Need input regarding computer upgrades for editing
 

Of course I have MORE questions!! I can't wait until I've been here long enough to actually be useful to someone else for a change!! Until then I shall suck you all dry of your knowledge! ;-)

So now I am upgrading my computer. My current one isn't that old but I need "MORE".
I currently have:
AMD 64 Dual core Proccesor.
nVIDIA GeForce 6100 Integrated Graphics card
My hard drive is only 250G but I have a 500G external
My memory is only a 2G DDR But I did add another Gig there (not that you can tell!)

So....I want to stay PC (no Mac for me yet!). I also use Abobe Premiere Pro if that matters.

What should I look for? MINUMUM requirements? I really don't want to be upgrading again in 2 years!

I guess...what are you using now and is it powerful enough to keep you happy? I'm not filmingin HD yet so I don't know if I need to "plan ahead" now for it or not either? Any thoughts?

Thanks again!

I upgrade every 3 years and always buy a midrange computer which are quite cheap right now. Thing with computers is that what is high end and very expensive now will be mid-range and cheap in 3 years so as I see it a better investment to buy midrange computers.
Everything depends what format you want to be handling, any computer in the midrange section will do for SD and mpeg2 HD, only if you buy a avchd mpeg4 camcorder you need all the processing power you can get.
Faster processors will mean faster rendering times so you have to decide wether that's important for you, so as long as you don't get a camera that has the avchd format any decent pc today will serve you for more then 3 years. Adobe has some requirements on their site for pc's and you might think of getting a videocard that can handle HD footage if you output it to a hd screen or if you buy a blu-ray burner and want to see you disks on a hd screen as well.

Hi Kelsey,

I recently changed from a AMD Dual to a Pentium Duo (wished I had gone the whole hog and gone quad core but at the time, big big price difference) and I must say the Pentium Duo handles video work much better than AMD.

I read this fact all over the place so that is what made me choose it.

I suggest going for a quad core now (not too expensive), dont go overboard on the GFX card as you wont get any big benefit from it for video editing.

Ram, Ram and more Ram... it makes such a difference to your workflow. Make sure you go for Paired RAM (you may well have had paired 2gb ram in your pc and when you added the 3rd gb it could acutally reduce the performance as the paired ram doesnt function as paired with a 3rd...)

So 4gb of paired RAM (2 x 2gb) would be cost effective (what I have) and with a quad core Intel you would be going well. 8gb is preferable but you will need to remove at least one arm to foot the bill.....

We edit on 2 Dell XPS 420's.

Quad Core
4GB Ram
2x 320GB hard disk in RAID0 for performance and capacity (backed up to another drive)
Vista 64Bit, never had a problem with 32bit apps or drivers and its ready for the 64Bit apps
Also means I can take advantage of the full 4GB, with vista 32 you only get 3.5GB available RAM.
Geforeve 6600 graphics card

Always go for the latest or it will be no good in a year.

Each machine with a 20" widescreen monitor was about £700.

Using Vega's network render we can either get both machines rendering or I can set the wifes off doing a section while I continue to edit without using my CPU cycles.

We share data on a Buffalo NAS with a total capacity of 2TB. Everything we do is backed up, cant take the risk of loosing a hard disk.

We film and edit in HD as it gives more flexibility (the ability to zoom in digitally and keep quality for example). It does need more power but not as much as it needs hard disk performance.

What's "no good"? I still can edit my hdv files on a 3 year old single core machine. every pc you buy today will do the job next year, your dell f.i. might already have problems handling avchd footage if you trow too much on the timeline. Especially in the pc arena nothing ages so fast and in the video arena it keeps pushing pc's to their limits.
It all depends what type of footage you use, if it's plain hdv, any machine bought now will easily get you along for some years.

Ram, Ram and more Ram... it makes such a difference to your workflow. Make sure you go for Paired RAM (you may well have had paired 2gb ram in your pc and when you added the 3rd gb it could acutally reduce the performance as the paired ram doesnt function as paired with a 3rd...)

Actually I think this may be part of the problem...I currently do not have them paired...I wasn't aware of that issue when I installed them and now I'm being lazy about switching them!

I'll definitely check out the Adobe system requirements........that was great advice....I hadn't thought of that!

Same thing here, with a 22" monitor and a native HD resolution (1280x720) secondary monitor.

It works great, and Premiere Pro really makes use of the quad-core. Check Dell Outlet for some good prices.

If you're not doing HD you'll be fine with the 2.66 quad core (Q9450), 4Gb dual channel of RAM, Windows is unable to utilize more than 3.25 Gb of RAM, unless you're using 64bit OS which I doubt,
using Premiere ( man you should try Vegas) get one raptor (10k rpm) hard disk, but NOT for the OS, for the scratch disk;(if budget permits get one SAS (15K rpm) drive, but again as a scratch disk); graphics card is irrelevant unless you're into 3D and animation, but PCIe 256 mb gonna look better than integrated and it's not very expensive;
good luck and happy editing!

Well.......

I upgraded! I have WAY more computer than I actually need but I don't care!
I have an Hp Intel processor Quad core with 8G of RAM (yes 8!!). It comes with Lightscribe (anyone use this), and a Blu-ray player, and a GORGEOUS 24 inch screen!!

The OS is Vista 64 bit so I'm hoping that Premiere doesn't give me any problems (it's only approved for 32 bit).

Anyway, thanks for all the advice!

You'll also want your scratch disks in a RAID 0 or 5 setup for speed. RAID 5 also gives you redundancy.