BF2S Forums Help me build the perfect computer

Bertster7 wrote:

Superior Mind wrote:

scottomus0 wrote:

Bah i used a mac were i used to work. I hate them

well I really want a reliable machine that is good for what I need, believe me I would rather get a PC, but the Mac really fits my needs.

I hate macs. It hurt to recommend one to you. It does seem by far the best option though.

The new Intel macs are nice and I've even started liking OS X. Get final cut pro best video editing stuff out there, that isn't for silly money anyway.

If you were to get a PC try to get a E6700 and quite a bit of fast RAM. I would SERIOUSLY recommend a SCSI hard drive solution - the drives are SOOOOOOO much faster. Maybe a 15Krpm Seagate Cheetah?

The drives are decently fast, but so are the 150GB Raptors. If you go the 15K route, be prepared to spend a bunch...like $3 per gigabyte on the large capacity drives, and more on the low capacity ones.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-10-15 17:11:33)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

Superior Mind wrote:

well I really want a reliable machine that is good for what I need, believe me I would rather get a PC, but the Mac really fits my needs.

I hate macs. It hurt to recommend one to you. It does seem by far the best option though.

The new Intel macs are nice and I've even started liking OS X. Get final cut pro best video editing stuff out there, that isn't for silly money anyway.

If you were to get a PC try to get a E6700 and quite a bit of fast RAM. I would SERIOUSLY recommend a SCSI hard drive solution - the drives are SOOOOOOO much faster. Maybe a 15Krpm Seagate Cheetah?

The drives are decently fast, but so are the 150GB Raptors. If you go the 15K route, be prepared to spend a bunch...like $3 per gigabyte on the large capacity drives, and more on the low capacity ones.

I would have thought that for video editing Peak Sequential Transfer Rate and Repetitive Sequential Read Rate would both be essential for high speed. 15K SCSI drives absolutely destroy Raptors in these tasks. You're right though, they are really expensive. But hey, if you want the best...

I've had bad experiences with Raptors personally. They never seem to perform as fast as I'd like them to, not even close to matching my RAID arrays of old crappy disks (SATA on ATA133) for sustained transfer speeds - they also seem to fragment every 5 minutes, I have to constantly defrag them. I've only used 36GB Raptors though and I've heard good things about the 74GB models and bad things about the 150GB ones.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

a. 15K SCSI drives absolutely destroy Raptors in these tasks. You're right though, they are really expensive. But hey, if you want the best...

b. I've had bad experiences with Raptors personally. They never seem to perform as fast as I'd like them to, not even close to matching my RAID arrays of old crappy disks (SATA on ATA133) for sustained transfer speeds - they also seem to fragment every 5 minutes, I have to constantly defrag them. I've only used 36GB Raptors though and I've heard good things about the 74GB models and bad things about the 150GB ones.

a. then mortgage your house for massive solid-state storage.
b. the 36GB Raptors are the clunky experimental sort. the 74GB's are fast and stable, and the 150GB ones are faster and just as stable, in my experience.

When the price of a 300GB SCSI drops below $1000, then it will be on my list of considerations...but if I was a financed film studio, I would snap them up like pop tarts for the workstations.

All very good points. SCSI drives are silly money. I used to run one back in the day, 160MB/s instead of 66MB/s ATA was damn good. Cost an arm and a leg, (£350 for 9GB - this is a long time ago though) but it was sooooo much faster than anything else - it's just made me love SCSI drives to this day. They are, and will probably always be, the best.

In a perfect computer, you'd use SCSI. Can you get ultra 640 drives yet or has the format been discontinued?

Video Editing eh?? Well, I'm a professional editor/graphic designer/audio engineer/videographer/motion graphics tech... really... and we run on Mac.  We have 7 Full blown Avid Composer suites (Mac dual 2.75, 4 gbs ram.. all sharing 9 TB storage.. and on dual 24" dell monitors with Tannoy Speakers)  All that may be overboard for you, but Mac may still be your best bet.

I recently put together a PC (look at my specs on my sig) and I run Avid express pro and Adobe After Effects no prob, and my machine set me back under $1000.  You dont need 10,000 rpm drives (it could help) and you dont need a super crazy vid card (again, it would help) what you need is RAM!!!!!!!!!! 

