UPDATE: Build system from scratch?

[Lance Feagan]

So, basically you want something like an AIW [All in Wonder]  Do you want
the 172 dollar solution [standard radeon] or the 335 dollar solution [radeon
8500 AIW]?

What do others think?  I feel that AIW is best value for simple video
editing and dabbling.

Does your video camera have a firewire port?  If not, forget needing
firewire, it won't be that useful.

ATi AIW comes with Windoze video editing software, some pretty decent stuff
in fact.  It also gets nice TV reception and can record and stuff like that.

I am biased, but I love SCSI.  I think it is the best way to go.  I have one
lone IDE component in my system, my 30GB drive with all my mp3 files, that
is it.  SCSI will exact a nice little price premium along the way though.  I
have always felt it worth it.  I had bad experiences with IDE messing with
me years ago, besides, running all those cables for IDE with only two
devices per chain got really annoying.  So, I slowly eradicated all IDE
devices.

Your setup so far seems pretty good.  Are you thinking of getting two sticks
of 256 for a total of 512 MB.  The 512 sticks are a bit pricier per MB and
unless you forsee an upgrade soon, I might save my money.  This being said,
I am running two sticks of CAS 2-2-2 Mushkin High Performance PC2100 512 MB
sticks, those cost a pretty penny ($180/stick).

If you think you might get into editing stuff, I might look for a matching
hard drive and getting an striped RAID setup for maximum speed in editing
footage.  If you go this route, get a mobo with onboard RAID, it helps save
money.

As far as cases go, I love Addtronics cases.  Fong kai makes the cases for
Dell.  So, if you want to say "Dude, I got a Dell" like a damned lame ass,
then you could get a case from them and look like a Dell. ;-)

But seriously, Fong kai does have nice looking cases.

In general, cases tend to be the 1 thing I would get locally.  They cost a
lot to ship because they are so darned heavy.  This being said, no one
locally has Addtronics cases.  You just order them from Addtronics.  I got a
W8500, the WTX case from them, darn shipping a 64 lbs case is annoying.

What are your needs in a case?  Cost?  Cooling?  Expansion?  Power Supply
desires?  Easy of use?  Do you open your case a lot?

--Lance