And you don't have to get all that glue off your fingers afterwards. ;-)

Quick question...where do you guys buy your parts? If I start looking at retail stores, it almost always ends up being more expensive for individual parts.
I realize that I have total control of what exactly goes into the PC, but is that what really ends up being the advantage?
I really don't want onboard stuff. I'd rather have a better quality sound card like the M-Audio Revolution, a separate videocard, a Sony DVD burner, etc.
What I'm getting at is that if you build it yourself, the advantage is better quality components for a little more $$$ than a generic PC with lower end components, no?
Here in Canada, I can get a generic P4 PC (no monitor,no keyboard, no mouse) for about 800$.
If I just start with the Revo audio card at 150$ and a mid-quality video card at 150$ and add the Sony DVD burner at 400$, I'm already at 700$. And that doesn't include the CPU, motherboard, RAM, fans, case, etc.
Does using lower end components still give you a good performing PC?
I've seen ALOT of posts stating that if I build my own it'll be cheaper. Please give me tips on how I can do this and still have a reliable machine.

Basically, my post comes down to this...

Could you tell me how to build a reliable PC inexpensively? Where can I cut corners, and where shouldn't I?

M

PS: I just re-read my post and realized it wasn't just a quick question afterall...sorry. ;)

Use mailorder suppliers, they are almost always below retail pricing and usually have the more exotic parts you rarely find at retail stores.

First what you get via mailorder is the SAME or BETTER than what you find in a prebuild box. Companies like Dell, Gateway, buy OEM parts mostly. So building you own, you almost always get the latest and best retail versions.

Usual cautions apply when ordering via Intetnet. Big mailorder companies like CDW or PCConnection have been around a long time, but their prices aren't the best.

One quick way to find some good mailorder dealers is first visit a known manufacturer of something like graphic cards that you know have a wide distribution channel, then you'll see a large list of dealers.

Like this:

http://www.ati.com/buy/mailorder.html

For more custom parts like heatsink fans or fancy cases just do a regular web search or use a special search engine like pricewatch or one of many others. I've build countless systems this way for many years. Never got burned yet. Almost once. Besides is fun to have the UPS or FedX guy drop stuff off. My drivers don't even bother asking me to sign for stuff anymore, they just leave it and run. ;-)

Basically...With the parts you have in you computer now, you can rebuild it with a new CPU, mainboard, and case for as little as $300 (USD).

First decide what CPU you want in it, AMD, P4??

Then find a mainboard to go with it. You'll want one that has plenty of expansion slots for your modem, firwire card, USB2 card, network card, etc. Make sure it supports the memory type, and amount of memory you want to use.

Next, you need to find a cool case with plenty of room to expand your system later. Get a good power supply, and plenty of fans in it.

You can now gut your old computer, and install the HDDs, video card, memory, etc...

I'm not saying this is the only way to do it, or the best way, but it is a start... and it will be easier to upgrade your computer later if you have plenty of room in your case and your mainboard.

If you build your system from scratch, it probably will be more expensive than, say, going to Dell and buying whatever they have on special that day.

(just my $.02)

A good place to learn about building/upgrading a system are the forums here: http://motherboards.org/forums/

Thanks for your replies, but what I was really wondering is if anyone had the P4 Hyper Threading chip and how it works with Vegas 4 + DVD?

I was also wondering if anyone has the new AMD 64 Bit chip running this program?

I was basically trying to figure out which chip I wanted to go with.

Here's a link to a Vegas press release stating that Vegas has been optimized for Hyperthreading. Hyperthreading makes it look like there is 2 CPUs available to the applicatiion. No indication of performacne increase, but it's usually tangible.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/news/ShowRelease.asp?ReleaseID=514&CatID=

IMO a system with a Intel 865 chipset (800MHz FSB) delivers great price/performance. The best deal on a CPU is usually 2 speed bumps below the fastest offer at any given time. Check out this review on the chipset and CPU

http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030521/index.html

If you don't want to build your own system an alternative is to get a custom-built "white box" (unbranded) system from your local computer retailer.

64 bit computing for the desktop is a waste until the apps are ported.

regards,
Tim

I agree, I'm very happy with my Intel P4 and Vegas seems to use it well. To add a little on the 'speed bump' thing, all CPU chips come off the asembly line alike within a series. That just means if you get a P4c there is really no such thing as a P4c that's a P4c 2.6 Ghz or a P4c that's a 2.8 or a 3.0. Like sorting eggs and grading by size and charging a premium for larger eggs, CPU's that can run at a higher clock frequency get priced accordingly higher. So like eggs, if you want the "best" in the case of eggs meaning the largest or in CPU chips meaning the faster of the litter you pay a premium. Unlike eggs, you can bump up the speed on a CPU that's rated slower.

