Lookinh for a really top notch, multiscreen very fast computer. Who do I contact?

Agreed 100%.

Let us know what specs Peter suggests; I'm curious.

 

Get another processor.
You want at least a Core 2 Duo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115003

I have 2 of those oced to 3.2ghz.

But, what you have specced out works very well. I'd probably dump Vista for XP, but that's just me.

 

Yep, that's a very poor choice for a CPU. It's old, slow, and hot.

A much better choice would be
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116036

And it's only $91. It will flatten a P4 in performance by a large margin.

He will also have the secondary benefit of using a board that supports DDR2, which is half the price of DDR.

 

Korr, the 1.8ghz you linked to is nice and cheap, but at that price point AMDs are a better buy.

The 1.8 Allen is just crippled with it's low cache

*geek mode off*

 

indeed i would stay away from the old p4's there bad news, + the prescott core in the p4's runs hot. The CD2 is the much better way to go especially for video encoding sine it will allow you to use both cores. i would also suggest 2-4gb of ram for doing video editing, 2 min and if your going with vista then 4. Vista is a big ram eater, mine eats 1gb of ram at idle with vista running on it. the 7800 isn't that bad of a card but i would personally go with a 8800gt or gts they kill the 7800 any day of the week.

I'm a mod that this computer forum, i can also help you out there as well
http://www.hothardware.com/forum/

 

Depending on his mobo, it might be more cost effective to go for a second 7800 right?

 

That thing sounds more than just a few months old. Both the CPU and the mainboard are old products, and to top it all off, that's one heck of a hefty price for what's essentially used hardware.

Here's what I suggest:

CPU. This is the new, low-end CPU from Intel. Don't let the price or market segment fool you, it's a good performer. It's also dual core. Get the retail boxed version which is supplied with a very good heatsink and fan.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116036

Mainboard:
Asus used to make a decent board, but now they are junk. Gigabyte and Intel are very good choices.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121314

RAM:
2GB of DDR2 from the best manufacturer around. Lifetime warranty.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145098

Video Card:
If you don't play 3D video games, grab this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125062

If you do play 3D video games, grab this reasonably fast inexpensive device:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125061

Hard drives:
Seagates. SATA 2, 5 year warranty. Cheap and fast. Grab two.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148140

DVD-R:
LG makes a good drive, and quiet at that. Get two if you have a need for disc-to-disc copying.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136120

Case:
Nice chassis, not noisy. High quality.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

I'd suggest skipping Vista and going with XP.

$740, shipping not included.

Spend as much as you are comfortable spending on a good *widescreen* LCD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001236

About a grand total, not including shipping.

 

They are in no way, shape or form crippled with a low cache, and I am befuddled why you would say that and recommend AMD all in the same paragraph, since AMD's offerings in that price range have 512k of cache per core, whereas the Intel unit has 1mb of unified cache.

 

Don't you mean to suggest that if he were to spec 4GB of RAM, to also get the 64-bit version of Vista...?

 

The one I linked to was 4mb cache versus 2mb.
If he's doing video work he'll want more cache, cache hits are expensive for Intel because they lack good interconnect speeds unlike AMDs hyperthreading (which isn't as apparent of a loss in dual cores, but assuming he's going to keep the computer, he's got an easy upgrade path to quad cores, and soon octo-cores).

But the main reason I suggested AMD was that for 60$ you could get a much cheaper dual core AMD which would offer very similar overall performance to the 1.8ghz C2D.

 

Vista doesn't "eat" ram as keep it allocated. Just different ways of representing how ram is kept.

If I check on my macbookpro, I could say that it's using all 2gb of my ram although it's just allocated.

 

yes, other wise it wont read all 4gb it will just read 2.75gb if you run a 32bit OS

 

Cache misses, perhaps, and perhaps on a deeply pipelined cpu like the p4 and it's last iteration with 30+ pipes? And the interconnect speed has jack squat to do with this...the L2 is on core, not sitting somewhere on the bus effectively 9 billion miles away from the cpu. And AMD doesn't even HAVE HYPERTHREADING. That was a feature in somewhat later versions of the P4 up to the last variant. The Core 2 Duo does not have this feature....surprise surprise because it's not a deeply pipelined cpu and therefore doesn't need it.

 

Whoa...double post.

Odd.

 

so sad arguing over cpu architecture in a Ferrari forum...

 

Incorrect, somewhat.
I have a Dual AMD Athlon XP 1800+ box with the AMD 760 chipset. It's a 32bit computer through and through with Windows XP. It's got 4gb ram but only 3.5gb is available.

Oops, I meant interconnects from one core to another core's cache.
And for HT I meant to type hypertransport, not hyperthreading. I'm half wasted, excuse me
Hyperthreading has nothing to do with being a long pipelined core. Hyperthreading was a marketing joke.

 

*sigh*

Hyperthreading has *everything* to do with a deeply pipelined architecture. And no, it wasn't a marketing joke. It was an excellent and clever way to deal with with some of the design constraints of that architecture.

 

Dude, just stop right there. The 3-4GB memory map limitation in a 32-bit OS will lead to a display of memory that varies depending upon what devices are installed and how much of that map they are occupying.

 

Depends on what devices you have installed and how much of the 3-4GB memory map they are sitting on.

I'd wager that you have two 8800 GTS cards with 640MB of RAM each, judging by how much is left over.

 

Then how come many scientific programs advise against enabling HT on a HT equipped processor. HT fakes a core and it kills performance on properly smp-capable code or an easily parallel problem.

Ah yes, that's the reason. It's so archaic, I'm glad that most all processors now support 64bit in some form or fashion. I'm anxious to see how the next-gen OSes and programs take advantage of it. I've heard that 64bit may not make a difference period for the average end-user, but I think that the example during the WWDC Keynote this year proved otherwise.

?
On most graphic cards today the memory isn't shared unless video shadowing is enabled (which ... wow... that's not smart, I think a proper motherboard disables this when it detects it's graphics slot in use).
By that reasoning, I wouldn't have any ram on one of my computers. It's got 512mb ddr2 ram in 2x256 and a 512mb ATi graphics card.

 

As long as it's cooled down that's fine, but if you can get the Core 2 Duo -- do it.
Multiple cores / processors make a world of a difference. No slow downs what so ever. Take it from me. I've had either multi-cores or multi-processor machines since the 8th grade.