My mother's computer.

[Shumway]

Since your mom is going to be doing photo editing and all the movie stuff it would probably be way better to go with intel,it would work alot better than amd since amd is only good for gaming.

i would go with this cpu.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-176&depa=1

and this board.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-492&depa=0

 

[jmjkwag]

I'm going to go ahead and agree with the previous posts. You've got a heckuvalot of power in the proposed machine. Really I'd go with the following specs, they'll suit her fine. My father-in-law runs a machine with 2/3 these specs using a high end camera and Pinacle pro edition for video editing. Certainly photo editing isn't going to take up more power than rendering
Processor - 3.0 GHz
Motherboard/case/fans/case extras - whatever you want
Ram - 1 Gig PC-3200
Read/Write DVD and CD - writable DVD drive is essential for video creation
Video Card - spend max $250, GeForce FX5700 256M would be perfect though (and I believe it's the same card my father-in-law just upgraded to on my recommendation)
Sound Card - You may want to note whether her video editing program works well with onboard sound, there are some issues with many video editing programs due to onboard sound

Hope that helps

 

[oldschool]

Even if the P4 would be better (and I doubt it is).... If i was going to sell my soul to satan I would rather do it right and buy her a mac.

 

[oldschool]

I'll think about adding a SBA2. But I was under the idea that the sound on this board was really good.

She was planing on getting the Pinacle pro edition software.

 

[FuriousYellow]

Going the Intel route would not be wise as the new athlon 64s beat the intels even in the multimedia department, plus Intels cost like twice as much and run very hot. AMD is the way to go. Also your 939 board is very future proof, so in a year or two you will be able to pop in a dual core CPU when they come out and get wicked performance. I think that you will be better off running 2 gigs of ram in dual channel mode over 3 gigs single, because dual channel is faster plus I can almost say for sure you will not use all 3 gigs of ram.

For a s939 board, the MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM would be a very good choice for price / performance

 

[oldschool]

Good pick on the board. I was going to pick this board. I do belieave that they are the same one

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-468&depa=0

This board has four ram slots.
Does that mean I cold do 4 sticks doing two "dual channel modes".

So like 4 sticks of 512 or 4 sticks of 1GB?

Also I'll ask again and see if anyone knows. Is dual channel mode something that has to be turn on in bois? Or does it auto run when you have the ram set up right?

 

[FuriousYellow]

When you have 4 sticks of ram in this mobo, 2 sticks will run on one channel and the other 2 on the other channel. And for the other question, I believe dual channel enables itself automatically, as I have never seen any BIOS options for it before. You just have to make sure all sticks are identical, even if it means buying 2 sets of dual channel optimized ram of the same brand / type. If I am wrong, someone please correct me. Yes the mobo in the link you just gave is the same one as I recommended

 

[m3incorp]

Who is putting everything together?

 

[4W4K3]

Who is putting everything together?

i believe oldschool is, as his mother asked him to build her the computer.

 

[oldschool]

I am. It will be more then fun.