I need to upgrade for DV editing, but I have a tight budget.

I have Windows XP Professional. Presently using MM2 with Duron750.

I probably need new motherboard, processor and RAM. What do you suggest?

Morgan Knoesen, South Perth, WA

Cut to the chase, that’s the way! No muckin’ about ‘cause it’s the ‘hard facts’ you want. Here they are then!

Memory -- the more the better. Processing power -- as much as we can pack into a tight budget. Hard drive storage space and lots of it. And while we’re at it, we should fit in a display card with dedicated video memory, so we’re not ‘robbing’ from your system for your on-screen display!

You haven’t included many details of what’s in your system at present, so I’ll just assume it’s not good enough!

• Motherboard $149
• Processor $225
• RAM $280
• Hard drives $280
• Display card $90
• Power supply unit $99

Total: $1123


Motherboard.

This is the ‘heart’ of your system, not your processor, so we want a goodie. Your budget demands an Athlon system, and an nForce2 chipset is the best there is. It’ll give us dual channel memory configuration, and make the most of the 'bits' you’ve got plugged into it. A-Bit NF7-S (Rev. 2.0) is a top quality choice, with onboard LAN, USB 2.0, great sound, dual-channel memory configuration, and the all-important IEEE-1394 ‘Firewire’ port beloved by Digital Video enthusiasts. A ‘bonus’ extra is provision for both IDE and SATA hard drives.

A ‘bargain’ at $149.

Processor and RAM:

Athlon XP 2800+ at $225. Prices are still dropping, and you might want to put off the purchase for a short while to see how far they drop. 2 x 512M Kingmax PC3200 DDR modules at $140 each represents fast, branded budget level RAM at an affordable price, and can be fitted for faster, dual-channel operation.

Hard drives :

Dual Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB 120G units will give you heaps of fast storage space for your videos, and ensure your data files are on their own drive for the most effective speed you can get while you’re editing them.

Display:

You’ve no need of gaming potential, so the cheapest sizeable option is fine. GeX Cube Radeon 9200SE 128 M gives you VGA, DVI and TV-out so you can hook it up to whatever display option you want to. At $90 it’s inexpensive too!

That’ll give you a ‘beast’ of a video editing machine, and you’ll want a reasonable power supply unit for it. Decent equipment deserves a stable and reliable unit to power it, and at $99 Antec’s budget level 350 Watt Solution model is a far better choice than a generic one.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve assumed you already have your preferred options for optical drives, as it sounds like you’ve already started with your video editing. If you haven’t, at $215 the Pioneer DVR-106 ‘combo drive’ is an absolute bargain which will meet all your needs. I’m about to put an order in for one myself!



Reducing the Expense:

If your budget can stretch to that amount of money, those components will give you a fine system, that will cater to your needs as you progress beyond the restrictions of Microsoft Movie Maker 2 with your video editing. If it doesn’t, you could ‘trim’ a few corners and still have a very good machine. First off, if you want to try and find lower prices than those from Scorpion Technology that I’ve included, you could search at RazorPrices for what’s on offer elsewhere, but remember to consider the extra costs involved in purchasing components from multiple suppliers.

It wouldn’t be a good move to compromise further with the motherboard and RAM, as I’ve already chosen good, budget priced options, and further compromise will degrade performance. You could replace the processor with a cheaper XP2500+ or XP2600+, and still have the benefit of their 333 MHz front side bus speeds. You could elect to purchase only a single hard drive, and partition it into 2 x 60G partitions.

The most obvious ‘cost-cutting’ move, however, is to put off purchasing a new processor. Your Duron 750 will work fine in the system I’ve suggested, and you can get by at a lower level of performance until you can save a few more dollars. I’ve already seen reports of Athlon XP 2800+ processors selling for $185 at some stores, and you could expect that level of pricing to become common. (I’ve heard ‘rumours’ that AMD are preparing to ‘drop’ the slower models from their product line, and have the 2800+ as their entry-level chip!)

But I hope you don’t have to cut corners on any of it though, because at less than $1200 that’s a damn fine system!

I hope you enjoy it,

Terry O'Shanassy