Geek me out on a computer for processing HD video

[sailah]

So here's the deal. I have a Lenovo laptop with AMD processor outlined below



It has been a nice laptop for what I use it for which is mainly word processing, Excel, surfing internet, and some light duty 3D CAD.

But I now have 2 issues. First is that the hard drive is almost full, its 250g and I back up to a 1T Seagate but I really don't like to have to move stuff off my computer to the back up drive and not have it available.

The second reason is why my hard drive space is maxed which is that I have been taking a lot of HD videos on my helmet cam. Wow are those big files.

Making a short Youtube clip for me and my buddies can take all day, literally. It takes awhile to download the camera. Then I have been using Windows Movie Maker to splice n dice. When I import the videos into WMM, it can takes hours for the program to process the videos, which I assume is a function of my laptop not being up to the job. The final straw is that I need to save the video as a file and upload it to youtube and the saving part takes another hour.

I'm sick of it. I would like to either buy or build a desktop that is turbo. I don't need or want some liquid cooled gaming thing. I simply want to be able to process videos in a fraction of the time. I want a metric shitton of space either through multiple drives or something.

I love to build things, build lots of bikes, it's my nature to build vs buy but I also understand the economics of time vs money. If I can buy a desktop for about what I would pay to build, then no, I will buy. But if you can spec out a complete recipe for a powerhouse that I can build assuming reasonable intelligence, I'm all ears.

I should also admit I'm not very computer savvy. I can follow instructions and do medium basic procedures but I'm not writing code.

Speed-fast on a scale of 1-10 I want at least a 9 depending on price
Price-I'd like to keep just the tower part to under 1000, 750 if possible
Hard Drive-I like redundant but I don't understand the terminology. I don't ever want to lose my stuff, so maybe 2 drives? And my external I have?
Memory-lots

So, help me out with either a recommendation or build recipe, and no I'm not getting a Mac, not cool enough to own one.

[HillbillyNinja]

Originally Posted by sailah

So here's the deal. I have a Lenovo laptop with AMD processor outlined below



It has been a nice laptop for what I use it for which is mainly word processing, Excel, surfing internet, and some light duty 3D CAD.

But I now have 2 issues. First is that the hard drive is almost full, its 250g and I back up to a 1T Seagate but I really don't like to have to move stuff off my computer to the back up drive and not have it available.

The second reason is why my hard drive space is maxed which is that I have been taking a lot of HD videos on my helmet cam. Wow are those big files.

Making a short Youtube clip for me and my buddies can take all day, literally. It takes awhile to download the camera. Then I have been using Windows Movie Maker to splice n dice. When I import the videos into WMM, it can takes hours for the program to process the videos, which I assume is a function of my laptop not being up to the job. The final straw is that I need to save the video as a file and upload it to youtube and the saving part takes another hour.

I'm sick of it. I would like to either buy or build a desktop that is turbo. I don't need or want some liquid cooled gaming thing. I simply want to be able to process videos in a fraction of the time. I want a metric shitton of space either through multiple drives or something.

I love to build things, build lots of bikes, it's my nature to build vs buy but I also understand the economics of time vs money. If I can buy a desktop for about what I would pay to build, then no, I will buy. But if you can spec out a complete recipe for a powerhouse that I can build assuming reasonable intelligence, I'm all ears.

I should also admit I'm not very computer savvy. I can follow instructions and do medium basic procedures but I'm not writing code.

Speed-fast on a scale of 1-10 I want at least a 9 depending on price
Price-I'd like to keep just the tower part to under 1000, 750 if possible
Hard Drive-I like redundant but I don't understand the terminology. I don't ever want to lose my stuff, so maybe 2 drives? And my external I have?
Memory-lots

So, help me out with either a recommendation or build recipe, and no I'm not getting a Mac, not cool enough to own one.

I'd build with a new AMD 8350, Asus Sabertooth motherboard, a 128gb SSD for your software and operating system and I currently run a RAID 5 array for data protection. IT'll be fast, it's great at threaded workloads like photoshop and other image or video encoding software. IT does take a bit more power than the latest Ivy bridge 3770k, but it's also over a hundred dollars cheaper. You can easily spec out a system with a decent graphics card for under a grand.

Here's some quick links to give you an idea.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1099921

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231460

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147163

as many of these as you want for data storage/Raid array.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136533

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129179

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371051

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832416552

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181015

Should be a good start.

I don't do Intel systems as I'm a root for the underdog kinda guy and remember the Intel scandals with OEMS years ago.

I do a lot of video and photos and Inventor work on my system. It's buttery smooth with the SSD and 8 cores.

