My better half is after a decent desktop to do video editing and other processor heavy graphics stuff.

She would be happy to get something off the shelf, whereas I have suggested that she something built up for her and saves a wad of cash.

Required spec is
-i7 processor (quad-core)
-8GB or 16GB RAM
-2TB internal hard drive at 7200RPM
– In built nVidia and ATI video card with at least 1GB of memory (maybe more)
– Decent wide monitor, say 27″

Can anyone recommend something decent off the shelf, or alternatively a good company online that will build to the spec? cheers

I have suggested that she something built up for her and saves a wad of cash.

I doubt you’d save much if anything these days, TBH. Have you priced it up? Might be better off with something with a lengthy manufacturer’s warranty.

In built nVidia and ATI video card

“or”, I presume you mean there!

Consider a smaller SSD, and get a bunch of HDDs for storage/backup. I tend to only have the video files I’m currently working on stored on the computer (MacBook Pro). If she doesn’t already, suggest transcoding to ProRes – much less work for the computer to do while she’s cutting and chopping.

For a monitor, I’d highly recommend a Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM. Very good value/quality.

I haven’t priced it up. Lad at my work has recently secured a similarly specced Dell laptop for company price of about £1500. But I don’t want to spend that much!

I’ll definitely mention the SSD options

Any recommendations for what to get?

What programs will she be running? Many creative programs are optimised for nVidia Quadro or AMD Firepro which you miss out on if you go with one of the cards more geared up for gaming and general use.

If you are not using programs that can use those types of graphics card you might not get much benefit from an extra card over the graphics that are now built into the i7 chips.

As Cougar say you won’t save much on a home build unless you really cut corners which I wouldn’t recommend for a machine that might be left on quite a bit rendering video etc.

If she will be doing this casually then I would just look at a system from someone reputable like Chilliblast: Chilliblast workstation

If you want more mainstream the I can vouch for HP workstations, the build quality is pretty good and they start at reasonable prices e.g. HP SFF workstation

I create and edit a lot of videos off my GoPro using Adobe Premier Elements 8.0 on a much lower spec PC than that.

I was getting very frustrated editing them cos Adobe kept on crashing. After a bit of thinking, discussing at work and some browsing on here I upgraded my existing PC to run off an SSD rather than an HDD.

This together with also upgrading my video card from the bog standard ATI to a cheapish (£35) ‘proper’ video card* made everything run much more easily, smoothly and without crashing.

*think it was an nVidia something or other from Maplin

As above, what software? Adobe Premiere? If so:

i7, with decent Mobo
16gb Minimum
4x Hard Drives, 3x minimum
A CUDA enabled GFX Card, the more cores the better.
At least 2x 24″ Widescreen Monitors
Use a SSD as the scratch disk, there are a lot of tutorials on speccing a PC for video editing out there, but the above covers the basics.

27″ iMac would tick all of those boxes.

She’s on “adobe premiere pro, indesign and all the other adobe creative suite”

Mac recommendation took longer to arrive than i thought it would (not sure what her view is on them).

Milkie, that sounds about right – so how much to pay and where to buy?

Got one from these guys http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-002-OG&groupid=43&catid=2475&subcat=2487

But upgrade to i7 more ram 2300 mhz better GFX card Running Lightwave, and resolve 11 without issues games fly on it as well 😀

Which versions of the CS Suite Applications is she running? CS4,CS5,CS6 etc?

Probably not a popular answer on here but I’m well happy with my old second hand Dell Precision T5400 (£165) with two quad core processors, 32 Gb of DDR2 ECC ram ( £80 and I know it’s total overkill but I couldn’t resist), NVIDIA Quadro Pro 4600 card for £47.

Running surveying and CAD software. It certainly p’s all over my £700 laptop when doing anything taxing.

A GoPro edit took 20 minutes on the laptop was dispensed with in 3 or 4 minutes by the PC.

Old high end stuff rocks.

This wouldn’t be a bad starting point if you don’t want to spend loads. A nice big 27″ screen to look at too.