Quote: Happy New Year to everyone.

If anyone has a moment, I am looking for advice on building a new computer with the optimum use for PD12. Appreciate your thoughts! Below are the specs for a computer around $1000. Was wondering if I should spend more on the graphics card and downgrade on the i7 processor to an i5.
Thank you!
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RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Power Supply, New Version with Build-in LED Fan On/Off Switch

LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner, Bare Drive, 3D Play Back (WH14NS40) - OEM – OEM

Seagate Barracuda ST320DM000 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)

LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770

ASUS B85-PLUS LGA 1150 Intel B85 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL

EVGA 01G-P3-2615-KR GeForce GT 610 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Windows 7 Pro (OEM) 64 Bit - No Media

I would keep the i7 CPU the i5 is not as fast.

You might think about a 1TB hard drive instead of the 500GB.

The EVGA GeForce GT 610 video card is in the mid to high range of benchmarks.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+610&id=33

There are certainly faster video cards, it may serve your purpose, the Intel HD Graphics 4000 is a better Graphic chip than most people think it is.

The Windows 7 pro with no Media is not the best thing. You can use disk image software to backup the system before anything goes wrong. It would be better if the manufacturer supplied you a Windows install disk.

550 Watt power supply is OK, I prefer 600-700 watts. You might need that much power supply if you get a more powerful Graphics card.

ASUS B85-PLUS LGA 1150 is a great mother board.

It is not easy to find ready built computers that are great for HD video editing.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Echoing Carl's advice, the I7 is preferable. Consider spending a bit more now, forestalling the need to upgrade too soon.

I recently picked up a WD high-end 2Tb hard drive for $139. A while back, a EVGA GTX 650 was purchased for $103.

Imaging is highly recommended. Saves hours/days of grief. Some WD drives come with free Acronis Tru-Image.

Thank you guys for your opinions! That helps me out a lot! I will see about imaging and 1 TB at least!

RR

RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Power Supply,

LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner, Bare Drive, 3D Play Back (WH14NS40) - OEM – OEM

Seagate Barracuda ST320DM000 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)

LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770

ASUS B85-PLUS LGA 1150 Intel B85 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL
EVGA 01G-P3-2615-KR GeForce GT 610 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Windows 7 Pro (OEM) 64 Bit

I, too, am considering a new computer build to replace a 6 year old system. I talked with a local computer services store technician and he recommended having FOUR hard drives: RAID 10/0 or SSD RAID 0/10. I am still learning about the differences but are 4 HD's necessary?

He also said the Nvidia GTX750ti is good for a video card, to use a 1000 watt power supply and i7 system with 16 GB of RAM. There are computer building companies, MagicMicro on eBay, that will let a person select their own components...that's where I got my last machine and it has been really good. But I have a lot of old movies, already digitalized that I want to edit, improve and add music to so I want to have a good computer tool to do it. Thanks for any help.

Quote: I, too, am considering a new computer build to replace a 6 year old system. I talked with a local computer services store technician and he recommended having FOUR hard drives: RAID 10/0 or SSD RAID 0/10. I am still learning about the differences but are 4 HD's necessary?

He also said the Nvidia GTX750ti is good for a video card, to use a 1000 watt power supply and i7 system with 16 GB of RAM. There are computer building companies, MagicMicro on eBay, that will let a person select their own components...that's where I got my last machine and it has been really good. But I have a lot of old movies, already digitalized that I want to edit, improve and add music to so I want to have a good computer tool to do it. Thanks for any help.

If I may pop in on this Tanstaafl,

I am more familiar with videocards directed towards gaming, but I have heard the GTX750Ti is a good card for video playback and decoding - I too wonder if it is a good videocard for editing - it should be fine, since those are the main components of rendering: the decoding and encoding, isn't it?

There is no need for four hard drives, but it is more up to you and what you want to do. RAIDs can give speed/performance increase (RAID 0, where the drives essentially 'take turns talking') and can give redundancy for data protection (RAID 1, where an entire copy of your videos/etc are kept on another drive). A RAID-10 is simply a combination of these (a copy of the RAID0 striped drive, which already is two drives taking turns, hence the requirement of 4 drives). You definitely do not NEED to have more than 1-2 drives, but if you want that, or a combination of the suggestion, that is totally up to you.

In general, some things to consider are: SSDs are faster than the spinning platters of HDDs, possibly having a separate drive for the OS, having a separate drive/partition for your data/videos/etc, having a dedicated drive for editing/etc, running RAID for performance or redundancy (or both if you want, or no RAID at all) - all of these are up to you if you want to utilize them or not. If you want to save money for now, you'd be fine with just one large HDD, don't worry.

Troy,
Thank you very much for your information and explanations. I know I need to study and learn more about video editing to do a good job of turning old home movies into things that might be appreciated by a younger, younger generations! I will take your advice to heart.
Have a great spring!