[rhlrdr]

Here is a machine that I built about a year or so ago for video editing and it works great. I don't know that much about the new AMD processors but I really like my current processor. See the links below for some of the stuff that my machine has

processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E168191037273

I've got mine overclocked to 4.0GHz and it has been stable for nearly a year now, it is only possible with a CPU cooler like the one listed here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065

Power-supply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153114

Cheap case (spend more here if you can)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119227

Memory (probably not the best deal out there right now but it is what i have and it works great)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145332

I have three of these in a RAID5 array and then I have a SSD for my main drive. Works great, I have the drives in the case and no extra software or hardware needed. I use the SSD for my boot drive, for speed and the RAID array for storage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136769

Motherboard that I use it's obviously not the best out there but it works for me. Make sure that your MB supports USB 3.0!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128444

Here is a video card that I used for my brother's gaming PC and he likes it pretty well. I have a cheaper slower one that works fine for video but I would recommend something like this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814500225

And then of course you would need some software and other odds and ends to make the deal but those are the basics and hopefully give you some ideas.

[sailah]

Thanks guys I guess it's not that complicated after all.

I had a talk with an IT buddy and he said i5 quad core running 3 ghz or faster, ssd as a scratch, couple regular 1T drives for storage, 16 g ram and some other stuff I forgot

He did say the new I7 processor would be a waste for me because the processors are so fast these days that it's the other components that slow everything down.

With that said, I checked out the components you guys recommended and had a look around newegg. What about one of the pre packaged kits that includes everything?

Seems like there is a nice discount and many packages available. I'm not doing any gaming so I don't think I need some turbo graphics card. I get lost in the variations in graphics cards etc. can you recommend one of the packages that I can either upgrade memory or add a ssd to?

Thanks

[HillbillyNinja]

Originally Posted by sailah

Thanks guys I guess it's not that complicated after all.

I had a talk with an IT buddy and he said i5 quad core running 3 ghz or faster, ssd as a scratch, couple regular 1T drives for storage, 16 g ram and some other stuff I forgot

He did say the new I7 processor would be a waste for me because the processors are so fast these days that it's the other components that slow everything down.

With that said, I checked out the components you guys recommended and had a look around newegg. What about one of the pre packaged kits that includes everything?

Seems like there is a nice discount and many packages available. I'm not doing any gaming so I don't think I need some turbo graphics card. I get lost in the variations in graphics cards etc. can you recommend one of the packages that I can either upgrade memory or add a ssd to?

Thanks

The i5's are okay, but for the money and the workload you're describing the 8 core AMD's are a better tool for the job for less money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...=Combo.1095774 isn't a bad combo, you'd have to add an SSD and graphics card.

If you really want the i5, this combo isn't bad either.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...=Combo.1097441

needs a SSD and graphics card as well.


Graphics card selection can border on religious for some people. If you're just editing video and playing video, you don't need a badass gaming card. However, some software is going gpgpu compute to apply filters and effects to photos and video, in which case a badass graphics card can speed up your workloads. Depends on what software you plan to use and if you actually care if something takes ten hours or nine to render.

In the 140 buck range, these two cards are pretty good.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150599

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130838

Good luck! Building a computer isn't hard.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Christmas is coming! Check out Dell's outlet store:

http://www.dell.com/outlet

They have returned and refurbished computers for cheap. And during sales it gets crazy like the laptop I'm posting on now which cost 1,600 new and I got it for just over 400.

SSD would be nice but the big thing is you're going to have tons and tons of data that will need to be pushed around so that drive will be key. I'd get some USB 3.0 HD's to go along with whatever you buy since they will be much faster than your current one AND you can get very large drive and then use them for backup after. The price for storage is falling and falling

[MillCreek]

http://www.costco.com/ZT-Desktop%2c-...100011085.html

This just went on a limited-time sale at Costco. ZT has quite the positive reputation for building corporate servers and they are assembled in New Jersey.

[ohgood]

make it an i7 Hackintosh

[Dismount]

Nope not complicated at all really.

If you answer the questions in the asking for build help sticky here, http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=40

You will get some very very good build recomendations, and usually an explanation as to why it's right, as well as what amounts to the best bang per $ possible.

[andy29847]

Being a lower class geek, when I needed a hot computer for a RC Flying Simulation program, I used NewEgg. They list a bunch of basic packages, some with video cards. You can add in what you want for extra. I have bought several computers and other computer stuff from them and been very pleased. I'm thinking you will probably need to start with one of their gamer computers.

www.newegg.com