I am putting together a new video editing computer for some things that are needed. I don’t really have a set budget, but it looks like I’m keeping it under the $2,000 mark. I was looking for something that handles Adobe CS3 (Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop) mainly. My list currently comes to $1,618.86 at NewEgg (though I will be shopping around for the best prices) Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• Antec P182 case for the superior cooling and soundproofing
• OCZ GameXStream 700W Power Supply
• ASUS P5N-E ATX Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (Quad core, *drool*)
• 2x Patriot Extreme 4GB (2×2GB) DDR2 800 (Was considering DDR3, but 8GB DDR2 vs 4GB DDR3 Costs less and I think will be better for what I need)
• MSI GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128 bit video card (Really just for the display, I don’t think a high end video card is required for video editing but I could be wrong)
• Creative Soundblaster Audigy SE 7.1
• Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 150GB (For the OS drive)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 500GB hard drive (For storage)
• LITE-ON 20x DVD burner
• Microsoft keyboard and mouse (best keyboard and mouse in my opinion)
• Logitech speakers (just because)
• XP Pro 64 bit (I was considering Vista Ultimate for a moment. Yeah, right)
• CyberPower 1500VA 900W UPS (Don’t want to lose anything with our unreliable power)
• Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium: $1700 (So expensive, but so worth it)

So, would anybody change this? I am looking mainly for something to do videos ranging from 30 seconds to 15 minutes. Possibly a lot of effect work, maybe not. I don’t think I will need a dedicated scratch drive with the 8GB of RAM and staying with XP.

It will be mainly for the Adobe Suite but may occasionally have some games played on it. I think the video card will be fine but I might upgrade.

I may also add an additional 500GB drive. I really don’t like running in RAID 0 because of the possibility of one drive failing and all data on both drives being lost. Everything will also be backed up to DVD as soon as I capture the footage from Mini DV tape.

I will not be doing any overclocking on this. I don’t want to risk anything and I don’t want to mess with cooling. That’s why I’m getting a quad core and 4-8GB of RAM. Shaving off 1 minute of rendering time from a 30 minute render doesn’t really interest me.
If you’ve got some suggestions let me know!

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