Gateway? Dell? HP? 3 GB DDR3 vs 8 GB DDR2…HELP!

[Lucas Windsor]

With a shoestring budget like that you need to make sure you have enough processing power and enough memory. I would recommend a Dell system. I now use a Mac Pro for all my video design, but I used a dell beforehand and it worked really well.

You can get a dell Xps Studio for $899.00 It has the new i7 architecture that makes things like video editing faster. It also comes with DDR3 memory, which is nice and fast. The only downside is that this one does not come with a monitor. Here are the general specs on this machine.

i7 Quad Core 2.66ghz
4GB DDR3 memory
640GB Hard Drive
ATI Radeon HD 3450 256MB

The only thing that could be better is the graphics card, but the one it comes with is fine and will do the job well. Luckily it is very easy to upgrade these in the future. If you have the extra dough I would bump the memory up to 6GB as well, but that is something you can do in the future when needed.

https://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studioxps-435mt?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=dthp&s=dhs

[Lucas Windsor]

I am not totally against buying a computer from Best Buy, but I have heard so many horror stories from people. Personally I always bought our systems straight from the manufacturer.

[Joe Daniels]

I have never had a Dell…so your opinion, an ok system for video editing?

[Lucas Windsor]

No system is perfect. My best advice would to be save up and buy a Mac, but if you are dedicated to PC then Dell’s are some of the best. Sometimes the customer service can be a bit frustrating, but overall I have had few problems with all the dells we have owned.

I owned a Dell XPS 700 that we used for video and after effects and it worked quite well. The system I showed you is a bit more powerful then the one I had, so it will work with video just fine. If you are planning to work with any HD video you may run into a few slowdowns but for SD editing it should be quite fast.

Here is a review of the system I showed you.

https://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-studio-xps/4505-3118_7-33396858.html?tag=mncol;lst

[Shawn Miller]

I’ve used Dell workstations at different companies for years. They’re not bad machines at all. But for bang for the buck, I still really like Bold Data Systems’ PCs (https://www.boldata.com). In my experience, they beat anything in their price range hands down. No offense to other systems intergrators, but Bold Data is small enough that they can give great customer service, but large enough that they can build good systems at a low cost. Additionally, they list what components actually go into their machines, so you don’t have to worry about them sticking low cost, generic parts with bad drivers into your computer.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

Good luck,

Shawn Miller

[George Socka]

From experience using an a quad core Vista XPS and a faster quad core XP Vostro on CS3. Both with Dell supplied dual head video. Get a Dell Vostro, rather than XPS. Same power, less cost. Not sure that i7 is worth the extra money. Put a decent video card in it. And make sure that you get firewire preinstalled. I overlooked that on teh Vostro. I use removable Sata drive trays, the vostro case was easier to open up and put the trays into the spare DVD bays. The XPS not so much. And those new cute XPS and Studio cases look impossible to adapt.

Inspirons are even cheaper for the same technology ( except no XP ) just more crapware to delete.

And not at all sure why you would pay even more for a Mac made out the same Intel parts.

George Socka
BeachDigital
http://www.beachdigital.com