All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

[DLK]

Managed to get an HV20 in Taiwan here. Love it! Now I need to buy a computer. I was hoping (begging actually) that the members of this site would help me with deciding on this, as being a foreigner sometimes it is hard to trust the locals.

Here is what I am looking at:


Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHZ
(another questions is why is this chip cheaper than the E6600 over here, unless it waswn't reduced with the new quads but some of those older quads are like half price now )

For the motherboard I was thinking:

ASUS P5B However the guy suggested the:
GIGABYTE G33M DS2R

Well for RAM I will grab:
2 X 1GB DDR2 667

Graphics card: What do I need here, I mean over here they are big time gamers so what is recommended?

nVidia 8600 GTS or
nVidia 8600 GT or
nVidia 8500 GT

Other than that storage is a debate i had with a friend who is trying to help me lower cost (which is a little issue for me)
He said grab one big drive but I am inclined to grab one for my software and one for clips, little help! I already dropped one 19'" LCD to help lower the cost ande I so wanted 2.

Thanks in advance for advice and opinions.

[tokyo_ren]

what software do you intend to run?
check out thier homepage for recommended specs - special attention to the graphics card and recommended drivers version
check up on graphics cards with HDMI
Try to use a Graphics card of the same MB maker if possible (Gigabyte are top on my list for next system PC - they are popular here in Japan and have a very good reputation for not scimping on component quality - they also supply to Alienware, a subsid of Dell)

Spend a long time researching, don't buy on a whim.
Search google high and low with words like "crash", "trouble", "error" etc along with your selection of software/hardware (use your google fu)
I'll typically spend 2~6 months on research before I start buying parts.

As for drives, you are right, get 2 drives (same make/model/capacity/buffer - you can stripe/span them later).
Apps and mundane stuff on one. Clips on the other.
I do this...

320GB 1
C drive 60GB System/Apps
D drive 260GB render out from the timeline/cuts/dvd authoring etc

320GB 2
V drive 320GB capture/storage

hope this helps,

Ren

[DLK]

Spend a long time researching, don't buy on a whim.

Thanks for bringing me back to reality! I guess it was obvious that I was about to make a whim purchase. I should spend some more time doing research as i spent about 2 months deciding on the HV20. Which I am sure all would say was a good choice.