where to cut costs?
 

this is what i want to buy:

INTEL PENTIUM 4 2.53 GHZ
ASUS P4PE GBL/L/1394 845 PE
MUSHKIN 512 MB PC2700 CL2 BLUE
WD 40GB 7200 RPM
WD 80GB 7200 RPM
MATROX G550 32MB
CREATIVE LIVE 5.1
ANTEC SONATA PIANO BLACK CASE + 380W TRUE ANTEC POWER

i will be running the pc on xp pro and editing on vegas 4.

my problem is over here in tel aviv this set up costs about $1300, which is a little over my budget. i'm looking for a way to cut the costs by about $300. any suggestions?

i'll lay out the prices as they are here at a respected local dealer.

INTEL PENTIUM 4 2.53 GHZ $260
ASUS P4PE GBL/L/1394 845 PE $190
MUSHKIN 512 MB PC2700 CL2 BLUE $130
WD 40GB 7200 RPM $105
WD 80GB 7200 RPM $135
MATROX G550 32MB $165
CREATIVE LIVE 5.1 $50
ANTEC SONATA PIANO BLACK CASE + 380W TRUE ANTEC POWER $185

that adds up to $1220. add a cd burner, keyboard, mouse, etc...

around $1300.

respected?

If you are buying PC parts and you don't buy from Newegg right now, you might as well burn dollar bills with a cigar.

On-line is always cheaper than a retail outlet ("respected local dealer" leads me to assume that this dealer is a retail outlet).

But Newegg per se is pretty irrelevant to Adi, since he lives in Tel Aviv, which is in that funny little place called "outside the USofA". Newegg do not ship Internationally (i.e. to that funny little place).

The first thing I did after moving to Switzerland was to check which of my old UK on-line retailers shipped Internationally, and a good source of Swiss on-line prices.

You could get somebody you trust in the US to order the parts from NewEgg.com and then Fedex them to you in Tel Aviv.

You still save a ton of money.

i actually have someone i know in LA that can do as you suggest. i'll check out that possiblity.
although, i'm not 100% sure, but i think there is a 18% tax when bringing in goods of that sort, when the value of the shipment is over a few hundred dollars.
thanks for the replies.

wow! Expensive!
You can go with AMD instead of Pentium. Cheaper MoBo. Cheaper video (it won't help on rendering time anyway). Don't buy "ANTEC SONATA ..." use headphones and buy the antec at a letter time...

Good luck!

1. Ratchet down the clock rate on the processor. 2.26GHZ is the slowest rate that still allows use of a 533MHz FSB, is plenty fast for video editing, and is not significantly slower than 2.53. This saves a few bucks.

2. Buy one hard disk. Buying two hard disks is the typical recommendation, which I support, but with 7200RPM and 8MB cache, you will have few, if any, problems. One 120GB or 160GB should cost less than the 40+80.

3. Get a minimal video card, as mentioned before.

4. Cheapen up the MoBo a bit. You don't need hyperthreading support because your chosen processor won't support it. You don't need the fastest RAM in the world. (More slower RAM is often better than less faster RAM.)

I don't agree. It's accepted wisdom that you should capture to a different drive to that carrying the OS and apps for a very good reason, frames can be lost if the system OS or app calls the disk head. Going from 2 to 1 disks is a false economy IMO. In fact, ideally, you should have a third disk for the swap file, but that's another discussion entirely.The G550 is pretty much a minimal card as it is. There are cheaper cards, but Matrox are smoooooth when it comes to 2D/video. All the other cards* are wrist excercise for spotty gamer freex.

IMO, more savings, and a better system, could be available by simply not buying from the shop 'round the corner. Respected or not.

* below about $1k

how are these motherboards?

ASUS P4S533-MX Motherboard for Intel P4 478 DDR Retail
Specifications:
Supported CPU:Socket 478 for Intel Pentium 4/ Celeron
Chipset:SiS 651 + SiS 962L
FSB:533/400 MHz
RAM: 2 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 2GB PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC DDR SDRAM memory
2 x 168-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 2GB PC133/PC100 non-ECC SDRAM memory
IDE:2 x UltraDMA 133/100 / 66 up to 4 Devices
Slots:1x AGP (4X) 3x PCI
Ports:2xPS2,1xLPT,1xVGA,4xUSB,1xLAN, and Audio Ports
Onboard Video: Integrated 3D graphics
Onboard LAN:10/100 Mbps Realtek
Onboard Audio:ADI AD1980 6-channel CODEC


or

MSI Motherboard for Intel Pentium 4 Processor, Model #845PE
CPU Supported: Socket 478 for Intel Pentium 4 processors
Chipset: Intel 845PE
FSB: 533MHz
RAM: 2x DDR, 2GB max, supports 266/333 memory speeds
Slots: 1x AGP(4X), 6x PCI,
Ports: USB 2.0 supported

Alex,

I'm not sure what OS and apps you're using, but to get Windows, and its swapfile, as well as apps and a decent size file capture all on a 40GB HDD without dropped frames, you must be doing very well. Congratulations, you've hit nirvana.

