I order a new editing system today from Dell. Yes, I didn’t go with an Apple. Although I could have got an iMac with all the whistles, I decided against it. I use a G4 at school with FCP and love it but I’m an old Windows/DOS dork plus I didn’t want to have to learn a new system before a big editing project.

The core of my system is a 3 GHz P4 (800Mhz-FSB), 512 MB of memory, 80 gig hard drive and a couple 15” flat panels (I couldn’t resist, I love the dual monitors a school). Did I do ok on this? I think I’m going to need more then 80 gigs and besides, I want a dedicated video HD on another IDE bus anyway. I’ve always used Maxtor hard drives simply because I’ve never had a problem with them. I noticed that Western Digitals are ATA-100 and Maxtors are ATA-133. How important is this as long as the drive is 7200RPM? And how much disk space would a 2 hour show require? I’m thinking 120GB. Sorry for the long post. Everyone here is very helpful. I’m trying to spend more time here to see if I can contribute.

the ata-133 has a faster bitrate...but you wouldnt be able to tell the difference its so small. i have gone with western digital my whole life and have never looked back. right now im using a 200 gig serial-ATA drive, those are fast! Other than the HD question, the ram is sufficient and the p4 will rock you comp. What vid card did you get? I have an ATI 9600 pro all-in-wonder, sweetest graphics i have ever witnessed (just a plug for ati.....i hope they read this )

I thought about that card, but cheaped out . I got the 128mb GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card. It will still be better then the 32MB TNT I'm on now. What is serial-ATA? You seem to be having good luck with it. Thanks for the input!

i have a ata133 pci card on my board with an 80gb 7200rpm maxtor off of it. The bonus for me is that i can plug a few more drives in there (2 more ata cables), moreover the HD is off of the pci bus now instead of split off of the ata cable on the motherboard. Unfortunately however, i didnt have asecond HD before that drive on this comp, so i dont know what kind of difference it makes. I can definitely tell you that when using cubase, there is a meter for HD usage. I have had up to 18 tracks of 32 bit audio and havent even seen the meter move yet. Thats a good thing. Ive never experienced any problems at all w/ video. And for the record i have dual monitors too, yea its hard to ever go back to one!

Did you get the 512 of memory on one stick?
Thats a good thing if you did, being that is one of the most likely upgrades you'll do, besides HD's. Being able to add on to the memory you have w/out ditching a stick of memory is a definite plus.