Want to upgrade my PC on the cheap, is this OK?

[Norris Combs]

I've had intermittent problems with Vegas 8 Pro shutting down on me while importing AVCHD, shutting down during rendering, and some other inexplicable issues. Would the following barebone system provide enough oomph?


ECS A880LM-M1 AMD Six Core Barebones Kit
- ECS A880LM-M1 Motherboard,
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE CPU,
Corsair 4GB DDR3 RAM,
Seagate 1TB HDD,
LG 24x DVDRW,
Thermaltake V2 Mid-Tower Case,
450-Watt PSU


CompUSA.com | A880LM-M1 Bundle | ECS A880LM-M1 AMD Six Core Barebones Kit

Thanks,

[Jeff Harper]

Norris, this is too cheap, IMO and you'll be throwing money away.

You have a Micro Center store in Tustin. I suggest you go there and look around for a deal on a Power Spec PC, and you really want 6GB of ram.

You can spend the money you save on shipping on the ram. If you don't like it you can take it back yourself, you won't have to ship it.

Go in the store and look for refurbished or a sale. The online ads don't always show everything availalble.

I build my own, don't get me wrong, but the lower end you go the more sense it makes to buy pre-built, IMO. You can't buy the parts as cheaply as the companies can.

Good luck with whatever you decide, but don't rush and buy the one you posted just because it is "one day only". It's all cheap, the motherboard, the case, I would forget it. What make it the worst is the Seagate hard drive, they are SO unreliable and disreptuable among system builders.

[Norris Combs]

Thank you Jeff,

I also built my last 2 systems, but that was 4 years ago. I haven't kept up with the latest improvement on the hardware, so I'm pretty much clueless as to which parts to get. I will go to Micro Center to look around.

[Jeff Harper]

Norris, are your present case and power supply and DVD ROM still good?

I'm sure you've considered just replacing the motherboard, processor and ram, just checking.

You will find at Microcenter sometimes a bin with DVD roms for under $20 in case you haven't been there or if you didn't notice.

If you can replace only your motherboard and processor and ram, you would still need to spend around $400, maybe more, maybe less, but you would get a relatively excellent system.

If you could pick up an Intel i7 920 somehow and motherboard, you would be blown away, I'm sure. The 920 is out of production, but it can still be found some places, and even used on on Craisglist, though I admit I would be scared to buy it used.

Personally I would set my sights on that processor, it would be a great goal. You would start with finding the processor, then go find your motherboard for it, then your ram.

[Norris Combs]

Jeff,

I have spare DVD drive, BD drive, hard drives sitting around. You said the i7 920 is out of production, would it be better for me to buy something that's easier to find? What's a comparable CPU to the 920 that's readily available?

Thanks,

[Jeff Harper]

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950

[Jeff Harper]

Norris, look at the above and this processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115224 This one is faster for $10 more.

But if you want to overclock, one may be much better than the other, so look carefully at that.

You will need new ram, look at the GSkill brand to save money but still get high quality. You want DDR3 1066 ram.

Only other thing you need to choose is a motherboard!

[Randall Leong]

For Vegas 8 Pro, the biggest concern with that build is the power supply: That generic 450W power supply is of such extremely poor quality that it might as well have been only a 10-watt PSU.

In addition, for these prosumer editing programs that hexa-core AMD X6 1090T is outperformed by a mere quad-core Intel i5-2400 CPU.

Third, the use of onboard (integrated) graphics is a no-no with these editing programs. The editing programs work far better with most discrete graphics GPUs than with onboard graphics or with some low-end discrete GPUs.

[Clark Cooper]

No mention of how much you want to spend.

I'm about to upgrade to *almost* exactly the same specs as the Video Guys Budget DIY8. See the chart at the bottom of that page for the exact build with estimated prices. I'm building my own for around $1,200 with 24GB RAM.

Granted I no longer use Vegas, I'm using Premiere Pro CS5 and much of the hardware I'm after is specifically for use with the Mercury Engine, but aside from your graphics card requirements which may differ, that system is a very smart build.

[Richard Green]

Hi Norris,
I've just built a new pc especially to run vegas and to edit AVCHD files.
My new computer is a pleasure to use and it will also go faster if I need it to.
Here's the spec:-
StarTech.com ATX2POWER530 - 530 WATT ATX12V 2.3 80 PLUS - COMPUTER POWER SUPPLY ACTIVE PFC UK.
Asus P8H67M-EVO Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge)
** B3 REVISION **.
INTEL CORE i5 2500k processor
Patriot Gamer Series 4GB 2x 2GB PGS34G1333ELK CAS 9 Dual Channel 1333MHz DDR3 Memory
320gb Western Digital SATA drive
LG Blueray Writer.
Had no problems at all building and configuring this combination. In the future I will put an i7 processor in, when the price drops (if the price drops).
No point in giving you costings as I live in the UK, but even at UK prices it was very reasonable.
If you go for the above motherboard make sure it is the B3 REVISION as Intel had a chipset problem on the early H67 motherboards


Hope this helps
Regards
Richard

[Larry Reavis]

I just built an i7-970 system which runs essentially as fast as an 980x system, but am following the Sandy Bridge systems with interest. Have you noticed any instability problems that the VideoGuys mentioned (see above posts and links)?

[Richard Green]

Hi Larry,
To date I haven't noticed any instability problems with my setup. Had a few problems with Vegas 10d and not blaming those on the system as other people have had similar problems. I have read the blog from Gary of Video Guys and to be honest what he says doesn't make sense to me. He talks about "issues" and doesn't say what they are. Talks about it being a gamers board, isn't a gaming machine everything to do with hi speed graphics/video, I thought it was. The issue with the chipset in the first batch was to do with one of the SATA ports failing over time. INTEL quickly recalled and replaced all motherboards. My particular motherboard,
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS P8H67-M EVO
has all the ports I need including USB 3.0 and HDMI sockets, it even has one UDMA socket for the older pata drives, many manufacturers have removed this socket.
I have to say I like this board, well impressed, it was only £80 (you convert to dollars) a very easy build, it will do me until a better one comes out.
I also have a mac mini, it's dual core intel pro and I have upgraded the hard drive to a faster spinning model and put some more ram into it and it really flies now and yes it will edit AVCHD video, I've also put Windows 7 on it and run Vegas pro10 without any problem. However not as fast as the new computer I have just built. If I have any "issues" in the future I will report back.

Regards
Richard