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Just to let you guys know, we've officially flipped the switch to Dual-Core. What I mean by this is that our recommended system page has now been updated and it's dual-core all the way! 
We highly recommend both Intel's P4 Dual-Core and AMD Dual- Core processors. In the past we would recommend Intel over AMD for compatability reasons. This is no longer the case. For almost all of our hardware and softeare you will get great results, and the system build will be just as simple with either a P4 Dual-Core or AMD Dual Core processor. * Chipsets are as important as the CPUs. This is all too often overlooked, but in reality it is the single most important factor in the success of your computer for NLE. Picking the correct motherboard is critical. Any bottlenecks int he chipset can be a huge problem for NLEs. We discovered this with the 6300 southbridge while researching our DIY 3 dual core workstation. * Specific NLE solutions may require specific motherboards We can't stress this enough. The guideline on this page are GENRAL guidelines. Many times our vendors will recommned specific motherboards or chipsets for integrating their NLE solutions. If you have any specific questions about hardware and/or software you plan on purchasing from us, we urge you to give us a call 800 323-2325 and review your planned configuration. This is especiallty important if you intend to edit HDV, DVCProHD or Uncompressed HD footage. * General system recommendations (May 2006): If you are starting from scratch, build a dual-core machine w/ 2 full GBs of Dual Channel RAM (2 x 1GB) , a 100GB SATA drive and a 256 meg ATI or nVidia based graphics card that supports dual monitors. Add in a second 250+ GB SATA drive for your storage - even better, set up a RAID 0 striped set (2x250GB). NEW TECHNOLOGY NEWS! (May 2006) Dual-Core is the way to go! Back in the end of 2005 we realized that our first two DIY projects had gotten pretty long in the tooth. While they were pretty cutting edge at the time, we were seeing some very new and exciting technologies breaking out. The most exciting was dual core processors. The advantages of Dual Core processors for video editing are significant. The biggest is price / performance. Most video editing applications are written to take advantage of dual processors and hyperthreading, now with a single affordable chip, you can maximize this capability. Those of you who read our DIY3 article are aware of the troubles and tribulations we ran into building a dual Xeon workstation. With a Dual-Core processor the installation and set up of our DIY4 machines was very easy. We built two different dual core workstations for under $2,000 each that will give you outstanding performance for all your editing and encoding needs. We actually tested these systems against each other and as of today, we have to give teh edge to AMD for NLE. You can follow this link to our DIY4 article that goes into far more detail 64 bit is the future - but it is not here yet for NLE. We are extremely excited about multi-core processors and 64 bit operating system. These cutting edge new technologies are going to be very beneficial for video editing. The increased processing power will make rendering and encoding much faster and enable additional features. We also expect to see video editing software and hardware that will be fully optimized for these new technologies to deliver a whole new level of real-time features and performance. As we move to HD this additional processing power will become even more important. A 1080i HDV file actually contains 5 times the data of a standard DV file. While this data can be packed into a stream the same size as a DV file, when it comes time to process and edit the video, you need to be able to handle all the additional bits of data. I am certain that in the not to distant future we will be recommending multi-core processors and WinXP64 OS / Vista - but not yet. While these machines are now becoming available, we're urging our customers to use caution here. None of our video editing solutions is written for Windows XP64, and we do not yet have enough real-world feedback to tell you what if any issues are cropping up. While in theory you should be able to run 32 bit applications under XP64, we do not know what kind of trouble that may cause for video editing. To take full advantage of this next technology leap we are going to need NLE software (and hardware) that is optimized for winXP64 and multicore processors as well. Gary
We highly recommend both Intel's P4 Dual-Core and AMD Dual- Core processors. In the past we would recommend Intel over AMD for compatability reasons. This is no longer the case. For almost all of our hardware and softeare you will get great results, and the system build will be just as simple with either a P4 Dual-Core or AMD Dual Core processor. * Chipsets are as important as the CPUs. This is all too often overlooked, but in reality it is the single most important factor in the success of your computer for NLE. Picking the correct motherboard is critical. Any bottlenecks int he chipset can be a huge problem for NLEs. We discovered this with the 6300 southbridge while researching our DIY 3 dual core workstation. * Specific NLE solutions may require specific motherboards We can't stress this enough. The guideline on this page are GENRAL guidelines. Many times our vendors will recommned specific motherboards or chipsets for integrating their NLE solutions. If you have any specific questions about hardware and/or software you plan on purchasing from us, we urge you to give us a call 800 323-2325 and review your planned configuration. This is especiallty important if you intend to edit HDV, DVCProHD or Uncompressed HD footage. * General system recommendations (May 2006): If you are starting from scratch, build a dual-core machine w/ 2 full GBs of Dual Channel RAM (2 x 1GB) , a 100GB SATA drive and a 256 meg ATI or nVidia based graphics card that supports dual monitors. Add in a second 250+ GB SATA drive for your storage - even better, set up a RAID 0 striped set (2x250GB). NEW TECHNOLOGY NEWS! (May 2006) Dual-Core is the way to go! Back in the end of 2005 we realized that our first two DIY projects had gotten pretty long in the tooth. While they were pretty cutting edge at the time, we were seeing some very new and exciting technologies breaking out. The most exciting was dual core processors. The advantages of Dual Core processors for video editing are significant. The biggest is price / performance. Most video editing applications are written to take advantage of dual processors and hyperthreading, now with a single affordable chip, you can maximize this capability. Those of you who read our DIY3 article are aware of the troubles and tribulations we ran into building a dual Xeon workstation. With a Dual-Core processor the installation and set up of our DIY4 machines was very easy. We built two different dual core workstations for under $2,000 each that will give you outstanding performance for all your editing and encoding needs. We actually tested these systems against each other and as of today, we have to give teh edge to AMD for NLE. You can follow this link to our DIY4 article that goes into far more detail 64 bit is the future - but it is not here yet for NLE. We are extremely excited about multi-core processors and 64 bit operating system. These cutting edge new technologies are going to be very beneficial for video editing. The increased processing power will make rendering and encoding much faster and enable additional features. We also expect to see video editing software and hardware that will be fully optimized for these new technologies to deliver a whole new level of real-time features and performance. As we move to HD this additional processing power will become even more important. A 1080i HDV file actually contains 5 times the data of a standard DV file. While this data can be packed into a stream the same size as a DV file, when it comes time to process and edit the video, you need to be able to handle all the additional bits of data. I am certain that in the not to distant future we will be recommending multi-core processors and WinXP64 OS / Vista - but not yet. While these machines are now becoming available, we're urging our customers to use caution here. None of our video editing solutions is written for Windows XP64, and we do not yet have enough real-world feedback to tell you what if any issues are cropping up. While in theory you should be able to run 32 bit applications under XP64, we do not know what kind of trouble that may cause for video editing. To take full advantage of this next technology leap we are going to need NLE software (and hardware) that is optimized for winXP64 and multicore processors as well. Gary
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