i've recently made the decision to build a new computer. primarily, for the purpose of burning dvds of videos, photos, music, etc. as with everything else, it looks simple until you get into the details. i was struck on my first visit to this site by the problems some folks seem to be encountering in the dvd arena. it is my hope to avoid some of these problems, if possible, by picking the proper hardware & software to do the job. as i see it, there are four areas where i need your advice : 1 - education, what is the best source? 2 - hardware, i'm leaning toward the 'benq dw1620 dl' 3 - software, don't have a clue 4 - media, also clueless hope you're willing to share your experience/knowledge in any or all of the above areas. my proposed system: cpu: amd 3000+ (939 pin) mobo: asus a8v deluxe memory: 1 gig hard drive: 160 gig video card: xfx nvidia geforce 5700 le dvd burner: benq dw1620 dl
hello warty, hope the build goes ok.Firstly, i educated myself by the weekly magazines,bugging my it man, and joining forums such as this.For any dvd burning jobs most users recommend the pioneer 108...theres an awful lot of support for it ie firmware updates.Software is easy to answer..Nero 6 (doesnt cost too much)DVD Decrypter (free) and the amazing DVD Shrink(again free).With these three programs u can burn anything to your hearts content.Media wise, theres only one brand i use and thats taiyo yuden.They are the most consistant.You get what u pay for here.Buy cheap get shit get headache!!If you are in the us lucky you cos theyre a good price.If you are in the uk like me, youll have to pay more, but its worth it.Most problems with dvd burning is media related.Ive been a bit brief, but check out the guides on how to use the software on this site.There are some clever and helpful guys here that have helped me no end.Theyll do the same for u too.God luck
What sort of budget have you got? Don't know about Benq burners, I have 2 108s, they have performed flawlessly. A 10,000rpm HD would keep your PC nice & VERY quick. The 5700 was not the best card evermade, A radeon 9800pro is a good choice, or a Gainward 6800 ultra. Do you want to game with it? Amd is a good choice, the faster the better. 400DDR RAM would be nice (1gig = VERY nice!)Corsair, Kingston, Samsunk or Geil memory are highly rated. Asus mobo, good choice. Nero for burning, shrink for compressing. You will not go wrong with this software for your dvd burning. Education for what, burning, building PCs or for your children? Media, verbatim, ritek. NOT, I repeat NOT memorex! Look in our media forums for that advice. pulsar
i'm not telling u to buy anything but i'm giving u my real life experience sou can decide what is good 4 u. Benq is a bad brand name. They're more like generic electronic maker that produces same stuff 4 lesser money which is also lesser quality. 1 gb of ram is a waste of money, after 512mb of ram u wont see more than 2% of increasing in performance, so y even waste cash on that 2%? Ur missing a sound card, i recommend sound blaster. About the motherboard, try picking the 1 that has built in the 1394 connection (4 future use), and at least 5 empty PCI slots and 1 agp slot 4x. Make sure u have a heatsink 4 that hot on fire amd of urs, or it will burn the sec u start ur computer. Don't get too many fans for your CPU, they only make huge noises but dont do much on the temperature. I dont know what u meant by education, but my source 4 education is the internet. Whatever i wanan know about, i go on the internet n do a search. After that is the libarary. U said hardware, too general, u might wanna b more specific so i might advice u. Software? Windows 2000 if ur not really into that new attractive look of XP. Why? Windows 2000 boots n shut down faster than XP. Not yet, it runs faster since i dont have that new themes XP included it. And yet it is more secure than XP (just my personal experience suffering from XP). if u want more advice just ask. hope thi shelp
The Asus A8V Deluxe is a good choice of M.B. I know because I recently installed one in my computer. If you are going to use a SATA hard drive be sure to load the driver on a floppy so it can be installed during the Windows installation I had a few problems there. I had the driver on a floppy, but I could never get Windows to recognize the hard drive. I tried every setting I could think of in setup to no avail. Fortunately, Asus appears to have excellent customer support. I sent them a message through their web site and in a little over an hour I got an answer back telling me what to do. I had to make one change in setup and everything was fine. I have never got a reply that fast before. I have used Soyo boards in the past and although I like them due to their features, I've never got a reply of any sort from them for any problem. Good luck with whatver you choose. Incidentally, although a sound card is probably better, the A8V Deluxe has built in 8 channel audio that sounds pretty good to me. Maybe I'm just not very picky. I have a GFX 5700 Ultra video card and it's adequate for me. I don't really play many games, though. The 5700 LE you're talking about will be slower than what I have. My son has a 6800 GT and it's really neat, but it cost over $400.00 A 6800 Ultra will cost more than that.
