Amd or Intel for dvd burning

[squarenuts]

A friend of mine want me to build him a new tower. I have a budget of $1000. (this price is to cover;

tower, PS, MB, CPU, OS, HD, Burner, RAM, video

The only thing he hates about his current system is how long it takes to burn dvds. Its an older system and not worth upgrading.

My questions are;

Amd or Intel for the CPU. Core 2 seem faster at burning but with the prices, would a fast X2 be the more cost effect option?

Would 2GB of ram cut down on the burn time vs 1GB? (will be running win XP)

What speed of ram to get? (with all thats happen with the prices, do the oil companies run the memory makers too?)


To save money for more CPU power, would a motherboard with onboard video be worth it? Or just get a low end video card? (he uses a 17in monitor so not watching anything on it, that was his big screen is for)

I build my machines for gaming and need some knowledge on how to build a machine for a non gaming purpose. (not looking to overclock) He just want to hit the power button and go.

[azzey]

By 'burning DVD's', are you meaning the actual time to burn the disc, or the time it takes to encode the data before it is burnt? If he is using the computer to make his own movies, then the latter is the problem. The encoding is strictly based on CPU performance, where the burning time is directly related to the DVD burner.

What are the current CPU specs?

Saphalline will likely chime in and offer his view. In the meantime, it would be helpful to know what else this computer will be used for. Is gaming a requirement?

For the CPU, I would say that the Core 2's will offer the best bang-for-your-buck in terms of performance. That being said, the rest of the system specs depend almost entirely on whether the system is X2 or Core 2.

Do you have any idea what he wants in terms of a case? There is a wide range of cases available including very stylish ones to more modest ones. Plenty with lights, windows, etc. I would let him decide what case he wants.

[mjc]

I was looking into this earlier and couldn't make up my mind...because, even with a top notch CPU you can get better performance by adding an hardware encoder to the mix.

So, if we know what the current system is like and try to pin down what he really wants. Any of the newer AMD or Intel chips can drop encoding down to way below 'real time'...if the movie is two hours long, most newer CPUs with plenty of RAM can drop the encoding time to an hour or less (I've seen much lower numbers on some sites, but I don't what file size they were using for the benchtest), so saying 'under an hour' is a safe number...

[squarenuts]

His current puter is an older Duron 800MHz. Win XP with 512MB of ram and onboard video. He did go out and buy an interal DVD burner to add to it.

He isn't a gamer and is happy with his dial up for internet access.

I not sure on how long it take to burn a DVD but its hours with his current system. And this system will be given to his wife to use, so not striping anything out of it.

He also does some office work on it (excel, word) but i know what ever gets build will handle that just fine.

[jlreich]

I agree any new CPU will work just fine. And make a huge difference over that 800Mhz Duron.

When your talking about encoding video from scratch it's an overnight project for my kids s478 Celeron 2.4Mhz. :eek: And then you hope nothing goes wrong. :p On my s939 AMD 3000+ it takes about an hour.

Just so we know, are you talking about like I said above, encoding video from scratch, or are you talking about copying DVD's (for backup purposes only of course)? Copying a DVD on my system takes about 35 minutes to encode and burn.

I would recommend a Core 2, but the budget is a little slim for that. Even with DDR2-800 prices being through the roof AM2 is a little easier to fit into that budget. I did just put together a very nice dual core AM2 system with 1GB ram for $1,100. That included everything except KB and speakers which he already had.

I have to leave here in a few minutes so I don't have time to get a list together right now. Basically your looking at 1GB DDR2-800, low end video card, single core AM2-or dual core AM2, 16x DVD burner.

Sorry that's probably not much help right now.

[azzey]

I did just put together a very nice dual core AM2 system with 1GB ram for $1,100. That included everything except KB and speakers which he already had.I managed to pull together my new system with an AM2 X2 4200 and a gig of DDR2-800 ram for less than 800$ CAD (that didn't include a monitor, though). I bought the parts over the course of two months from various dealers, and managed to save a ton of money by going with weekly specials (NCIX.com (http://www.ncix.com) has a ton of good ones!).

[jlreich]

Yeah my system was including a $200 Acer 700:1 - 5ms 19" wide screen LCD. $100 Antec case.

[squarenuts]

The dvd burning part is a mix of backing up and moving video from his camcorder. It has USB so no worries about firewire.

So 1GB of ram is still plenty? Would more of a slower ram be better or worse? (667) Or skip on the duel channel and just get a single stick.

Does NCIX.com ship to APO addresses? (in the Army stationed in Germany)

So a duel core not needed/ taken advantage of with burning software?

[azzey]

1gb is just fine unless the system is going to running very intensive games or other ram-intensive programs.

Dual-core (and even multi-core) is the future of computing! I would say that if the budget allows, go for it. Even if it will go unused for now, there will be times when it will come in handy.

By the way, NCIX.com says that it will only ship to Canadian and US addresses. You may be out of luck.

[jlreich]

I would go dual core. I am with azzey, it just makes more sense to go dual core these days. Yeah you can get a Sempron for $40, but the 3800+ X2 is only $169. Spending less than 20% on the CPU in any budget is excellent.

You definitely want to use dual channel ram. Why cut your ram performance in half and starve your CPU of data by using only one stick...

Here are some suggestions. I know Newegg only ships to the US, but I will give the links for reference.

AM2 3800+ X2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103735).

ASUS M2N-E Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131022)

Corsair XMS2 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145566)

One thing he will need for video editing is a lot of hard drive space. Get at least one of the 320GB Seagate's to start with. Add a second as budget permits.

For a video card I would start somewhere around a 6600 or anything well under $100 and adjust as you figure out how the budget is coming along. You can go quite a bit lower than the 6600 if needed since there is no gaming involved.

Get good PSU. One with dual 12v rails. Stick with good brands like Antec, Thermaltake, Seasonic... Don't trust any PSU bundled with a case with the possible exception of Antec.

Sorry this is not a comprehensive list, but my weekends are very busy right now and I am beat. My wife has probably already fallen asleep on the couch as I post this. :(