Buying a new PC help

[Simo]

Hopefully getting a new PC in the next month or 2 and am trying to do the research so I get the best I can afford.

Hoping to spend $2-2500 on a desktop. Primary uses are:

* Lots of Video editing - making music DVD's, VHS-DVD, DV transfers. Really enjoy that stuff.
* CIVILIZATION 4 - I know this series of games should run on a 286 but for some reason they tried to make it all 3d graphicsy in the new version and it doesnt run on my laptop. Maybe some other games but I save FPS and stuff for the xbox. Mostly CIV and maybe command and conquer or age of empires style games.
*CAD and RENDERING - Computer Aided Design and rendereing programs.
* Music recording - making some noise on the guitar with my mates, we record some of the noise sometimes!

My current experince is with 2 PC's:
at work 2.6ghz P4 1 gig ram Gforce FX 5200 NVIDIA compatible videocard.

*Does good with video editing, but capturing through the internal TV tuner capture card audio and video is WAY out of synch and is sh*t. I think it is more to do with the software than the hardware but trying to get VHS to PC is useless. The hard drive needs to be defragged but it says it is done and barely anything changes and the program says it needs to be defragged straight after it. I think this maybe hurting my analogue capture.
*Civ4 runs on it but as it is a work PC i have never actually played it for more than 1 minute so I dont know how it runs on it.
*CAD and rendering is fine and operates well on it.
* Music recording, I havent done on it so I dont know.

at home 3ghz P4 1 gig ram inbuilt graphics card LAPTOP.

*Does good with video editing, not as good in Adobe premier as the work PC but I dont really like premier much so not a big deal. Capturing is horrible as I only have a USB Capture device. No good for transfering VHS. Have never used the Firewire capture on it so dont know if it keeps up.
* CIV 4 runs but has the terrain black due to the video card not supporting TNL (common problem in the game I have read on forums). Dont know how it would actually play later in the game if it worked.
* CAD and Rendering run vrey good and I am happy with the performance.
* Music recording is also good through a USB audio interface that lets me connect a mic and guitar. No MIDI though which isnt a huge deal but would be nice.

So with all that in mind here is what I have been given at the local store:

PC - 3.2Ghz hyper threading P4
Abit Ni8 Nvidia SLi chipset motherboard Is this good?
2xPCi express video slots What do these do?
10xUSB ports
1gb DDR2533Mhz RAM Fast enough?
Dual Channel memory What does this do?
160gb HDD 7200rpm Capture fast enough?
1 IDE interface standard What does this do?
2 SATA interfaces Standard (with raid) What does this do?
16x Dual layer DVD
256mb GF6600GT PCi express with SLi Decent card or crap?
DVI/VGA outputs with TV out
PCi express 16x What does this do?
HDTV suppoort
17inch LCD
7.1 digital surround sound
Gigabit network connector broadband ready What does this do?

A mouse, keyboard and small asoftware - $2395

Is this a good price and is there certain parts I should upgrade? I know I have to find a captrue card to add in, are there any good ones that double as a video card or is it best to go seperate?

Also is FSB (front side bus) super important? Is 800mhz what I should be looking for?

I know it was a mouthful but thanks for any help

 

[Caged Panther]

Sounds like you do alot of video editing?

My understanding, I'm no computer expert though, is that for video editing dual core cpu are the go. Though I here their expensive so whether they'll fit in your budget I don't know.

But as I said I'm no expert on the manner and stand to be corrected.

 

[Simo]

Yeah I enjoy doing a lot of vid editing. The dual core processors - are they the new Pentium D's???? I have noticed looking on the dell website some say P4 and others say PD.

 

[axie]

What CAD and render programs do you use? How complex are your models?

 

[Simo]

I have used Autodesk architectural desktop, archi cad, revit and sketch up. Still deciding which to use. But basically architectural work and 3d presentations of buildings.

 

[axie]

So your an architectural drafter? You do similar work to me, except I do bit more on the 3D rendering and animation side (freelance).

PC - 3.2Ghz hyper threading P4

This processor is a little outdated, personally I would go for a Dual Core based AMD cpu or the Intel equivalent[font=&quot] [/font]or wait another month or so for the Yohan based Intel Dual Cores to start filtering into the country.

Abit Ni8 Nvidia SLi chipset motherboard Is this good?

That board is fine if you wish to use the processor you mentioned. You want a board that supports SATA2, PCI-E and DDR2.