You can save typically anywhere from maybe $50 to upwards of $200 or more if you buy a chip that's rated a couple "bumps" or notches slower. You can easily make up the different via overclocking which today isn't something that's limited to hackers. Many MB's come with BIOS that allows you change at least the FSB and thus increase the clock speed very easily.

Not long ago I also inquired on this forum about building my own PC. Lots of people replied with good suggestions. Check out:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=211470

Or search on my user name davidpj and look for the appropriate topic.

I had to make the same disision about 6 months ago. I got a custom dell, and got tons fo great stuff built into it. 2.4 GHz, 512MB Ram, 120 GB Harddrive, cd burner..... It only cost $1,210. I used the phone hotline to order it, and the guy gave me a free 19inch flat screen monitor, and a a really nice BELKIN surge protector. If you do get a dell, call them instead of buying online, becuase they'll throw in free things. It works great with Vegas 3.0 and 4.0. Dell also has great support. If you don't have a budget you should look on tiger direct.com....a lot of really nice custom computers, but they cost a bit more.....but you get more for more money. Hope this helps!
-Videomonster

I just got a custom Dell for home- works great, $750 with XP, and Office, sans monitors and DVD burner (which I already have). Most of our developers also use Dells in various flavors.

Vaios are pricier, but nice, and they work really well with our apps. I demo'd with those at Weva, both the laptops and desktops. They look cool too.

Custom building is worth looking into if you know what you are doing. I personally don't like laying on my back with a headlanp monkeying with cables and jumpers for hours on end (still, I do it all the time), but if you have time on your hands and do the research you can put together a killer home-rigged system pretty cheap.

Use NEWEGG.COM I have built myself 3 computers and built at least 10 others for friends and clients. The address is www.newegg.com. They generally are as cheap as you can buy on the net and have the best return policy they have cross shipped me stuff before like a dead motherboard no question asked. Plus you can add additonal warranty's to OEM cpu's.

I built a P4 3 Ghz HT system with a gig of Corsair DDR 400 ram Asus 875P mother board w/ sata support 60 Gig HD (I allready had a 200 Gig) Radeon 9700 non Pro floppy, case CPU Fan allmost the entire system for $1100.00. This was like 3 months ago so I know this would be cheaper now as this was not a 800Mhz FSB CPU. You can also get XP Pro OEM FOR $145.00
Very good place to start shopping at I have never ever had a problem with them not shipping me something on time this place is always ranked 1-5 in customer satisfaction from Epinions.com check out the reviews of customers here.

http://www.epinions.com/Newegg_com_Online_Stores_Services/display_~reviews

I don't work for them or anything like that I just like to recommend great places to buy stuff when I have always had great experiances with them.

I did quite a bit of research in June for DARA who posted a similar question. Dara never acknowledged the posts, but you may appreciate it. You will have to check current prices. See my three posts here:

http://www.mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=192476&Page=0

Hope This Helps,

John

I too went with a Dell a few months ago, an 8250 2.5Ghz with 512Mb Rambus ram. Got an ATI 9700TX graphics card which runs dual 19" M992 crt monitors. Has crashed maybe once in 5 months. I'd get the 8300 if I was buying now. I ran DSE's Vegas rendering benchmark and this is one of the fastest systems around.

I think the days of buying the parts and building your own PC are over. Same with using a local shop to custom-build a system. You might not save any money, and end up with a less reliable system with no guarantee that all the parts will work with each other. The Dells come with XP and Works Suite or similar software that you might need to buy if you build your own machine. I was going to build my own system (i've built several) but when I added up everything, the Dell cost about the same. They sell thousands of these PCs every day and that means they've worked out the integration bugs.

You can still add a few options to a Dell yourself - I just added a 160 GB HD to the Dell's standard 120 GB drive - both drives have 8 MB cache. It's a great system for Vegas, games, music, a real work-horse. The Dells usually ship with half the memory slots full so you can upgrade that yourself later if needed. So far 512 Mb is fine.

Of course if you like to get your hands on all the components and assemble the system yourself, that's a good experience, and you will get exactly the system you want.

I recently purchased a new computer. I would personally never buy from Dell, Gateway, etc. The prices are WAY too high, and they can't offer you the best components. When I bought my computer, there were things that were important to me such as Corsair memory, an ABIT IC7-G Max 3 motherboard, etc. I also didn't want one of those cheesy plastic cases that the mass assembly companies use. Instead, I wanted a Cooler Master Wavemaster case.

