Spec check...

Hey chaps, a film-maker friend of mine is wanting to spend some pennies on a video editing rig, I've come up with the following for you to scrutinize at your leisure:

- AMD Phenom II X4 940 ~ £132.81
- Xigmatek HDT-S1283 ~ £29.89
- Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P ~ £93.15
- 4GB Corsair TwinX PC2-6400 ~ £37.54
- 512MB Sapphire HD 4670 ~ £54.27
- 320GB Samsung HD322HJ ~ £33.27
- 1TB Samsung HD103UJ ~ £64.96
- 650W TX Corsair PSU ~ £72.05
- Antec Three Hundred ~ £45.97

Total ~ £563.91

Thanks as always. :)

Might be worth spending a little extra on AM3/DDR3..
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-SATA-RAID-ATX

swings and roundabouts I suppose.

PSU is overkill. You could run that rig on a decent 300W PSU.

I've got something silimar in power draw running off one of these
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144086

If you do stick to AM2+ then I would get something like a uATX 780G for £60
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150278

and stick it in a P180 mini
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140996

Just my thoughts :)

I would personally go with the changes staffsMike has made to the build if you want to make it more compact. If you want to stay with the 790 chipset the following 790GX based mATX motherboard will also do the job nicely:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...SATA-RAID-uATX

However if you want to stay with a full ATX motherboard it maybe worth going for an AM3 based system.

The following motherboard AM3 motherboard which staffsMike pointed out is very good value for money:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/GIGAB...770T-UD3P-MOBO

It has the 770 chipset with the SB710 southbridge. It has all solid capacitors and an 8+2 VRM for even 140w processors!!

It has had excellent values:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/985/1/

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigaby...rboard-review/

The money saved could go towards an Phenom II X4 955 for around £160:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...he-125W-Retail

You could get 4gb of DDR3 for around £53:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(...d-CAS-9-9-9-24

Also I would go for the following modular PSU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...-year-Warranty

If my calculations are correct the updated spec should cost around the same as your original one.

Also unless you are overclocking the standard Phenom II X4 heatsink should do the job.

http://techreport.com/r.x/phenom-ii-.../stock-hsf.jpg

Don't forget to check the Scan Today Only webpage too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NightshadowUK

Hey chaps, a film-maker friend of mine is wanting to spend some pennies on a video editing rig, I've come up with the following for you to scrutinize at your leisure:

---

Just got the antec 300 delivered today, solid build quality, comes with top and back fans, 3 extra 120mm fan slots free aswell.

I would drop the PSU to the 450W corsair vx, saves you £20
Go for an AM3 board - Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
Saves you another £20
Up the CPU to the AMD Phenom II X4 955 BlackEdition - extra £30.
still saves you £10, which you could use on better ram.

Cheers guys, didn't realise how much DDR3 had dropped in price, or how little power AMD's quad cores required. Not ignoring your eBuyer links Mike but we're sticking to Scan cos it's just up the road. :)

Revised spec:

- AMD Phenom II X4 955 ~ £160.48
- Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P ~ £71.86
- 4GB Corsair TwinX PC3-10666 ~ £53.02
- 512MB Sapphire HD 4670 ~ £54.27
- 320GB Samsung HD322HJ ~ £33.27
- 1TB Samsung HD103UJ ~ £64.96
- 450W HX Corsair PSU ~ £56.87
- Antec Three Hundred ~ £45.97

Total ~ £540.70

EDIT: If Scan don't stock the 770T by the end of the week we'll probably have to go for an alternative:

- Biostar TA790GX A3 ~ £90.26
- Asus M4A78T-E ~ £95.44

I'd be leaning towards the Biostar but has anyone had experience with the Asus board?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NightshadowUK

Cheers guys, didn't realise how much DDR3 had dropped in price, or how little power AMD's quad cores required. Not ignoring your eBuyer links Mike but we're sticking to Scan cos it's just up the road. :)

Revised spec:

- AMD Phenom II X4 955 ~ £160.48
- Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P ~ £71.86
- 4GB Corsair TwinX PC3-10666 ~ £37.54
- 512MB Sapphire HD 4670 ~ £54.27
- 320GB Samsung HD322HJ ~ £33.27
- 1TB Samsung HD103UJ ~ £64.96
- 450W HX Corsair PSU ~ £56.87
- Antec Three Hundred ~ £45.97

Total ~ £540.70

EDIT: If Scan don't stock the 770T by the end of the week we'll probably have to go for an alternative:

- Biostar TA790GX A3 ~ £90.26
- Asus M4A78T-E ~ £90.26

I'd be leaning towards the Biostar but has anyone had experience with the Asus board?

---

Wrong price for the RAM! :P

The Asus motherboard has had some excellent reviews BTW:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mother...us-M4A78T-E/p1

http://www.cpu3d.com/review/7162-1/a...roduction.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...rd-review.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mai...-m4a78t-e.html

However the Biostar 790GX motherboards are well regarded on my forums too.

The Phenom II X4 955 is down to around £149 now:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-0-0-0

Edit!

The price is a special offer price on the webpage.

check out the sapphire 4650 for £41

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-DL-DVI-I-HDTV

fantastic value for money, will perform pretty much identical to a 4670.

Wouldnt the 1 gig card be better as its primarily for video editing??

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-A...ink-DVI-I-HDMI

£57:49

the op stated a 512mb 4670 in the initial spec which was £54 :O blasphemous price.

512mb should well be enough, its really only doing massive renders that u need a huge amount of ram. unless the op wants to dabble in ray-tracing im certain that 512mb is more than enough for video editing.