Help for Total noob

[Oiler]

Hello everyone,

I will apologize in advance for the nature of this post. I am looking to order a custom
built system. It will be used for audio and video editing. This will be done to build
online/DE mathematics courses. As I am a working mathematician it will also
be a research machine so I will be running mathematical software. Thirdly, I will use it
as an HTPC with the display device being either a 24" LCD monitor or an HD front projector. Here is what I am looking at right now.

AMD Athlon 64x2 4400+ Dual Core CPU
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
Thermaltake XASER, Armor Series VA8000BWS or Antec P180
Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 PSU
eVGA Geforce 7800GTX (450MHz)
2GB DDR Dual Channel Memory CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
2x Western Digital 250GB SATA II Hard Drive (16 MB) (Raid 1)
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE
LG 16x DVD Drive
Plextor PX-716AL/SW
Windows XP Media Center
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 Pro

I want the boot drive to be fast. I am looking at RAID 1 for redundancy. I was
hoping the plextor might save some burning time since we may need to burn
100's-1000's of CD's or DVD's for these courses. The video card is there to handle the
HD displays. The external box on the sound card has some advantages for
convenience with my physical set-up. I also want some future-proofing so I
have chosen a SLI board and a larger case.

All of this has been scratched together by a total noob from what I can gather
from about two weeks of reading. I would not waste your time but I must buy this
very soon. Any advice would be greatly appreciated including anything that is
obviuosly missing (cooling?) or overkill.

Thanks in advance
Brian

 

[Oiler]

I'll take one more shot at this but focus the question a little.

I have been told that for video editing I should go with Intel. Does this advice
still hold with today's processors. I really like what I have heard about the AMD's.
I have also had good luck with AMD before.

I may want to add aditional drives and a second graphics card later. Is this
the right PSU?

Is the Raptor the best choice for the boot drive or should I just go with
another SATA drive?

Lastly, I have chosen an SLI board because of the possbility of adding another GPU.
However, I was wondering how often people really do this if they are not
gamers. Is this something I could really expect to benefit from?

Again, any help would be appreciated.

 

[theMan]

everything looks really good. will you be overclocking? if so, you can drop down to an X2 3800+. get a thermalright xp90 cooler (if overclocking). get the P180 for sure. drop down to 2gb corsair value, or ocz value. that XMS stuff is a waste of money for what it gives you. also, switch the dvd drive to an NEC nd-3540a drive. if you can afford it, get a creative X-Fi soundcard.

 

[Crescent13]

Do what theman says, and also get an x-fi instead of that Audigy 4 pro.

 

[mdchesne]

some quick notes:
drop the CPU to a X2 3800+ (you can OC a 3800+ to that of a 4400 and you save a ton of money)
go with a nice lian-li case like the v1000 or v1200 (the others just...well... IMO are for kids)
get a seasonic or fortran PSU (seasonic 520 would be fine)
as for HDDs, get SCSI if you want fast loads and quick access. you get about 2ms seek time on a 300+gb SCSI :thumbsup:
get a graphics-rendering card for displays. unless you plan to do heavy gaming, you don't need a top-of-the-line gaming card. check out the rage4

 

[pontifex]

uh, if you're going to be burning 100-1000s of cds you might want to look into buying one of those cd duplicators or even pay someone that has one to do it. it will take forever to do it on a regular PC.

 

[fatlaxg30]

and its fortron for the power supply

dont want you to waste a bunch of time

 

[CrispyFried]

everyone seems to recommend overclocking. I wouldnt do that for critcal applications, I would pay up front. its not worth the time or risk, and time is money.. go with the fastest out of the box cpu you can.

if youre not a super duper gamer, youll most likely never use sli. Intel just might be faster at video encoding, its the one area theyve managed to hold on to, but I dont know if intels dual cores can keep up with amds duals in that, so it might go either way.

good call with the breakout box, youll find it mucho easier to hook pro stuff up to it. X-fi is probably better in a ht setup.

pontifex is right, buy an external duplicator, it will take forever to do hundreds on a single pc.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Overclocking isn't risky. It's not unstable or dangerous either. It just takes knowledge. If you know what to do, you'll be fine. I recommend a dual core Opteron 165 Socket 939. Double the cache of a 3800+ and overclocks very well.

SLI is a useless waste of money. Especially if you don't game. Get the EPoX 9nPA+ Ultra, MSI Neo4 Platinum, or DFI Lanparty Ultra-D instead of that ASUS, unless you really want the passive cooilng...

Drop the XMS and go with Corsair/Crucial/OCZ value RAM. There's barely any performance difference at all.

Don't waste money on a Raptor. You won't get much of a performance boost. Just get a nice 7200RPM 16MB cache drive.

Get the BenQ DW1640 instead of that LG burner.

Definitely go X-Fi. The Audigy 2/4 is outdate technology.

 

[Oiler]

Thanks everyone,

You have convinced me to drop the XMS ram. I am looking at
either OCZ or Crucial. I will also go with another SATA II 16MB
drive for my boot drive.

I was looking at the X-Fi series originally but I wanted the external
box. This meant the Elite Pro which is big bucks here in Canada.
I wasn't sure if the performance boost was worth it over the
Audigy 4 Pro. However, the reviews seem very nice.

I still need to give a little more thought to the mobo. I chose the
Asus Premium SLI since it had a number of features I thought might
be useful. I will look at your suggestions.

Thanks again,

 

[Elcs]

You cant go wrong with Crucial, OCZ or Corsair Value RAM. Fine brands at good prices. Id buy whatever brand tickles your fancry or is cheaper.

Western Digital are a top quality HDD brand but not the quietest. Seagate are quieter and their biggest bonus is offering a 5 year warranty. Samsung Spinpoints are the quietest drives.

SLI is probably not a function which you need or will use. Just go for the board with the features you desire. If it happens to have SLI, well... it opens up a branch of possibilities in the future.

 

[Oiler]

Thanks again for the help,

I am about to throw one more wrench into this. I was just about ready to go
when I noticed some interesting things about the Opteron 275/280's
on the socket 940 mobos.

What caught my attention was the possibility that this option might offer more
upgrade potential in the future. I keep my machines for about four years
on average but I don't mind upgrading along the way. Any comments
would be appreciated.

Is there a real difference in performance going this way right now.
This might be helpful on the computational side. Also, what is a good
940 mobo if one was to go this way.

Any downsides going this route other than the $$$$.

Regards

 

[Oiler]

By the way,

If I went the Opteron route I could look at using this machine as a server.

 

[Chiller2]

It is my understanding the the 940 is a dead socket and that AMD will be developing for the 939 in the future.

 

[Oiler]

Thanks Chiller2,

I don't want to go that route if that is the case.

Regards

 

[Skyhanger]

Originally posted by: Chiller2
It is my understanding the the 940 is a dead socket and that AMD will be developing for the 939 in the future.

The 939 Opterons just came out and they've been getting raving reviews. This is due to the fact that they are higher quality and cheaper than their Athlon 64 counterparts even though even the cores are mostly similar. All the gamers out there are trying to get those Opterons into their own 939 desktops...

You should look at the 165,170,175,or 180 dual core Opterons. Yes, I won't OC for critical apps..

Also, if you're not gaming, the 7800GTX is likely overkill...