www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

I recently built something similar to the attached spec. I'm not sure about your budget, but it's a starting point for a discussion. I'm sure everyone will have their own opinion! As you don't do gaming you can use the graphics and sound that are onboard the CPU and motherboard. The OS and applications can run from the SSD for greater speed and your documents etc. can be stored on the two 1TB disks in RAID 1 for redundancy. That way if a disk fails you don't lose your data. You still need backups as it doesn't help you if you delete something/get corrupt files.
Are you sure you want to go down the build your own route? I'd normally recommend buying a pre-built model with support etc.

I don't have budgets Rich

I'd love to go down the build my own road, and would want the best possible, for reliability as much as anything.

Whether I have the skill is another question.

you will be fine Scruff if you have ever used meccano you can build a PC

I would go for off board gfx and a core i7 to make video editing ripping and burning better, converting from divx to dvd and back is a pain and time consuming.

You have to explain things like off board gfx

What I would need is a Dummy list of compatible parts that either one of you guys can supply or I can order

off board:


on board:

It's difficult to come up with a list of parts.. a lot of it is down to personal preference and unconcious loyalty to certain manufacterers in my experience

The benefit of off board VGA is that it usually has it's own dedicated memory. Onboard is called discreet video and (mostly) shares it's memory with the system. So, if you had 4GB of system RAM, it's possible that on-board VGA might use 512-1GB of that for buffering and performance.

A dedicated card has it's own memory, usually MUCH faster too. The downsides are:

a) cost
b) noise - if it's got it's own fans, cheap cards save cash here
c) space, in some cases - they can be quite chunky/big

I'd go seperate, if you do video. The name escapes me, but nVidia have a solution that can encode DVD/Video and it completely offloads to the VGA card and is stupidly fast - but an i7 is going to be no slouch either!

BG

cuda or coda? also elemental....

http://www.porthale.co.uk/products.asp?partno=FY949AA <- nvidia's lowest high end solution

So is all this stuff compatible with each other and where's the best outlet

most stuff is compatible as long as you get the right speeds and have the right ports on the motherboard.....

I will create a shopping list of a system I want to get and post it up in a bit just gotta go put some more bits in a rack and stab myself with a screwdriver again

I'm a little bit behind with models at the mo, but will try and help when I can. Be interesting to see what Root comes up with.....I like the other system mentioned earlier as a good base.

I'm quite cheap....I tend to build what I'm given 'as samples'. Beggers can't be choosers and all that! :D

If you're transcoding video, the Quick Sync technology of the new Core processors is faster than a dedicated graphics card. Take a look here http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the- ... 0-tested/9 and here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/san ... 833-5.html You'll need a copy of Cyberlink’s Media Espresso 6 or Arcsoft’s Media Converter 7.

Im with you on that one BG I have had so much redundant equipment that i am a bit loathed to buy stuff now a days

Rich could be the saviour......no pressure Rich!

woah... too expensive for me...
not sure i got as good a system as i could for the price either