2xPCi express video slots What do these do?

These are the SLI slots mentioned above, they allow you to run two identical video cards at once to share the load. I don't think you need a SLI setup for your video cards, none of the programs you use are exactly pushing the barriers in terms of graphics, I would stick with a single GF6600GT which will save you some cash.

1gb DDR2533Mhz RAM Fast enough?

1 gig of DDR2 will suffice if the models you work on aren't overly complex, personally I would spend the extra $150 or so and get 2 gig. Can be quite handy when dealing with very large files in ArchiCAD or Sketchup.

Dual Channel memory What does this do?

This has to do with your RAM, DDR2 is dual channel, it basically doubles the bandwidth compared to single channel RAM. Simple terms: makes sh*t faster.

160gb HDD 7200rpm Capture fast enough?

Make sure this drive is a SATA2. If you are doing video editing I would get a second hard drive, 160gb can fill up quite quickly if you are using largish files. Hard drives are damn cheap these days, so you can add another couple later if you so wish.

1 IDE interface standard What does this do?
2 SATA interfaces Standard (with raid) What does this do?

IDE is the old standard interface used to connect the HDD to the motherboard, the new standard is SATA2. You'll find most motherboards have at least one IDE interface to allow you to use older hard drives.

256mb GF6600GT PCi express with SLi Decent card or crap?
PCi express 16x What does this do?

A GF6600GT based card is a very good, I use one in all my machines at the moment, however I personally wouldn't bother getting two and using them in a SLI configeration. Also without knowing what the exact brand is I cannot comment on the quality of that specific card. PCI-Express is the new standard interface for connecting the graphics card to the motherboard. It has a large bandwidth capacity than the older AGP interface.

17inch LCD

This is the biggest problem I can see in your list. There's no use spending a lot of cash on a good system only to be let down by a poor, small monitor. I would certainly spend some extra money on getting a larger, better quality monitor. Personally I cannot find a better screen than the 20" or 24" Dell widescreens, even the new Apple screens aren't as crisp and these. Of course, there is a pretty nasty price attached to these, around $900 for the 20" and $1450 for the 24". The next step down from these would be BenQ's 20" widescreen which uses a similar panel to the Dell. Computer Alliance has the BenQ for another $750. I can't express how much I believe a good monitor can improve your productivity, being able to see a larger section of the plan, or even running a program on each monitor on a dual setup can save hours on a large job (I normally have 3DsMax on the 24" and Sketchup / autocad on the 20" which means I can see the whole project at once). Plus your eyes will thank you. At least upgrade from a 17" to a 19" ...

 

[Simo]

Thanks axie, thats exactly what I needed. I really appreciate you taking the time to post all that. Chhers.

 

[Simo]

PC - 3.2Ghz hyper threading P4


This processor is a little outdated, personally I would go for a Dual Core based AMD cpu or the Intel equivalentor wait another month or so for the Yohan based Intel Dual Cores to start filtering into the country.

Are these the Pentium D's mentioned in the 2nd post??

 

[Mean Dene]

Get a PowerMac G5.

 

[mr_sharks]

Get a PowerMac G5.

Mac's suck

 

[bulldog]

Are these the Pentium D's mentioned in the 2nd post??

Yup, Pentium D is dual core.

 

[Simo]

Any idea what speed Dual core proccessor I should look for and also what difference to the price a dual core would make?

 

[Cletus]

Just on Civ4, they've released a new patch that fixs plenty of stuff. I think you can download it through the game but I'll post otherwise when I get home from work if that's not the case.

 

[Simo]

Yeah I got the 1.5 patch or something similar (2nd patch I think) and it doesnt solve my black terrain problem unfortunately. I had big hopes for the patch giving me the game but bummer!

 

[Cletus]

Yeah I got the 1.5 patch or something similar (2nd patch I think) and it doesnt solve my black terrain problem unfortunately. I had big hopes for the patch giving me the game but bummer!

Try updating the video drivers, other than that buy a new graphics card . Works fine on Nvidia cards with the latest drivers.

 

[Alex28]

Get a PowerMac G5.

You'd be better off with an iMac with the Intel chips in it now any way...

but not for this case in hand

 

[Simo]

Try updating the video drivers, other than that buy a new graphics card . Works fine on Nvidia cards with the latest drivers.

Unfortunately no can do on the laptop! I guess thats a price you pay for portablility - No upgradability.