first time build

[mattbizkit]

Hi. Looking to build a budget computer for hopefully around 500 hundred. I'm not partial to Intel or AMD although amd seems to be cheaper. What I want is something that I can do encoding with and video editing nothing on a professional line just personal stuff. Also streaming to watch recorded material on big screen TV both HD and non HD material. I'm starting from scratch. I will pick out my own monitor keyboard and mouse. Thanks for the help. Also I will more than likely not be gaming on this . Planning on using windows 7

[pam123]

You are a great candidate for this processor : Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX635WFGMBOX

This should handle any video jobs you want to do.

Motherboard : Newegg.com - ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD Motherboard

Since you won't be overclocking 1600 RAM is all you need.
Start with 4 GB and add more later if you need to (64 bit os is your best bet so Win 7. If you have a copy of XP give it an honorable retirement).

GSkill seems to be recovering from its earlier problems and the price is good on newegg : Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

video card : Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100289L Radeon HD 5670 (Redwood) 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity

[12twelve12]

Originally Posted by pam123 GSkill seems to be recovering from its earlier problems...

Really? How do we know this? Thanks.

[rwest]

That's like an excellent price for the ripjaws if it's true.

But here a link for the Adata:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211409

[quartet-man]

Originally Posted by 12twelve12 Really? How do we know this? Thanks.

I'm curious too, but after the loss I got from them before they have already lost me for good. (Unless by some odd way that all the others go south in combination with that one being good for several years or a no risk trial (or free.).

[Nikon]

a-data,corsair, crucial, and kingston are great brands for ram.

1600 ram is overkill, and only needed if you are indeed overclocking.

1333 is the way to go.

considering newegg's excellent return policy, i see no reason to continue our boycott of g.skill ram.

[12twelve12]

I've only bought Kingston, Mushkin & Crucial in the past with fantastic results. I never did jump on the Corsair or G.Skill bandwagon.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Corsair is run by, well, corsairs.

[rwest]

Using the same cpu PR suggested:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX635WFGMBOX

For a budget to do encoding with and streaming video, I would use this MB, it has onboard video:
Newegg.com - ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

This is not a budget board, but for encoding its an excellent board to build on and start with. And by using onboard video we free up funds for other components. Like this real nice hdd at low cost:

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

For encoding video you're gonna want a fast drive. You can add more drives later when you need more space. The hdd listed takes advantage of the 6gb/s on the MB.

Ram to match:
Newegg.com - A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model AD3U1333B2G9-DRH

An inexpensive quality drive:
Newegg.com - ASUS Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - CD / DVD Burners

and a case to put it all in:
Newegg.com - Antec Three Hundred + BP430 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430W Power Supply


comes to 527.34 shipping included. NO operating system

You can always add a video card if you need one, but the onboard should handle your needs well enough.

BTW I love my Corsair XMS2

[David M]

For many boards, 1600 is an overclock. I would buy what is known to work and not worry about it.

[mattbizkit]

Originally Posted by Nikon a-data,corsair, crucial, and kingston are great brands for ram. 1600 ram is overkill, and only needed if you are indeed overclocking. 1333 is the way to go. considering newegg's excellent return policy, i see no reason to continue our boycott of g.skill ram.

Will overclocking speed up my encoding time or is it basically for gaming only

[Nuclear Krusader]

Overclocking will make your machine unstable and age the CPU faster. If you want a faster machine, then buy a faster processor. OCing is for people who want to experiment and care not much about data loss.

[pam123]

GSkill maintains its own forum that their techs patrol : GSKILL TECH FORUM - Powered by vBulletin

Here's a current thread about what's been happening with gskill memory this year from their forum : DDR3 1333? I'm confused. - GSKILL TECH FORUM

1333 ram you can certainly use but the price for the 1600 was so good I hated to pass it by but mattbizkit is right about it being overkill.

[David M]

In reality, the difference between 1600 and 1333 RAM is not noticeable. You would have to run a benchmark to see the slight numerical difference in your systems overall speed...perhaps 2% or something around that.

For some boards, 1600 RAM is NOT an overclock. Whats getting confusing here is a DIMM's speed is the speed that it is warranted to work. There is no definition of overclocked or not according to speed. In other words, you cannot say that if it is 1600 RAM then yeah, that's RAM that must be overclocked. The board manufacturer makes the distinction of whether or not it is going to make a certain speed of RAM native to the board or RAM that must be overclocked by requiring that it to be manually changed in the BIOS.

The 1333 or 1600 speed is that dividing line between where it does not need to be overclocked to where most boards require an overclock to obtain the 1600 speed, but not all boards.

