If it isn’t obvious by now, you need a really big hard drive. I have an 80 GB hard drive, and I routinely fill it more than half full while capturing AVI files. You need the biggest hard drive you can afford. A 7200 RPM drive is fast enough, but if you can afford a SCSI drive.
Processor
The debate over whether or not you need a single or dual processor system has been fuel for endless flame wars. Personally, since this is going to be an amateur workstation, I would recommend a fast single CPU instead of so-so dual processors. Stay away from the Celeron’s & Duron’s though. They will work of course, but the extra cache in Pentiums & XP’s will help speed up the process. You can pick up a 1.47 ghz AMD chip for $60-$70. My 900 Mhz Duron is really starting to show it’s age when it comes to compressing hours of video. If you can afford a faster processor, go for it. But for 60 bucks that 1.4 ghz chip is a bargain. As a general rule, I always buy a new heat sink/fan whenever I buy a new CPU. That way you are sure that your processor is being cooled adequately.
Motherboard & Case/Power Supply
In my opinion the motherboard is the single most important part of your PC. It is the key component that ties every other component together. When buying new computer parts, I recommend it is the one part that you don’t “get cheap” with. If you do a little research beforehand, you can buy a motherboard that will allow you to have a HUGE amount of upgradeability for the future.
The first thing to decide when buying a new motherboard is whether it’s going to be dual or single processor and whether or not it is going to run an AMD or Intel processor. For the purposes of this article I recommend a single processor. As far as AMD vs Intel, you decide that for yourself. Once you’ve decided on what brand of processor you want, you need to decide what speed & type(Duron/Athlon/XP or Celeron/PIII/PIV) of processor your going to buy. You will also need to make a decision about SDR ram or DDR ram. DDR ram is more expensive, but also provides better performance. You’ll have to decide for yourself if DDR ram is worth the extra money. Whichever type you decide on, buy at least 512MB.
Also, be very careful about the speed of the processor that the motherboard supports. When I bought my motherboard, I ordered it with a 900mhz Duron. I made sure that the motherboard I was ordering supported better/faster CPU’s. My motherboard supports Duron’s/Athlon’s/XP’s. It supports speeds up to about 1.8 ghz(or more, but I don’t feel like digging out the manual to see). When the faster processors become a little cheaper, I’ll double the speed of my processor and never have to worry whether or not my motherboard can handle it. Be certain that your motherboard supports both faster speeds and newer types of processors.
If you expect your computer to be as upgradeable as possible, one of the worst things you can do is buy a motherboard with a) integrated audio/video and b) limited PCI slots. That said, I recommend buying a motherboard with no integrated components (expect maybe a NIC, but even then not really). With any decent motherboard you should get an AGP slot, and 5 to 6 PCI slots. I’ve got a video card(AGP), a 3com NIC, and a Sound Blaster Live! card in my computer right now. The only other thing I can think of ever needed to add would be a modem. That still leaves me with room for a USB 2 card, firewire card or a IDE/SCSI controller, should the need arise.
Now that we’ve picked out which motherboard we need, we pick the case and power supply to match it. Get at least a mid-tower sized case. My case has 4 5.25” bays and 2 3.5” bays. It has plenty of room inside, and has lots of room for extra hard drives or CD/DVD-Roms. When I ordered my case it was bundled with a 350 watt power supply. It has always “supplied” enough power, however if you are going to be powering a lot of devices via firewire & USB I would recommend you go with a 400 watt or higher power supply. Also, pay attention to the fine print on in case descriptions. Some cases and power supplies only support Intel processors, and some only support AMD processors.
For an idea of the money involved in this section, I would say a fair price for the motherboard outlined above would be around $90-$120 depending on how high-end you want to go. For the case, you can probably get a good sturdy case with a 400 watt power supply for $50-60 bucks. Note that the price for the case assumes you get an ugly beige case like I did. Pretty aluminum ones cost more.
- "Video Editing Basics, Part I"
- "Video Editing Basics, Part II"
- "Video Editing Basics, Part III"
