Spec a new PC - Where would you put your money?

[Justin]

So, building a new PC mainly to be used graphics work, CS3, Coreldraw X4.

CPU - Must be AMD, looking at the Phenom II X6 Athlon 3.20

Mobo - Considered spending more but thought a Gigabyte GA-M68MT would do the job without going ott

Memory - 8Gb as will be using 64 bit system. Thought this would be a benefit with graphics work

Graphics Card - This is where I struggle, GeForce GTX 550ti 1024Mb GDDR5 looks good but what features should I be looking for in a Graphics card?

SSD - Solid State Drive eventually but probably not just yet. I wonder if I should cut back above and give one a shot? Seems to make a huge difference form what I've read.

Appreciate any advice on this one

[phoenixalpha]

Not gonna make much of a difference graphics card wise. you'd get much of a muchness from a £30 card to a £300 card, UNLESS you are doing 3d work or playing games. 2d graphics unless its extremely intensive photoshop work (and I'm talking extremely high end stuff) wont benefit much from a high end card.

[Paul]

i would go for mid range card and get descent size and speed HD.

[Justin]

I was kinda thinking the Graphics card won't make that much difference. It may be used for video editing but doubtful at this stage. Would the software benefit form a 6 core cpu or is it just certain applications? The memory I'm pretty sure would be benedicial. Maybe install a small SSD instead of throwing money at a graphics card?

[Matt Quinn]

I was kinda thinking the Graphics card won't make that much difference. It may be used for video editing but doubtful at this stage. Would the software benefit form a 6 core cpu or is it just certain applications? The memory I'm pretty sure would be benedicial. Maybe install a small SSD instead of throwing money at a graphics card?

As far as editing video is concerned be lead by your software - Basically as much onboard memory and 1080i/25 support are the key features in agraphics card - and a dual head set up that can drive a standard 1080i TV monitor for qualitative assessment purposes.

But basically the approach for editing video is to read the spec recommended by the software and build that with whatever tweaks you see fit...

[phoenixalpha]

For video editing - throw as much money as you can at everything. the faster the better. Video editing takes up HEAPS of HD space, is stupidly processor and gfx processor intensive and will tax your pc to the max and then some. A good pc will take an age processing video work, a top of the range PC with all the whistles and bells will shave some time off the top but not hellish much. Quad core/8gb is *ok* for intense video work - rendering a video file is a matter of hours instead of minutes (by minutes i mean less than a 100 minutes).

3d work is next down the list, unless you are rendering video then see the above comment. Static 3d work takes up a lot of processor and gfx processing power but unless time is of the essence, you can get away with a little less than cutting edge.

Photoshop work comes next, but can be handled by a fairly run of the mill quad core pc with 8gb of ram and a decentish mid range (£100) card even if you are doing large files.

Anything else (2d work, normal *PC* stuff) a dual/tri/quad core pc with 4gb ram and 1TB HD with a lower/mid range gfx card (sub £100) will see you more than happy for the next few years.

[Justin]

Think I'll avoid the video editing on this PC for now What about 6 core...4 core etc. Does the software take advantage of this and does 64 bit software make a difference?

[phoenixalpha]

Ermmm. No not at the moment no. Very few packages (photoshop, some graphics software, games, video and 3d work) use multicore processing. It's unlikely going to task your pc using Word, or net browsing. I'm running a quad core AMD at 2.31GHz (giving a theorical 9.24GHz at full multicore optimisation) with 8Gb RAM and I've got Photoshop CS5 open with Quark as well along side Outlook and Internet Explorer (with 6 tabs open) all on Win7 64bit running on 2 full HD widescreen monitors. Both PS & Quark have fairly large files open and whilst I'm typing this according to my CPU/Memory logs, I'm using 56% RAM, and somewhere between 5 & 20% CPU power.

Rarely does CPU processing or RAM cause any lag whatsover in any program unless its a game, or a file is saving. Some programs only use 64bit, especially high end 3d and video editing software. 64bit is probably the way of the future but who knows what the future holds. We might all be using touch screens come Windows 8 or Mac OS XI (or some hybrid iOS/MacOS system) in two or three years utilising cloud based software for all our needs.

[Justin]

I'm running dual core at the moment and it occasionally seems to max out at 100%, memory just 2Gb and rarely above half way. I guess to use 8Gb I have to go 64 bit. Maybe an SSD would be a big improvement, I hear good things about them booting and opening apps very quickly.

[Matt Quinn]

For video editing - throw as much money as you can at everything. the faster the better. Video editing takes up HEAPS of HD space, is stupidly processor and gfx processor intensive and will tax your pc to the max and then some. A good pc will take an age processing video work, a top of the range PC with all the whistles and bells will shave some time off the top but not hellish much. Quad core/8gb is *ok* for intense video work - rendering a video file is a matter of hours instead of minutes (by minutes i mean less than a 100 minutes).

Trust me... I've been editing video on PC's since the mid-90's when it all started ... And producing video is actually my main business. (I own Clydeside TV Productions and another production company) - what we're routinely producing is broadcast-quality work in HD. We run FOUR edit systems all told, and no, we DON'T ever buy into the 'top of the range' thing; mug's game! - We build our own PCs to suit the specific purpose they're used for and only upgrade when they die or some piece of technology we desperately need to use can't otherwise be supported...

And we leave the 'bells and whistles' for these guys...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TGY0NYAwU4

I can assure you we have single and dual core machines running Premiere on 4Gb (the norm) and editing HD footage with absolutely NO issues... Must check the spec of the one I have here at home, but it's not fast, modern or top of the range; just built and dedicated to a purpose. It's just a case of setting the machine up properly.

GFX processors are only relevant in so far as the card needs to natively support 1080i at 25 FPS and really needs to be a dual head card as you have your timeline and programme windows on one (computer) monitor and the programme output fed to a TV monitor (usually just a good TV set these days)... We have two suites built with triple heads simply to extend the timeline... Onboard memory is an issue - the more the better...

If you're using Adobe Premiere they have a list of 'certified GPUs' - worth sticking to though we've used 'unsuported' ATI and NVIDIA cards without issues...

The only sensible way to build a video editing (or any other purpose built) system is to start with the software and work your way back... And I think that's VERY true of other demanding software too. AVOID being an equipment junkie unless you're just in it for a good pose - It's a tool to get a job done!

Video wise - Earlier versions of Premiere - 6.2 is fine if you only do standard definition DV - Pro 2.0 onward for HD/HDV - CS5 is current and anything below it will be pretty much unsuported, 64 bit support IS necessary for the later versions...

HD space - If the machine is only used for video an 80Gb HD is fine to load the OS, Software and store your stock sound effects and graphics on... You need a second drive of minimally 250Gb + for storing/manipulating files. buy a 500Gb drive for archiving your files onto. Using a single physical drive WILL adversely affect performance...

As I say - We were editing video over a dozen years ago using Win '98 on a P2! :rolleyes: And if you had an Amstrad 1520 kicking around you could still write a letter on it Photoshop - I attend the trade shows every year and they're yet to convince me to upgrade!