I may be being redundant a bit here, please bear with me, since i'm a novice when it comes to computer tech stuff:

So.. the smart move now would be to bypass the upgrade to CS4, wait till CS5 comes out.

And Premiere CS3 and ProspectHD will work fine on the new Windows 7 64bit I7 machines?? Would it be satisfactory to purchase one of the high-end i7 machines at a retail store, like say Frys or compusa?? Or is it better to get a custom built system??

If custom is the way to go, other than a recommended Quadro card, are there other pieces of hardware that would be recommended??

Finally, do any of you guys know of any reliable companies that sell custom built workstations?

Thanks, again

I buy all of mine from HP's Remarket/Refurbished division. Anything in their "Workstation" section should be fine for your needs. HP's systems are vendor "Certified" for most media tasks (Adobe, Avid, Matrox, AJA, BMD, etc.) which mades it easier to get support from all involved parties if you are having issues. Dell Outlet is a similar option, but Dell's workstations are not usually as good. (I buy my laptops from Dell and my desktop systems from HP) You will probably want to upgrade your GPU for CS5, once Nvidia releases their next generation of cards, so I would't stress over an exact model right now.

Awesome, thanks for the info!!! I'll check it out HP's later tonight.

Hello All,

Thanks for all the advice and tech info, i definitely have learned ALOT-including realizing to allocate more time this year 2 studying the more technical aspects of post-production ( btw I hope this thread will be of some use in the future to tech novices like myself)..

Anyway, after careful studying of info both in this thread and also thru google searches, I've decided to hold off on my initial urge to splurge on the CS4 upgrades and also the purchasing of the nvidia cx card + workstation and basically wait out the [expected CS5 release date of] 2-3 months (giving me more time to become more knowledgeable)... in the meantime, I will be going with a more cheaper, temporary solution that I hope will accomodate my existing software combo of Premiere CS3 + Prospect HD.

In the past year, i've been editing on an AMD Phenom 9550 Quad Core 2.20gHz with 3GB of RAM, an ATI RAdeon HD 3400 Graphics card using XP Pro SP2. And although i've produced some really awesome projectsl, it's been a genuine pain in the A$$, to say the least.

Anyway, if anyone has the time, patience and goodwill, would you mind analyzing the following customized Hewlitt-Packard Customized Purchase breakdown and give me either an "OK", "NOT FIT", "Overkill", or "It can be improved (with accompanying notes)" in relation to whether or not the computer customization would be fit to run the combo of Premiere Pro CS3 +ProspectHD? (Btw, all of my source footage is shot on the JVC HD200, and I do a lot AE work too) Bear in mind, this is a temporary solution, and i'm planning on buying a whole new system for the CS5 release. The system was priced to just under $1300.

Again many thanks to anyone who can enlighten me, I truly appreciate it.
-marc


Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-920 quad-core processor [2.66GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache] edit
Memory 8GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs] edit
Hard drive 1TB RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA HDDs) - performance edit
Graphics card 1.8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters]

While your gathering information... this article may be of some help...

Videoguys Blog - Videoguys' DIY7.7: Intel Core i7 with Vista 64 AND Now Windows 7

You might as well go for the GeForce 285 if you can, since they already say it will be supported in CS5.

Also--the 920 has 3 memory channels meaning you want to install ram in set of 3. The 4 DIMM config will actually make your computer degrade performance by switching back to dual-channel operation.