[rwest]

Originally Posted by mattbizkit Will overclocking speed up my encoding time or is it basically for gaming only

Not enough to notice a huge difference. A good overclock is not neccessarily unstable, but it takes alot of know how and patience to get a a 'good' overclock. You do put your components at risk, because what you're doing is finding the extreme value at whch the components fail, and then setting these values slightly less. Or maybe changing voltages to push beyond the initial design limits. Overclocking does shorten the life of components, but not enough to warrant not doing it. By the time this effect takes place, technology has moved way beyond the design of what you're are working with anyway. That is unless 'you' kill it.

I've been experimenting with overclocking for about a year, and haven't killed anything yet. But everytime my pc shuts off I get scared, even though I know its going to eventually-because I'm testing diferent configurations.

Getting a processor with the most cache is going to help your encoding times the most. It's been proven that a tripple core processor has the most benefit when encoding, but that is mostly due to current sotware limitations. For the most part a quad core is more cost effective than a tripple core. So get a Quad with the most cache you can afford. The Calisto core is a dual core with a 6mb of cache great for processing on a budget, but the Athlon at 4 cores may perform better. If you want to spend the bucks and future proof for encoding, I would suggest one of the six core processors.

[12twelve12]

Originally Posted by pam123 GSkill maintains its own forum that their techs patrol : GSKILL TECH FORUM - Powered by vBulletin Here's a current thread about what's been happening with gskill memory this year from their forum : DDR3 1333? I'm confused. - GSKILL TECH FORUM 1333 ram you can certainly use but the price for the 1600 was so good I hated to pass it by but mattbizkit is right about it being overkill.

Thank you...will check it out

[mattbizkit]

Ok I think I will go with this processor:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX

and for the ram the GSkill looks nice:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

still not sure on the motherboard, I would like to make sure it is future proofed.

video card I'm still not sure with, just wondering If i'm not going to be gaming on it what kind or specs am i looking for in a video card. I deffiantly want to watch blu-ray and stream with it. if a low end one will work I'm ok with that because some of those cards get pricey.

still undecided on the case. what kind of power supply am i going to need if the most taxing work I will be doing is a few hours of encoding at a time.

thanks for the knowledge, you all have been quite helpful so far.

[rwest]

Here's a conparison between the two boards:
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more!

With the one PR suggested you still get the 6gb/s hdd capability and usb 3.0, but you will have to get a vid card right away. The one PR suggested is fine for your puroposes.

The onboard of 890GX board will handle the load also, and you get a later chipset, on board LAN, E-SATA, and few extra features for $50 bucks more.

It will depend on how much video processing you expect to do, and any other type of computing you may want to do . A seperate card is always better, but todays onboard is quite capable. If you are thinking about playing a little more intense games, then the 5770 cards have been suggested as the most 'bang for buck' currently. But then we're starting to pass the $500.00 dollar mark for a quality unit.

You can always upgrade form the 5670 card PR suggested if you decide you need more juice.

The total for PR's build with the drives and case from my post comes to:
$491.55 shipping included again w/No- OS

Cost is a little less but with less features on the board.
BTW Khalil hasn't thrown in his .03cents yet.

[quartet-man]

Pam, that thread didn't really touch upon the issues they had or why.

The fact is, after their causing my work computer to take over two extra hours to be built (with them billing one extra) and THEN even after the bios was updated which was rumored to solve the problem for others, having it reboot and cause problems causing me to lose several hours of work, and then having to take it back to the shop for a fresh OS install (on my day off nonetheless), then it still messing up and having to return the memory, wait to get other memory, I don't foresee ever using their products again. I am out many hours of labor lost at work, inconvenience (picking it up on a day off and getting the memory packaging on the day off for return), the extra labor cost (which was a pretty big percentage of the memory cost thus nearly doubling it), and the sheer aggravation. At this point, their paying the extra labor cost wouldn't make all this right, but it would be a nice step. (Not that I even expect them to.) So, they have lost me and I intend on warning people on their memory and already have been. Even if they supposedly have it solved, I won't use them and still might tell people, but would tell them they might have it together now if I see evidence of such a thing.

[rwest]

Originally Posted by quartet-man that thread didn't really touch upon the issues they had or why.

i saw that too. It didn't even mention a recovery or an argument against the issues.

[pam123]

Let me double check that, it's not what I thought I'd linked to.

[pam123]

My error.

This is one of the links I keep in a folder of hardware updates and it's wrong.

I will be posting the correct one as soon as I find it again.


edit : There was a thread asking specifically about the ram failures (The correct one) but I am unable to find it again.