Last minute advice

Hello, I've been into the W3V for a while now, infact this is the only laptop I'm looking at and this is the only sub-forum I visit on this site.
I'm from the UK and I've got £958 saved up and still saving, now I've opened this topic to ask for some advice.

I've got a desktop PC, it's a little bit old, 1gb ram, 80gb hdd, 6600 gt, 2.5ghz pentium 4 and blah blah, but I really like digital video editing and want to either upgrade this machine or build a new one (from overclockers.co.uk, very cheap).
So what should I do? Build the editing suite, use the W3V as an editing suite? (not much HDD space on it), what? anyone?

 

I presume that you want the portability of the W3. You will be impressed by the performance of the W3V. The rule of thumb is multiply the Pentium M speed by 1.8 to get the equivalent P4 speed. So you have to go near to the top end of the the P4 (or AMD equivalent) to get a significant performance enhancement. Lots of RAM, fast HDDs and, if you need 3D graphics, a suitable graphics card, are the ways that any computer can have enhanced performance.

From my limited experience of video editing I have found that the HDD can be the bottleneck. The way round this is to read and write to separate HDDs so that you get a smooth flow of data. External HDDs are now relatively inexpensive and the W3 gives you the choice of the USB or firewire ports.

The UK version of the W3s are being shipped with 4200RPM HDDs. I would recommend that you plan to upgrade this to a faster and bigger HDD. The original HDD can then go into an external carrier as the second HDD. I would further recommend that you don't wipe the original HDD but leave the operating system and basic software on it so that you can reinstall it if the replacement HDD hits problems (more likely to be Windows than the hardware).

Hope this helps,

John

 

So you're saying the W3V is capable of digital video editing?

Thx 4 quick reply

 

Yes it is capable. You may want to upgrade the hard drive if you are doing any video encoding.

 

Thank you both

 

... upgrading the hard drive toa 7200rpm would certainly help a lot... but the w3v is just as capable as anything else..... if not more..... as is the unit would be just fine, but if you want the best performance and don't care about a little added heat and a little lower battery life, then the 7200rpm drive will boost that performance even more.

 

a RAM upgrade to 1GB wouldn't be too shabby either... but processor speed and hard drive have higher priority when video editting.

 

If your w3v have 512MB DDR2, upgrade to 1GB memory is better. If the budget is a issue, upgrade a 7200rpm HD should be a priority.

 

Well as a budget issue... ram will be much cheaper to upgrade and a 7200rpm hard drive isn't going to do much if you run out of memory....... upgrade to 1gb or 1.5gb would be priority #1 ----- then and ONLY then should you look at the performance you've got and then decide if another hard drive would be a good thing to have.....

 

I'm with Justin with what to upgrade, not only is the RAM easier to upgrade(W3v only has 1 slot used, other is free) its more cost effective, as RAM has always been.

However, if you got the cash, I'd go for 1.5gb RAM and the 7.2k, since you don't need to move all your files from the stock HD to the new one when you can buy it(It's not hard but time consuming )

 

(play it safe and follow my lead... there you go )

Yeah... RAM first.... 512 stick is like $70 and 1gb stick is like $120-130........ a 7200rpm drive can range... 60 - 100 going for $190-$330+ ..... obviously if the money was there do both, but play within your limits and know what is going to help and how and then you can upgrade accordingly.

 

Thanks for the advice... , I'll consider what you said.

May I just change topic here quickly, instead of making a new one.
The Sony Vaio Laptop, VGN-S5XP
Link: http://www.johnlewis.com/Gifts+and+...one/Technology/Laptops/230222879/Product.aspx

Seems to actually be alot better than the W3V, for video editing aswell, I mean it's got the bigger hard drive, its MUCH smaller, its got the xbrite screen, its got equivilant graphics and its got 2ghz processor, 1gb as standard!
I know it costs more, but is this machine really so much better than the W3V? because in my eyes it seems to blow it away.

 

Looks good on paper, but I've looked around, no reviews/comments on it much, so I/We can't really compare the two..

 

I bought an earlier version of the Sony (S2XP) a year ago. Six months ago I bought the W3A and sold the Sony. I agree that the Sony S is an impressive piece of engineering with essentially the same functionality with a smaller size and 80% of the weight. So why did I change?

1.The pixels on the 13.3" display were a bit small for my aging eyes. (I have had no problems with the W3).

2. The fan made an annoying whine. (This may have been fixed in the newer models).

3. I wanted dedicated page Up and Page Down keys.

4. The Sony's memory slot only reads MS, but my camera uses SD.

5. Changing the HDD involved dismantling the computer.

6. The optical drive (a slimline model) was very choosy about media to both read and write (it wouldn't write on Sony CDs!).

