I need to put together a machine that will be my new gaming rig, and a multimedia jukebox and multimedia editing machine for me and my girlfriend. I figure that my best bet processor-wise is to go with a higher-range AMD chip, that I probably want a motherboard with PCIe like the nForce 4, that I probably want a chipset that will enable SLI or other dual-card video (for a cheap gaming upgrade later), etc. I'm still a little fuzzy on these details, though:
1. Hard drives
I'm thinking of an arrangement like this:
2 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA drives, RAID 0 (OS, programs, temp editing files for media)
2 ~400GB SATA drives, RAID 0 (Large media and game files)
I'll be using an external drive for backups, probably. My main question here is, if you had your druthers and had to set up drives for the perfect media-editing station, how many would you have? Talking to various people who're into video and music has me confused. Would the ideal performance setup actually have 3 drive subsystems, one just to hold the intermediate files used by editing programs?
Another question: I understand that video is usually captured as large raw files, which then have to encoded in order to be played back. I sort of got an idea from a friend at work who's into this stuff already that the ideal setup would have a fast drive for the source (raw) files and a separate drive/array just to receive the output, assuming you're not writing directly to DVD (which sounds like it would slow things up anyway). Thoughts? If this is true, can I get away with just one more medium-sized drive?
Is there a big price drop and/or capacity increase in the works for SATA drives in the next few months, or is it okay to buy the drives now? I'd like to have the machine together within four months at the latest.
2. PCI Express
How many cards are out there now? I have a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum, but it's an internal PCI card. This is definitely a newbie question, but can I use it with PCI Express?
3. What minimum capacity should I look at for a power supply?
Many thanks.
1. Hard drives
I'm thinking of an arrangement like this:
2 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA drives, RAID 0 (OS, programs, temp editing files for media)
2 ~400GB SATA drives, RAID 0 (Large media and game files)
I'll be using an external drive for backups, probably. My main question here is, if you had your druthers and had to set up drives for the perfect media-editing station, how many would you have? Talking to various people who're into video and music has me confused. Would the ideal performance setup actually have 3 drive subsystems, one just to hold the intermediate files used by editing programs?
Another question: I understand that video is usually captured as large raw files, which then have to encoded in order to be played back. I sort of got an idea from a friend at work who's into this stuff already that the ideal setup would have a fast drive for the source (raw) files and a separate drive/array just to receive the output, assuming you're not writing directly to DVD (which sounds like it would slow things up anyway). Thoughts? If this is true, can I get away with just one more medium-sized drive?
Is there a big price drop and/or capacity increase in the works for SATA drives in the next few months, or is it okay to buy the drives now? I'd like to have the machine together within four months at the latest.
2. PCI Express
How many cards are out there now? I have a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum, but it's an internal PCI card. This is definitely a newbie question, but can I use it with PCI Express?
3. What minimum capacity should I look at for a power supply?
Many thanks.