When you import clips, stills, mpgs.. or even capture video, your computer will be crankin on all cylinders, but its when you start cuttin is when you'll need the ram, TRUST ME...   I worked on my pc a few months back on a sdie gig with 1 GB ram.. and it was ok.. (but nothing close to my work machine) and I used the money I earned to drop another gig of ram.. wow..  my effects rendered faster, audio mixdowns, exports (to quicktime or what have you) and my real time capabilitites increased..

so anywho... do what you want, and dont listen to those noobs out there who say MAC SUXs!!!   They dont.. Take it from a !PRO!.. I have worked on macs for 4 years of HS, 4 years of college, and now 4 years at my agency.

I will say this though, careful with the new intel chips, we're holding off on them because they have not been fully tested and approved by Adobe.. and there are still a few bugs...

O, one more thing. Final Cut Pro is NOT the BEST editing app out there.. but, for $1200 retail for the FCP suite, its a steal... You get Final Cut for your video/film editing, Sound Track pro for audio mixin (which comes with a butt load of sound fx, music loops..etc).  Compressor, which allows you to compress DVD spec compliant files straight from FCP to DVD Studio Pro (mpeg 2 files, aiff or AC3 audio files) and you get Livetype, a decently cool graphics app that comes stock with textures, backgrounds, and a ton of text effects, which then imports right into FCP... As well as a 5.1 - 7.1 surround sound app that lets you encode AC3 files (which are surround sound files, that get encoded into DVD Studio Pro)

Let the flaming begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last edited by THEBUNGALOWJUNKIEKID (2006-10-16 05:36:00)

yes true.. I'm slated to get a Mac pro soon   16 GBS of ram!!!  Sweet jesus!!

Superior Mind -- Dont forget about getting the proper playback decks.  I'm not sure what format you're working on - HD, Mini DV, DV Cam.. etc.. but to invest in a good deck to play the tapes into your machine is crucial.  And no, you shouldnt use the camera.  thats double the use on the camera as your shooting to it, and using it as your playback source.

And you'll need a good Analog/Digital converter box... which lets you get the footage into the cpu via firewire.. and no not USB.. firewire is read/write, USB is a one way street..

heres a link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6814144214

we have that same unit at work on a small digital station, and I will probably pick one for my home studio.  The better the converter, the better your stuff will look.. esp if you need to grab footage from an analog source, video game, tv, DVD...

and....  unless your burning DVDs internally, may i suggest a set top box (stand alone DVD burner) that you then can play your timeline right from the CPU, out via firewire and burn right to DVD.  I have a sweet pioneer 2 tray in my editing suite, and its alot faster than encoding your edit, importing the files into a DVD authoring app, and burning then...

Last edited by THEBUNGALOWJUNKIEKID (2006-10-16 06:01:19)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

a. Cost an arm and a leg, (£350 for 9GB - this is a long time ago though) but it was sooooo much faster than anything else - it's just made me love SCSI drives to this day. They are, and will probably always be, the best.

b. In a perfect computer, you'd use SCSI. Can you get ultra 640 drives yet or has the format been discontinued?

a. I remember bring proud of my little 30MB hard drive, and I didn't even know 'CLS' from 'CD\' (until I read the DOS manual).
b. Ultra 640's a thing of the past. We're headed towards SASCSI, I suppose. Old article, but it's been brewing for a bit.

a. Ahhh yes...   I remember the good old days when everything was simple. Back when I could rip the lid off my BBC and start soldering away...   Hours of fun. I didn't have a SCSI drive till I forked out crazy amounts of money for a PIII, that was great though - loved my old voodoo 3000 (was a big jump up from my 2MB Matrox mystique).

b. I know - but SASCSI isn't as quick. 640 ultra is an unpopular idea because you can't have long cables. It's really pushing the limits of how much data you can send down a cable. It's better than SASCSI, but not as practical - I prefer it as a concept, I don't like practical - I like radical, different and fast! I really loved the idea of the voodoo 6000 (which never got released), which was way ahead of it's time.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

b. I know - but SASCSI isn't as quick. 640 ultra is an unpopular idea because you can't have long cables. It's really pushing the limits of how much data you can send down a cable. It's better than SASCSI, but not as practical - I prefer it as a concept, I don't like practical - I like radical, different and fast! I really loved the idea of the voodoo 6000 (which never got released), which was way ahead of it's time.

Would you believe it if I told you that I bypassed the entire line of voodoo cards? My first step past that stage came in a GeForce 2 flavor. Bit of a dry spell.

You missed out. 3DFX FTW!

Except they didn't win. They went broke - all because they were too silly, but that's what I like.
Nvidia bought them up though, so then I moved onto them.