoomFly.com because NewEgg was out of stock on it and ZipZoomFly was very quick in making their delivery as well.

While I've never purchased from MWave.com, they look like a good dealer and they will also assemble the parts for you for a small fee. So if you really don't want to build your own, you can have them build it for you. Finally if you want a purchased a PC that is pre-built and tested, I suggest you try one of the smaller builders. I've head great things about ABS Computers and they actually use a lot of the parts I bought anyway.

If you are seriously considering building your own PC, check out PC Mechanic. They have lots of great tips on their web site and you can even buy tutorial CD's that take you through the process of building a PC step-by-step.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation to any of these merchants. I just found them to be good and would definitely buy from them again.

Tip: Before you buy from any merchant you've never dealt with before, check their rating on ResellerRatings.com. This is an awesome web site that will save you the horror of dealing with some of the losers out their by reading other peoples horror stories.

Why can't I just buy a Dell?

Let me warn you about what Dell does. First read this article on Dell proprietary (non-standard) ATX design. That's right, they have their motherboards and power supplies specially designed to be non-standard and thus not upgradeable so that you have to buy replacement parts from Dell! Then they were quite happy to advertise that their computer comes with an Creative Audigy 2 sound card but they don't advertise too loudly that some features have been disabled to make it cheaper. So they removed the MIDI support! That might not be a big deal for you but my primary reason for buying the card was because I'm a musician who plays MIDI keyboards so that was quite a showstopper for me. They also disabled the digital input or output (I forget which). Then they sold me an nVidia GeForce 2 GTS graphics card with only half the memory of the retail version. Another Dell cost cutting measure.

So Dell has name brand peripheral makers like nVidia and Creative make special cards with disabled features just for Dell and they sell them as if they are the equivalent of the retail version. Beware. This is very deceptive marketing and I would never buy from Dell again.

Finally, I followed the instructions on the Dell web site on how to upgrade my Dell 8100 from Windows Me to Windows XP. They provided programs and drivers and BIOS upgrades and everything. Then when I called Dell for support, the first question they asked was, "Did you buy Windows XP from us?". When I told them I had bought it locally, they informed me that they could not help me since they did not sell me the operating system. End of conversation.

So if you buy a PC from Dell. You must like this type of deception and abuse. You can build your own cheaper and have better quality parts.

Some of my work:
Instant ACID will make you productive with Sony ACID Pro software.
Instant Vegas Movie Studio is full of tips & techniques to get up and running quickly.

Absolute Training for Vegas+DVD, Vol. 1-3. Vegas and DVD Architect.

Absolute Training for Vegas+DVD, Vol 7. Media Manager Demystified.
Vegas 6 FASST get up to speed on Vegas 6 fasst with the DVD from VASST..
Introduction to ACID DVD coming soon and will be available at the VASST site.!
Script plug-ins for Sony Vegas NLE to make you more productive.