School/Multi-Media PC

[PC_Caveman]

So my friends, friend wants to spend about 3 grand on a new PC and wants it for School and running the high end video editing programs. He stressed 7 things to me,
Extreme virus and malware protection
A lot of Memory, i am thinking running a raid
Very fast Program load times
Very nice monitor
wireless mouse and keyboard
Very good headphone
so-so speakers

Off the top of my head i was thinking quad core, Not sure how much ram he would want but is vista fixed alot of their driver issues? maybe two 9600's in SLI,
Running a Raid with good HDD's, maybe a CM stacker 830 for maximum cooling, and a good sound blaster card? Help me fill in my gaps cuz last time i bought stuff e6600 was the best.

 

[PC_Caveman]

After looking into it more, I'm sure he would want to stay XP for program compadability, so 4g ram is max, Two 9600 are about same price if not cheaper than one 8800gtx, What's the best SLI mobo and what would be the best processor for what he wants, dual or quad? And it still seems the WD raptors are very good for raiding to maximize load times.

 

[Vaanish]

4GB Crucial Ballistix
MSI P35 Neo2-FR
Q6600
2x Samsung Spinpoint 750GB in raid 0
Antec P182

If he wants so-so speakers, then get something like Logitech X-540 and stick with onboard sound.

 

[PC_Caveman]

What about an awesome sound card. is sound blaster still the best? Also for video editing native res and contrast ratios are most important features to look for in a monitor correct?

 

[PC_Caveman]

Would most multi media programs utilize the quad core technology?

 

[RicoDirenzo]

Would most multi media programs utilize the quad core technology?

I have a Home Recording Studio and Protools, Adobe Audition and Waves etc. are CPU demanding. Since I swtiched to a Quad my audio wave file editing (some are 500mbs) run as smooth as silk!

 

[Drizzt]

If he wants vista and xp for program compatibility reasons, make sure you tell him he can always dual boot if he needs to, which from what i hear is not hard.

And q6600's are nice if your going the quadcore root, I dont think my programs even utilize the technology as well as they should but they definatly run smoother then they did before with my dual and single core rigs.

2 9600GT's would be sweet, if he even needs that much. But from the benchmarks i've seen and the prices, thats $300 bucks for the performance a $600 8800 Ultra couldn't dish out. So if you want to send him that root go ahead and do so.

 

[Invisible]

2x Samsung Spinpoint 750GB in raid 0
.

you and your samsungs
get these
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA-300 Hard Drive - OEM
IN RAID 0

 

[Brinson]

Video editting programs don't need a high-end GPU. Only if you're doign 3D rendering with lightwave, Maya, ect.

And...normal video takes up...what...like 400mb/minute?

HD is consideribly higher than that. If he's doing full length films like 2 hours, you're probably looking at 4-5 hours of uneditted video being put into the PC, that's 120 gigs for one project. If he intends to keep project files, I'd definitely reccomend a good array of HDs.

If you do a raid on an editting machine, use a hardware based raid card. Not a softraid, and not an onboard raid that's marketted as a hardware based raid but secretly just uses your CPU to do the calculations.

I'd say to spend less on the Video card, more on hard drives.

Maybe 5 750gb HDs in a Raid 5. 3tbs of useable space for like $750.

To get that much space with 1tb HDs in a raid 0 like has been suggested you'd need 6 of them.

Which would cost $1500.

Or you could raid5 4 of them for $1000 and also get 3tb. Or go to 5 for $1250 and get 4tb.

 

[PC_Caveman]

So the main thing to have for an editing machine is HD, I've only ever built Gaming rig's for people so i appreciate all this advise. Would 4g or ram be fine seeing as i don't know many programs that would utilize that much anyways.