How high spec do we really need?...

nobodythere

It seems to me we push the boundaries every few months by an inch and people will pay an extra €200 for an extra 100Mhz or a better mobo design. How much do we really need? I'm looking to spec a computer for a friend that I'm building, but haven't been much into building for a few years.

It'll be used for image and video processing as well as music recording (no more than two tracks at a time) and some light gaming. Due to license costs of the software I really need to budget without sacrificing performance. This is my basic list:

1. Hard drive: €110
250GB SATA (bought already)
2. MOBO/CPU/RAM: €300
Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard
AMD Athlon "Barton" XP3200+ 400FSB (Socket A) CPU - Retail (also, what's the difference between retail and OEM?)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit
3. CD-RW €50
4. Case: €65
5. PSU: Bequiet ones, €75
6. Keyboard, mouse, floppy €50

Total: €650. Then we have to add the monitor, graphics card and sound card. Open to suggestions on the graphics card.

I'm just wondering, do I need this much?

the_syco

Get another hard-drive. A friend does sound recording, and seemingly a second hard-drive is recommended. Think he uses Cubase.

nobodythere

Thanks, but why? For backup or for separating windows installation from other files?

Sgtshaft

grasshopa wrote:

Thanks, but why? For backup or for separating windows installation from other files?

When it comes to image and video processing you can never have enough space and I have a NF7-S board myself and its a fantastic board and it comes with two sata connectors so get another drive and run it striped raid.

OEM vs. Retail
The retail and OEM versions usually will have the same exact product, however the retail version usually will come with bundled software, retail packaging, and more bells and whistles so to speak. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), White Box, Brown Box versions will come with the actual product and usually the drivers, no special packaging or software. Occasionally the retail version will accompany a longer warranty.

grasshopa wrote:

Then we have to add the monitor, graphics card and sound card. Open to suggestions on the graphics card.

The NF7-S comes with onboard sound which is pretty good, and buy a dvd-rw instead of cd-rw there around the same price.

Graphics Card,
Entry Level 9800
Mid Range 6800GT
Monitor Samsung 19" LCD

DemonOfTheFall

Scrape a pentium 4 with hyperthreading in there *somehow*. You really will be glad of it for audio/visual work.

gamer

if ur on a budget buy a secondhand 17 or 19inch crt monitor from someone,crt is way better than lcd flatscreen display for av or gaming use,anyway.

pickarooney

Get a DVD-RW drive (only about a tenner more than the CD-RW you list) - always useful for video-editing if you want to test your productions on standalone players.

pickarooney

gamer wrote:

if ur on a budget buy a secondhand 17 or 19inch crt monitor from someone,crt is way better than lcd flatscreen display for av or gaming use,anyway.

I'd be inclined to go for 2 x 17" screens - flat ones, for space reasons - for AV editing.

tman

Sgtshaft wrote:

OEM vs. Retail
The retail and OEM versions usually will have the same exact product, however the retail version usually will come with bundled software, retail packaging, and more bells and whistles so to speak. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), White Box, Brown Box versions will come with the actual product and usually the drivers, no special packaging or software. Occasionally the retail version will accompany a longer warranty.

A retail cpu would usually come with a fan. it's worth getting the OEM version and buying a decent HSF seperately if you want quiet pc.
hitide.ie would be a good place to look for one...

astrofool

an athlon 64 2800+ or 3000+ (939), or a p4 3.0 w/ht will outperform that pc. The xp3200+ is not very good value at all anymore.

po0k

And you'll have some sort of upgrade potential.
And dual-channel if you go the socket939/Pentium4 route.

christophicus

An Athlon 64 will be better at image editing and gaming while a P4 with HT will be way better at video encoding if you use the right apps.

CuLT

Seeing as it's only light gaming I'd be going the Pentium4 64 bit route.

I'm under the impression game-fanatics don't even consider p4s, but if you're looking for multiprocessing, p4 is the way to go.

DemonOfTheFall

Dont go the pentium 4 64bit route - too expensive. No performance gain over 32bit really unless youre running over 3 gigs of ram aswell.

The standard 32bit pentium 4 seems to be the best man for this job

airetam_storm

Problem with them is they cost an arm and a leg more :rolleyes:

Question - Do you NEED to buy DDR2 for new P4's(Prescottss??) or are they still compatible with standard DDR? Something to do with the new i125 mobos?

CuLT

May as well be prepared for the future, as they say

Or the present; 64bit Windows runs quite well according to what I've heard.

airetam_storm

Still in beta stages but me thinks its gonna be rolled out soon enough...the end of the year maybe?

astrofool

If they sorted out the drivers for x64, i'd use it all the time, a much smoother experience than 32bit xp (tho probably because its based off 2003sp1 rather than being 64bit).

RicardoSmith

I tried building a cheap 2200XP and it wasn't working out that cheap. So I sold the parts and at xmas I bought a Dell (from the outlet store) P4-3Ghz HT, 512mb, DVDRW+/-, 250GB SATA, Modem, Lan, onboard 5.1, Mouse, keyboard, speakers, XP Home and a one year warrany for €500 which includes VAT and a 1 year warranty. I stuck a 2nd hand 9800pro €100 into it. Benchmarked against other machines it does quite well. It needs more RAM though. I stuck my old HD's in USB2 enclosures so I have a 120/180 external disks.