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Spend my money

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Come on, I know you all love doing this. Here's the things I want to buy. Tell me what's good, what's crap, and basically, what to buy.

AMD Athlon 64 (ADA3800BVBOX) X2 3800+ - £190

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe SKT939 RD580 Crossfire ATX - £125

2 x Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz - £56 each

2 x Samsung SpinPoint P120S 250GB (RAID 0 setup - just to have a go at it) - £55 each

Club3D Radeon X1300Pro 256MB DDR2 PCI-Express, DUAL DVI-I, HDTV Out - £55

LiteOn 16H5S Lightscribe Kit retail - £30

Microsoft OEM Windows XP Professional x64 - £90

Plus a decent case (recommendations welcome)

Right, it needs to be able to run Avid Liquid. I don't intend to buy this right away, because I don't have the cash and need a new computer pronto. However, I need to be able to upgrade it to run this as a proper video-editing machine later on, which means an extra 2 dedicated hard drives, for video-capture, and storage. It will also have to be able to run 2 monitors, and output to a TV for preview, which explains my choice of graphics card. In the mean time, it will be used to edit and export to DVD just using Windows Movie Maker (I assume I'll get software with the DVD-writer that will allow me to write the correct format to let me play it in a regualr DVD player). I'll also use it for the usual: internet, Word, Football Manager :p, music. Any help appreciated. Oh, I'll be using my current monitor/mouse/keyboard/DVD drive etc for now, so no need to worry there.

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You should probably go for the X2 4000+ instead of 3800..

    Also perhaps skip the crossfire and get a good NForce 4 board.

    Not sure about that card, give it a google, or just go for a latest Nvidia model.

    Spend a nice amount on a decent power supply.
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    Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    Nash wrote:
    You should probably go for the X2 4000+ instead of 3800..

    Also perhaps skip the crossfire and get a good NForce 4 board.

    Not sure about that card, give it a google, or just go for a latest Nvidia model.

    Spend a nice amount on a decent power supply.

    Sound advice there mate.

    Yeah, get a Nvidia 7300GT or something instead other X1300... and honestly guv Crossfire isn't worth it - it is hardly supported and it doesn't work to well.

    SLi is the original and best.:thumb:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Of the original list, the weakest links look to be the drives and the graphics card. I'd go for a more established make of drives, like western digital.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nash wrote:
    You should probably go for the X2 4000+ instead of 3800..
    That's the socket AM2 model, rather than 939? The next one up in the socket 939 series is the 4200+ for an extra £40. What's the difference between the two sockets? Isnt 939 the newer one?
    Nash wrote:
    Spend a nice amount on a decent power supply.
    Yeah, I've heard. Was just gonna use my old one 'til I was reading some video editing sites, and apparently your computer will die if you use a crap power supply with 3 optical drives and 4 hard disks. Thanks for the advice.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Mist wrote:
    Of the original list, the weakest links look to be the drives and the graphics card. I'd go for a more established make of drives, like western digital.
    Actually, the Western Digital Raptors are the only drives that were faster than these in the labs test in PC Pro, and they won overall, so I thought I'd give them a try. I can't afford to go for a pair of Raptors though, but I may use a single later on as the capture drive.

    ETA: Graphics cards aren't that important in video editing though. Some software's starting to use the GPU to render, but on the whole, as long as it can power the monitors you want, you're okay.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Right, I've been having a bit more of a look, and I've made a few changes. I've decided to go to AM2 and the nForce board instead. Here's my modified spec. Let me know what you think.

    Processor
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 Socket AM2 2GHz 1MB 1000FSB - £196.60

    Motherboard
    MSI K9N Diamond, nForce 590 SLI, DDR2, Socket-AM2, 2xGbLAN, SB Audigy, PCI-Ex16 – £130.00

    RAM
    Corsair TWIN2X 5400 DDR2, 2048MB PC5400 Kit w/two matched CM2X1024-5400C4 Dimm's - £125.00

    Hard Drives
    Samsung SpinPoint P120S 250GB SATA2 8MB 7200RPM- £55.01
    Samsung SpinPoint P120S 250GB SATA2 8MB 7200RPM- £55.01

    Graphics Card
    XFX GeForce 7600GS 256MB DDRII eXtreme, PCI-Express, 2xDVI/HDTV, 500/900Mhz - £89.42

    Optical Drives
    Lite-on SHW-16H5S-05C black DL lightscribe DVD +/-R/RW oem - £24.33

    Operating System
    Microsoft OEM Windows XP Professional x64 - £87.19

    £762.56

    A bit extra, but I'm getting decent sound by the looks of things and better graphics (the other graphics card seems to have disappeared off the fact of the earth, interestingly).

    Add about £100 onto that for a case and power supply. (Edited, because I've modified the spec and price above now).

    And I'm assuming that being a dual-DVI graphics card, I will be required to buy a new monitor because my current one is VGA. There's no cheap convertors are there while I save up? God this is getting expensive.

    And finally, what cooling stuff would be required for this PC, other than a case with a decent airflow. I remember back in the day, AMD processor never had a fan with them, is this still the case?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm sure the RAM has to be DDR2, as thw whole point of AM2 is moving memory from DDR to DDR2
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Right, okay, off the top of my head (well the top of my search anyway):

    Corsair TWIN2X 5400 DDR2, 2048MB PC5400 Kit w/two matched CM2X1024-5400C4 Dimm's for £125.00. How's that now?
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