Questions regard PC power and pricing...

[Sye]

Hey all,

Its been a long time since I was in the computing game, but I've been doing a lot of graphic design and web based work recently, and my old system is starting to show its age. As I have recently gone into higher education I managed to set a little bit of money aside for a new system, but the question is what to choose...

My budget is no more than £500, I have things like mice and keyboards, and a monitor lying around so I've saved a little on cost. I've done most of my design work on PC's in the past and am more comfortable using PC than Mac, but recently I have been branching into video editing and I have yet to find a program to for PC to compete with the video editing software which comes with Mac as standard.

My question is, I have put a little something together for around £430 which covers the essentials (CPU, GPU and Ram) but is there any video editing software available for PC which could take advantage of the improved specs? I will also be gaming on the PC, I figured 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 1GB GPU, plus a x2 3.10Ghz processor would be able to handle some next gen MMO's and such (maybe an upgrade on the RAM at a later date.)

Any help or constructive comments are appreciated, thanks!

(Oh, and my question on price (which is more to the administrators I guess) is, does PCspecialist offer student discounts?:o)

[steveuk87]

if i was you i would look towards Quad core.. will perform alot better than duel core but the speed of your processor and Ram and GPU are fine, btw what GPU you going for ATI/NVIDEA?

Steve

[Growltiger]

Windows Live Movie Maker come as a free download for Windows 7 users. Why not start with that?

[Sye]

Thanks for the response guys.

I've gone for the 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT220 PCI EXPRESS, I know its a little less powerful that whats available, but its one of the components that I could easily upgrade after a year or so when they get a little cheaper, same with the RAM. I've sprung for duel core because its in my price range, and I didn't think there were many programs being created that take advantage of quad core (Although to be honest, I'm not too clear on the situation, which is probably obvious <3)

I've been using Final Cut Pro at Uni to edit my videos (I'm a Media student, so I do need something with a bit more depth.) Its something in that area that I'm looking for, but I'll take a look at Movie Maker, thanks!