AMD user with some Intel and other questions.

[Envoi]

Hi guys.

I've been building PCs for about, oh, 3 years or so. I've always stuck to AMD just because of familiarity and price point. Now, I have a customer who is big into video editing and wants some top of the line equipment. I want to get him into PCI-E because it is a promising technology and seems to me that a system utilizing it will provide more longevity. Especially with most, if not all, PCI-E mobos having SATA and DDR2 support. Unfortunately, I don't want to wait for AMD to jump on this PCI-E train. But, should I?

I've read that Intel handles video editing more efficiently than AMD. Is it a remarkable difference? I've been pricing Intels and it just seems so much more expensive. I know my customer would be willing to pay the price difference, but only if it is a noticeable difference in performance. He is a cautious consumer and I want to give him the best "bang for the buck" without the system missing a beat when it comes to his video editing.

He also wants this system to be his main entertainment unit. So he wants TV-In/Out and PVR as well. Is Intel any better in this market?

And lastly, he is really into the idea of using an LCD TV as his monitor. I know, for instance, Magnavox makes a small 15" LCD TV with a 15-pin VGA connection. If he uses this kind of setup he would do everyday stuff on the LCD TV like emailing, surfing, and watching TV, then use the TV-out to a larger TV in his room to watch movies. My question on this matter is; are LCD TVs good enough for every day PC use? Will they display text and such adequately?

Thanks ahead of time for any input.

[bombledmonk]

As far as the main components go the best bang for the buck in intel land would be these

CORSAIR VALUESELECT Kit 240-Pin 1GB(2 x 512MB) DDR2 PC2-4200

ABIT "AA8-DuraMAX" i925X Chipset Motherboard for Intel LGA775 CPU

Intel LGA 775 Pentium 4 530 3.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology

Chaintech nVIDIA GeForce 6600GT Video Card, 128MB DDR3, 128-Bit, TV-Out/DVI, PCI-Express


The total for those main components is $825.77. Of course there is dvdrw, OS, case, PSU and all that other great stuff that you will need.
This was just takent from someone elses post on another forum for a quick idea....(prices taken from www.newegg.com)

He may also want to think about running Raptor 10k hard drives.

Try to convince him to not use an LCD TV for his main monitor. If he wants TV on his computer just get a TV tuner card and stick in there. The resolution is just not high enough for a good workspace. There plenty of great 17-19 inch LCD's out there. Just make sure they have a 12-16ms response time for working with high motion.

With that being said... I'll add more later gotta go right now.

[Envoi]

Hey, thanks for the input!!

I was planning on going with Crucial CT6464AA53E (2x 512) though for RAM. I've seen better benchmarking from them at stock speeds. And since I'm not o/cing this system at all, that's a plus.

As for mobo I had my eye on the ECS PF4 Extreme. It has had some pretty impressive reviews for its cost.

Definately at least one 10rpm SATA drive. Then maybe a second big old PATA. JaBoD. Nothing fancy here.

I haven't gotten around to the actual PCI-E cards though :-). So, thanks for the suggestion there and with the CPU.