Upgrading hardware for video editing - advise pls

[bradcl]

I'm upgrading my PC for video editing (plus general use)
My old system - PC Chips M758LMR+, 128mb RAM, 800mhz Celeron, 20gb 7200rpm Barracuda + 40gb 5400rpm Seagate HDs.
I've sold all but the 40gb HD and have bought 512mb RAM.
Considering buying ESC P61SA-II mother board, 850mhz Celeron CPU, Excel A500S VGA card and another 40gb 5400rpm Seagate.
Hardware/software kit as yet undecided, but 1st want to get new PC up and running.
Would appreciate advise:
1/ How does the AMD compare to the Intel Celeron in the 800mhz to 1000mhz range?
2/ Would GeForce2MX400 be very superior to GeForce2MX card?
3/ Would the 5200rpm U series 5 Seagate HDs be suitable?
Thanks for any advice given!

 

[CitrixEngineer]

For my money, the AMD chips run rings around the Celeron - and for the same money you could buy a faster chip.

For heavy-duty video, consider an Athlon or Thunderbird at around 1 - 1.5 Ghz.

I've never heard of the motherboard you mention - again, my choice would be Abit, ASUS, Gigabyte, Soyo or Tyan. If you can afford it, look at the Tyan Thunder K7 - a dual processor board, or the Gigabyte GA-7DXR, which takes PC2100 DDR-SDRAM and has a 266MHz FSB. The Abit KT7A RAID is getting old now, but with a 266MHz FSB, it's still up there with the best.

You need the fastest disk performance you can afford, so investigate SCSI disks - the Seagate Cheetah ST318451LW is a strong contender, at 15,000 RPM, 160MB/sec and 4MB cache there's not much to touch it.

If this is a little expensive, then IBM DeskStars are about the best performers in the IDE market (although I've heard good things about other drives). For a few dollars less than the 18GB Cheetah, you could have 75GB at a theoretical 100MB/sec (in reality around 35).

At the cheaper end, look at the Seagate Barracuda III.

Get as much RAM as you can reasonably afford. Video editing consumes it like it's going out of fashion. Don't even think about getting less than 256Mb. 512Mb would be ideal.

As far as the all-important graphics card is concerned, the Nvidia GeForce 3 64MB will cope with just about anything, thanks to its DDR SDRAM.

The MX400 is essentially a cut-down GTS. The bit that's cut down is the memory bus. Without going into gory details, what this means is that performance at high resolutions is not as fast as the GTS. The reason for the cut-back is the price!

With all the current fuss about GeForce, it's easy to forget that there are other good chipset manufacturers out there. My favourite has always been Matrox - check out the RT2500 as an add-on;

http://www.matrox.com/videoweb/products/enduser/rt.htm.

Hope this helps

 

[bradcl]

CitrixEngineer,
Thank you for your reply and advise.
My reponse has been delayed due to having to patch-up this computer for internet usage... In the meantime:
I have already ordered an Elitegroup (ECS) K7V2A-0 motherboard (specs- VIA KT-133, Socket A, ATA-100, 4x AGP, 5PCI, 3D audio) along with an GeForce2 MX400.
As stated in my initial request for advise, have already 512mb of RAM and a 40gb 5400rpm Seagate hard-drive.
I wish to keep to a moderate budget, so I was hoping that another 40 or 60gb hard-drive @ either 5400rpm or 7200rpm would suffice... having been advised that provided the hard-drive is of an ATA-100 spec, it will be sufficient to run real time video (even being only 5400rpm)... any further comments in this area would be of value.
As you have also recommended the AMD Thunderbird, I'll probably get either an 1000 or 1200mhz Thunderbird processor.
Also I wish to purchase economical video editing software. I'm not after the best money can buy, but a good value set up capable of achieving a good result. I have seen good video editing results on one computer quite inferior to the one that I'm using now!
I looked at the Matron 2000 & 2500, but they have no compatability information on the ECS boards... it seemed to me to suggest that the VIA KT-133 chipset may not be very compatible.
Thanks again.