Pre-Built, Turn Key or Home Grown?
We've all been tempted to just take out a second mortgage and buy a Turn-Key Solution to run our Non-Linear Edit Software. The truth is, you don't need to. Take a look at some of the Complete workstations that are available for purchase and save yourself some money for a better Edit Desk.
For those who are willing to roll up their sleeves and assemble a workstation
from scratch, keep the following things in mind:
Motherboards and CPUs - Stick with the Intel Chipset.
While Athlons certainly provide a ton of performance for their value, certain
NLE's specifically Avid's have been know to have issues running on Athlon
Chipsets and a CPU's. The Intel 845, 865 and 875 single processor Chipsets
are the current benchmark of performance. For Dual Xenon Processors, the
Intel I7505 is the defacto-standard.
RAM - Do yourself a Favor. Actually, Do yourself 2 favors.
Get as much RAM as you can afford and stick with trusted Name Brands like
Corsair, Kingston and Micron. 512MB is really the minimum that you should
consider for any kind of serious performance. And for the Double Data Rate
(DDR) Motherboards (533 MHz and 800 MHz front side busses) always buy your RAM
in matched Pairs.
Hard Drives - If you're editing DV video, ATA 100 drives are FINE.
Don't be lured into thinking that you need to spend thousands of dollars on
ULTRA 320 SCSI RAID arrays. For DV video, that's total overkill.
Just about any ATA 100 drive on the market will easily stream 1 or 2 DV layers.
If you want snappier performance, try a SATA RAID. SATA drives are only a
little bit more expensive than ATA drives, their interface cables are skinny and
easy to work with, and some say that they rival throughput of SCSI ULTRA 160.
Video Cards - Modern Video cards posses amazing GPU performance.
You can hardly go wrong with either a NVIDIA 5000 series or an ATI 9000 series.
Again, check your NLE's requirements, as some have specific needs. For
Example, Avid Xpress Pro will only accelerate 3D OGL with NVIDA cards. A quick
Tip - Don't buy the latest greatest, get the card that the latest greatest is
replacing. Unless your a hardcore gamer, you'll never know the difference.
Remember, the Avid Symphony? In 2001 the $150,000 system came with a
Matrox 550...
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If
your Avid Xpress Pro Manual looks like a dog eared, sticky noted, coffee-stained
mess, be sure to check out our review of the excellent new Training DVD's by
Like A Pro.
