Help buying a new PC

[Simo]

Hopefully getting a new PC in the next month or 2 and am trying to do the research so I get the best I can afford.

Hoping to spend $2-2500(aussie dollars) on a desktop. Primary uses are:

* Lots of Video editing - making music DVD's, VHS-DVD, DV transfers. Really enjoy that stuff.
* CIVILIZATION 4 - I know this series of games should run on a 286 but for some reason they tried to make it all 3d graphicsy in the new version and it doesnt run on my laptop. Maybe some other games but I save FPS and stuff for the xbox. Mostly CIV and maybe command and conquer or age of empires style games.
*CAD and RENDERING - Computer Aided Design and rendereing programs.
* Music recording - making some noise on the guitar with my mates, we record some of the noise sometimes!

My current experince is with 2 PC's:
at work 2.6ghz P4 1 gig ram Gforce FX 5200 NVIDIA compatible videocard.

*Does good with video editing, but capturing through the internal TV tuner capture card audio and video is WAY out of synch and is sh*t. I think it is more to do with the software than the hardware but trying to get VHS to PC is useless. The hard drive needs to be defragged but it says it is done and barely anything changes and the program says it needs to be defragged straight after it. I think this maybe hurting my analogue capture.
*Civ4 runs on it but as it is a work PC i have never actually played it for more than 1 minute so I dont know how it runs on it.
*CAD and rendering is fine and operates well on it.
* Music recording, I havent done on it so I dont know.

at home 3ghz P4 1 gig ram inbuilt graphics card LAPTOP.

*Does good with video editing, not as good in Adobe premier as the work PC but I dont really like premier much so not a big deal. Capturing is horrible as I only have a USB Capture device. No good for transfering VHS. Have never used the Firewire capture on it so dont know if it keeps up.
* CIV 4 runs but has the terrain black due to the video card not supporting TNL (common problem in the game I have read on forums). Dont know how it would actually play later in the game if it worked.
* CAD and Rendering run vrey good and I am happy with the performance.
* Music recording is also good through a USB audio interface that lets me connect a mic and guitar. No MIDI though which isnt a huge deal but would be nice.

So with all that in mind here is what I have been given at the local store:

NEW PC - 3.2Ghz hyper threading P4
Abit Ni8 Nvidia SLi chipset motherboard Is this good?
2xPCi express video slots What do these do?
10xUSB ports
1gb DDR2533Mhz RAM Fast enough?
Dual Channel memory What does this do?
160gb HDD 7200rpm Capture fast enough?
1 IDE interface standard What does this do?
2 SATA interfaces Standard (with raid) What does this do?
16x Dual layer DVD
256mb GF6600GT PCi express with SLi Decent card or crap?
DVI/VGA outputs with TV out
PCi express 16x What does this do?
HDTV suppoort
17inch LCD
7.1 digital surround sound
Gigabit network connector broadband ready What does this do?

A mouse, keyboard and small asoftware - $2395

Is this a good price and is there certain parts I should upgrade? I know I have to find a captrue card to add in, are there any good ones that double as a video card or is it best to go seperate?

Also is FSB (front side bus) super important? Is 800mhz what I should be looking for?

I know it was a mouthful but thanks for any help

 

[Speedo]

NEW PC - 3.2Ghz hyper threading P4

For the stuff you'll be doing I would seriously consider a dualcore processor, and an AMD one. What is dualcore? Basically, it puts two processors into one physical CPU. The difference for multitasking and the type of work you'll be doing is flat mind blowing. Dualcore doesn't give a significant advantage in gaming at the moment, but that's changing. AMD's dualcore CPUs are significantly better than Intels right now.

When I fired up Brazil for the first time with my AthlonX2 4400, my jaw practically hit the floor. I can be rendering two buckets at once, and each bucket easily renders in 3-4 times as fast as they did on my old AthlonXP 2100.

Abit Ni8 Nvidia SLi chipset motherboard Is this good?
2xPCi express video slots What do these do?

Abit is a good mobo company. Asus, DFI and MSI also have solid products.

SLI stands for "Scaleable Link Interface" which is a technology that lets you run two graphics cards at once for increased performance. Not something you'd really be interested in from what you're planning to do.

PCI Express (or PCIe) is a replacement for the classic AGP and PCI interface slots in computers. It's available in x16, x8, x4 and x1. x16 is used for video cards, and is replacing AGP. The others are for various other addin cards, but they're not really widely used yet.

1gb DDR2533Mhz RAM Fast enough?
Dual Channel memory What does this do?

For the type of stuff you're looking at doing, you might want to consider getting 2GB of RAM. 1GB is certainly adequate, though.

Dual channel effectively doubles the bandwidth available for the processor to "talk to" the memory. It's pretty much a standard technology now.

160gb HDD 7200rpm Capture fast enough?

Yes, that's standard hard drive speed.

1 IDE interface standard What does this do?
2 SATA interfaces Standard (with raid) What does this do?

The IDE interface is where CD/DVD drives and hard drives plug into the motherboard

SATA or Serial ATA is a newer hard drive interface that's faster. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independant Drives. Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

256mb GF6600GT PCi express with SLi Decent card or crap?

Solid mid-range graphics card.

17inch LCD

With CAD and all that other stuff, I would seriously look at a 19" or 20" LCD.

Gigabit network connector broadband ready What does this do?

Lets you connect to either a home network or plug in a broadband internet connection. Or, do both by using a router.

Also is FSB (front side bus) super important? Is 800mhz what I should be looking for?

Top-end Intel CPUs have a 1066mhz FSB. I'm not familiar enough with their stuff to know how high-end you'll have to get to have that though.

AMD CPU's don't have a FSB, but instead have what's called the HyperTransport bus, which is very similar, but much better. All of the current gen. Athlon64 CPUs have a 1000mhz HT bus (you may see it advertised as 2000mhz, but it's the same thing).

Basically:
In an Intel setup, when the CPU wants to talk to the memory it has to go through a memory controller which is on the motherboard.
AMD64 CPUs have their memory controller integrated into the CPU itself, essentially eleminating the middle man- the CPU can in effect talk directly to the memory.

 

[Simo]

thanks speedo, I appreciate you taking the time to help.