The only way to get exactly what you want is to either build it yourself (if you have the time) or let someone build it for you. I chose the latter and ordered from Oxford PC. (www.oxfordpc.com). I highly recommend them. They will order any component you choose and build it to your specifications.

Incidentally, Dell et al could NEVER build a machine that will perform like the one I am now using. They just don't have the high-quality parts. To top it all off, I spent less money than I would have spent on a loaded Dell.

You do the math.

Jim

Hey--Newegg.com--as someone has already suggested is the best way to go---dont expect any advice or handholding--but their prices rock and their service is impecable---I built my first PC about a month ago and was scared $$itless. It's really not that bad an you can save some major bucks.

I had a 3Ghz P4 built with good parts, 2 G RAM, hyperthreading. Rendered a 1 hr video in 1 hr 5 minutes. About 5 times faster than my 512 MB 2.4 Ghz Dell. cost 1900 without monitors. looks like a 64 MB video card that supports dual monitors is all you need.
any other thoughts

Avideo,

Why not post the specs? Maybe someone here would like to build one.

Thanks,

John

I'm late into this thread, but a couple of thoughts anyway:

(1) I'm an AMD guy, since I enjoy rooting for the underdog, the processors are inexpensive, and without AMD Intel would be charging $1k for a P4 rather than $400. Nonetheless, I've read that, if rendering speed is what you're craving, right now the P4 is the hot ticket. My system is plenty fast as it is, so I don't care.

Incidentally, when it comes to rendering it appears that the choice in encoders makes a much bigger difference than the choice of CPU. I don't use the Vegas Mainconcept MPEG2 encoder, I use CinemaCraft instead. My renders run at .72 of real-time, and guys with faster CPUs run at 1.5.

(2) If you like to tinker, build your own--it's fun! PCs these days are simply a collection of standard-issue items like disk drives, motherboards, and video cards. You won't need a soldering iron--honest. You probably won't even have to flip any DIP switches.

(3) Why would you need a $150 video card and an audio card? An adequate video card is $50, and audio is usually built-in to the motherboard.

(4) I would try to find a "parts warehouse" to buy from. Here in Oregon we have Fry's, which offers PC cases with built-in power supplies for about $50, and a motherboard/fast AMD CPU set for about $100. The nice thing about a brick-and-mortar supplier is that you can easily return anything that gives you the slightest problem.

Anyway, I've both bought and built PCs, and both methods are fine. I currently use a built PC. I do not hesitate to swap out components as technology advances, thus eliminating the need to buy a new PC every few years. I enjoy the feeling that I'm in control*, not Dell. I guess it's a guy thing.



*(Well, okay, we all know that I'm not really "in control." Bill Gates is.)

zstevek,

I run Vegas 4 on a 3.06 Hyperthread machine.

The real beauty of going with the fastest available processor and hyperthreading is not so much in the extra speed, but in the ability to multi-task several jobs at once.

It's not uncommon to be editing a project, running Photoshop, rendering a project to mpeg2, and capturing my next next project all at the same time. Granted, the processes slow down somewhat, but the decrease in speed is negligible when you have lots of work to do.

One caveat to be on the lookout for. Occassionally, DVD burners shipped with mail order purchases are not compatible with Vegas. Check the DVD Burner Compatibility list to be sure. I suggest you purchase your burner separately and always get the best (Sony, Panasonic, etc.).

If you plan to do a lot of work, get the fastest technology you can afford. It will pay for itself in the long run. If you work on single projects and time is not a big issue, a more standard machine will perform beautifully.

I hope my meager experience helps.

more meager info.
I had the following unit built. It almost renders in real time. Very pleased.
motherboard Asus P4C800-E delux . Onboard Serial ATA, Firewire, USB2.0 and Gigabit LAN. It has dual channel RAM with four 512 MB DDR400 memory chips with a sony DVD burner that handles all formats. Intel P4 3.0 GHz. Serial ATA is in two parts, integrated into the chipset controller, it has both a standard and Promise RAID controller. Disk drives 160GHz serial ATA. seagate drives. Videoboard ATI Radeon 7500 dual VGA with 64 MB on the card. power supply is a 400 Watt powermax and a Lian Li case. video monitors are cheapies. no soundcard.
hope this helps

Avideo,
Sounds like a nice system. How do you like the Radeon 7500? Any problems with the drivers?

John