Windows XP and Vegas 4.0.

It's not that unusual, I know people who have had success with slower systems, and single hard drives....

Ermmm, when I said "apps", I kinda meant all apps. The app load will determine (a) space available and (b) intereferences (e.g. AV scanning). The space available will deteremine the size of clips you can capture, but also, if files are added to the centre of the disk, where speed is lower, DV may screw up. With its greter bit transfer rate, DV is best off on the outside of a disk, where spin speed is higher.

But this is a side issue. I'm not gonna bitch the 'mine' and 'yours' because there are too many variables, particularly if you build your own. If it works for you, great. But if you're looking to capture significant footage without dropping frames, then a dedicated AV disk is a sound choice.

I have 3HDDs but I tried capturing on the system (C:) partition and I didn't have droped frames. avi DV is not that fast at 3.5MB/s. I used to capture at 5MB in analog era... (with DC10+ from Pinnacle). But it's safer with 2HDDs. If you're OK with a single HDD when you capture, it will realy slow you down on rendering. You'll basicaly transfer gigs of data from a place to another on the same drive. And that's bad! Time consuming! The HDD's heads will be flying like hell to kip up and the acces time will be greater then read/write time.

I insist that you don't need a G550 for editing. It is not minimal at all. I live with a old 16MB ATI AiW...
And I have Vegas4 on WindowsXP.
I thought about getting a better video card, for games. It doesn't bother when edditing. Of course, you won't buy an 16MB video card (you won't find one) but you don't need to spend that much on the G550.

will a geforce 5200 fx (dual monitor) be enough?

I gues is enough.... It would do it for me!

am i making a mistake avoiding amd? wouldn't geting an amd based system bring down the costs considerably?

...and one more thing. what are the important features i should not compromise on as far as the choosing a case? fans? aluminum? front connections? space? true antec power vs. cheaper brands? etc...

I'm using an 1.8 Athlon XP with no problem. Maybe the P4 is faster.... I don't know.

About the case: take a BIG one. In size AND power. You'll have one or two HDD but in time you might get a third one (like I did). Also, if the temp monitoring soft shows you a HOT CPU you'll probably instal extra fans. So a 350W PSU is not to much! Don't go mad about the fans, though... You can see allot of fancy cooling systems over the net, but remember that those are for the OVERCLOCKING stuff. So, as long as you don't overclock the CPU, you don't need too much fans, peltier units or whatever!
I have a fan beninth the PSU that throws air INSIDE the case, because the CPU is right there, so is good to bring air from outside the case dirrectly to the CPU. Under the video card I have a fan that takes air outside the case. In front of the case, and down, I have another fan that blows air inside. Two HDDs are right down there, in the breeze! The third one is in a rack with its own cooling fans.
I have quite a few fans! I just realized this! :-)

See if AMD will bring down the costs for you. I haven't had any
problems editing on AMD myself.

Personally I would go for more harddisk space than a faster
processor or more memory. You can edit with 256 mb. You
can always add another 256 mb or 512 when you have saved
some more in the near future. Harddisk space is a must since
having one hour of DV footage is already 13 GB. Reserve at
least 10 GB for your OS and applications. With some test
footage I already have 20 GB in use here, that is besides my
projects....

Keep in mind that a project usually has this:

- original footage files (for 10 minute short this will be at least 30 minutes)
- music files (lets say 500 mb for a 10 minute short)
- footage that is going down to a post application or mpeg encoder for example (10 minutes)
- output to DV or mpeg2 (10 minutes)

This is already 10 gigabytes for one little short....

Your 40 + 80 might be enough, that depends on you. I'm just
pointing out how fast it can go...

My system:
Athlon XP 1900 @ 1700mhz
1 GB pc2700 ram
20 GB IBM Deskstar for OS and apps
two 120 GB WD 8meg cache drives for DV (the large cache size has been notably faster if I have to move large files around)
Radeon 9700 (games :P and the dual monitor capability has come in handy for editing)

I've been with AMD for years now, and I'll continue to support them. The price/performance is excellent, and the money I save avoiding Intel I can put into better parts elsewhere.

If you decide to go AMD, pick up the newer Barton chips. The extra on-die cache will help with the rendering.

http://www.pricewatch.com/
this will take care of business =D

go amd and save your self a lot of money. you could proubly get a AMD XP 2500+ Barton core processor for under a 100 thier. and get a good asus or abit Nforce 2 chipset motherboard. for around 125ish-150ish. this is the best way to go. a 2500 amd is everybit as fast as a non hyper threaded 2.53 p4.

thanks guys, but this thread started a while ago and has since become unrelevent. i have already gone and bought my pc and am happy with it so far. thanks again.