In reply to a post by 4M2:

Use a good intermediate codec or proxies for editing and almost any machine will do

I use proxies for HD editing if I editing a few tracks.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Lots of RAM, decent CPU, large HDD. Pretty much what's been discussed already. Are Dell's good enough? If going for a pre-build, yes in my opinion. You get what you pay for, and you pay more for any pre-build system.

There is better machines than Dell around even pre-built. Never been fond on Dell machines, but they seem to be worse than ever now.

If self-build, then it's less expensive in some ways (operating system and other software (MS Office) can be expensive), and you should end up with a made to measure PC, however you also have no 'PC' warranty. Your warranty is parts-specific, so many points of contact, and can you trust your mate to bail you out if things go wrong? Does he have the spare kit to test and diagnose your kit? If so, then fine.

How often do things go wrong? Hardware wise anyway. I have been putting PCs together for about 12 years now, maybe a bit longer and in all that time I think I
have built 30 or more machines for different people and have only sent a 4-5 bits back and most of them was DOA. But as you said he does need someone to bail him out if something do go wrong.

Just my opinion, but I wouldn't waste much time with SSD, as you want GB rather than speed. Many of the big HDDs have decent cache sizes, so they will be fast enough for your needs. There might be a reasonable argument for C: being SSD and data on another large drive, but I most of the people I speak to n SSDs aren't impressed enough (yet), due to the slow down factors. It's a speed/capacity/price balance that isn't favourable enough compared to standard HDDs, although the rising price of the latter does make SSDs more favourable at present. You could get a 1TB drive with 64MB cache for the price of a 120GB SSD.

I agree, i love my SSD unit, but it is not much of a advantage for what I use the machine for. Sure the computer boots up faster, but since most of the time it is in sleep mode, I don't really notice it. Vegas and other software like Paintshop loads in quicker, so it is nice for that.
But you are right a large normal drive is the way to go.

Quad core CPU or better is pretty much all I recommend. Plenty of cache on the CPU is a good thing.

Yep, or maybe six core since most video editing software will use all the cores when needed.
I done a trace of my quad core when using Vegas and I could see that the cores was being used for different things, then when they was needed for rendering they all came into action.

RAM should be 8GB or more, and in as few sticks as possible. It's preferable not to max out the motherboard mem slots from my experience, so two sticks in a four slot mobo is the way to go, but you might find that 4 x 4GB is better than 2 x 4GB if you need more than 8GB. Some motherboards don't care for all slots in use and problems have occurred in the past. If it's triple channel, then 3 x 4GB seems the best way to go (12GB).

Again agree, the reason why I got four sticks in mine is because the last 4Gb was a after thought. i got 4Gb, then realised after that with memory being so cheap I may as well have gone for 8. so I just got another 2 sticks. There is no problem, it is just less to go wrong with two sticks

In reply to a post by sjr:

The PSU wattage is probably overkill but the nice thing about Corsair PSUs is that they are quiet. I hate noisy PCs After market coolers are also likely to be quieter than stock coolers.
Building from scratch I'd probably go for a Corsair with a lower wattage for such a system but pcspecialist only have a limited range of PSU options and that seemed the best of the bunch. But at least there are PSU and cooler options, something you don't really get with the big box shifters like Dell, HP etc.

My machine is pretty quiet considering, the thermaltake power supply is quiet and as i said before is great value for a modular system. My heat sink is a Venom Nano, which is fine even if the CPU is working hard, the noise level only goes up a little bit, full pelt it is noisy, but it never at full pelt unless I muck around in the bios and switch off cool and quiet.

The case got two fans, front and back and they are really quiet, the loudest fan is the one I put in from a old power supply in the roof of the case and i am only running that at 5volts so it is not that bad.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Here you go op http://i.imgur.com/yTPmK.png You'll be able to get a better graphics card from amazon though, better still if you get the student version of 7.

you said mine was over speced. I do agree with the card reader, My old one could not cope with my 16GB card from the camcorder, so I had to get another Akasa. I highly recommend the Akasa, because of reliability, my old one was over 6 years old and still works, but just can't cope with the newer cards

The new Akasa comes up as multiple drives, so you can copy from one card to another, a lot of the cheaper readers don't do that. Also the Akasa have a slot for transflash cards, sorry Micro Sd cards.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Any comments on the spec?

Looks good, not a Intel fan myself, but I been told the I5 is a pretty good chip.

One word of warning about your optical drive the Pioneer, if you are going to use Label flash which allows you to put designs on the label side of the disk, it is not very well supported. you can still use any disks, just not be able to etch pretty pictures on the back of the disk.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

LG or Samsung. Benq is a value brand.

My Hanns-G is suppose to be a value brand, but the quality is just as good as my mates Samsung, don't forget a lot of the panels are made by Samsung anyway it is only the electronics that process the picture that differs, sure if the electronics are naff then the picture will be naff.

Benq have been in the business for years, they know what they are doing. I seen some poor Samsung and poor LG monitors I can tell you, but I do like Samsung, but the higher price is just not worth paying for.

Before you say about pro use, someone I know that does video work for a living, uses a couple of BenQ monitors, true they are 27inch and they are the higher price range, but still Benq.


As he said what is the pint in paying over £300 for a Samsung when something that cost £90 less does the same job.

Adrian,

Are you using a solid state drive for the OS and Vegas and a second larger internal HDD for working on video files? Does your mobo support SATA III or are you using a SATA II connection for the solid state drive?

My mobo only supports SATA II but I still may be interested in using a solid state drive for the Windows OS and apps which include Sony Vegas 10.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Adrian,

Are you using a solid state drive for the OS and Vegas and a second larger internal HDD for working on video files? Does your mobo support SATA III or are you using a SATA II connection for the solid state drive?

My mobo only supports SATA II but I still may be interested in using a solid state drive for the Windows OS and apps which include Sony Vegas 10.

All software on my SSD and OS of cause. Video files and document folders all on the 500GB seagate XT drive

The SSD is Sata III and yes my motherboard does support Sata III. It certainly loads up faster, and if you got a load of plugins, Vegas can take a while normally to sort itself out with the SSD it is a lot quicker. even with SATA II you will notice the difference. but it is a luxury and only spend the money on one if you got it spare.

Thanks Adrian, sorry just one more question: do you save the Vegas SFK project files (I don't mean the rendered videos) to a folder on the SSD or to the Seagate?

Hi guys,

Away on a family trip so shall update on the final spec when I return. All the feedback has really been helpful.

Thanks