7. I needed an extra USB slot.

I don't regret my change. The Sony's battery life was good, but the W3's battery life with the 8 cell bettery is very good. The big battery is one reason why the W3 is heavier than most of the 14" machines.

I would repeat my previous advice. Get your W3. When funds permit, add 1GB RAM (cost ~£90, you may need to take out 256MB). When more funds permit, get a second HDD so that you can stream the video between the 2 HDDs when processing it.

John

 

Thank you John, although the only issues that you pointed out that would affect me would be the fan noise, yes, just the fan noise, I've checked your list several times.

Anyway, thanks for your advice, but I've yet to see an Asus W3V in stores, it's really annoying me how NO WHERE lets you see one.

 

Did you check Micro Anvika which has branches around the UK? It claims to have the W3V in stock http://www.microanvika.com/product.asp?TXT=INFO&PNO=ASU14322 .The specs of the available model (W3V-H012P) show 80GB 5400RPM HDD and the RAM is 1 x 512MB but the CPU is the Pentium M 740.

You might be able to see the W3 alongside the Sony S.

John

 

Excuse me if this is totally retarded but are saying for him to buy the laptop "as is" EXCEPT ram.. he needs to upgrade to 1gb+ but leave hard drive as is.

after using the laptop for awhile if he decides he needs "more" THEN he should upgrade to the 7200rpm hard drive???

(If he goes ahead and does it this way and then decides he needs afaster HD and installs it himself..wont he be voiding the warranty? whereas if he gets it from a retailer who customizes them he can still have atleast a 2 year..?)

Im just asking because i could read this and udnerstand 2 different ways and i want to be sure. im in the same dillema as him. I will be using my w3 for audio recording and you say "a 7200 rpm HD isnt going to do much if you run out of memory"..something i was questioning on another board and no one had an answer.

the question was..if i go ahead with 1 gig ram and the 7200rpm HD will 1 gig of ram suffice or will more ram be needed?





(Author, hope you dont mind me posing this question)

 

I don't think audio recording will need much RAM or HDD speed. I have seen Winamp rip CDs on my W3A at up to 12X. Processing video is much more demanding on resources.

How much RAM you need depends on the applications you use and how many you have open at any time. You should be able to determine this without buying a new computer. The moment you run out of physical RAM and Windows starts using the virtual memory on the HDD, then you get a major performance hit. If this coincides with software accessing the HDD then you will get a serious slow down.

If you are not really sure of what you need and your budget is constrained then buy the minimum and see where the problems lie. Remember that next year's components will be faster and cheaper (particularly for the HDD).

John

 

Yeah im kind of feeling weird about buying a 2,000 laptop online without seeing it in person first but mainly because im afriad the specs i choose might not be able to handle what im using the notebook for. But the reviews and everything i have heard about the w3 is pretty much outstanding. im just trying to be very careful about the specs i customize it with as i wont beable to return this.


as for the vaio's i looked into those. ive heard terrible, terrible, terrible things about not only customer service but the notebooks themselves. too many bad things to even chance getting one. i ran into all the bad reviews while trying to research the notebooks before purchasing.

they look sweet though. incredibly nice looking laptops. i know each brand has faulty laptops and people will always have problems somewhere down the line. but the things i heard about sony to me, it was just too risky to even try it. stupidity i guess it would be called.

however there are some happy with their sony. and sony's are easy to find in stores too. i played around with a vaio not too long ago.


but as for asus i have not read any horror stories. im sure some exist. but asus just seems to be an excellent brand.

One thing i did was google "asus sucks" to read any "horror stories" there might be, the ones i did find seemed to be with some motherboard or some parts they make. with sony... well... that's another story. and something i didnt want to deal with.

i feel confident buying an asus NOTEBOOK. :asus:

 

Sorry, not that kind of audio recording.


I compose music. So... I need a fast hard drive.. this i know. Initially I was planning on going with a 1 gig HD but i wondered if a faster(or larger) hard drive would somehow affect ram somehow. i dont know exactly how everything works but to be on the safe side.. because i know everythnig does work together.

eg.. i can have a fast processor but lack ram and have a computer that runs quite slow. but the moment i update ram the processor will be able to run its full speed thus having a faster computer.

but i guess since all ram is is like the allowance of having things open at once..like you said "How much RAM you need depends on the applications you use and how many you have open at any time."..then the HD speed/size wouldnt even affect that? it would only affect that if i ran out of ram and then comp began using the virtual memory? so key is just to have enough ram to run the programs i wish and the HD speed doesnt even come into play UNLESS i run out of ram?


i heard windows xp runs best on 1 gig ram. i guess for me i better stick with 1 gig in ONE slot. then if needed i can add more into slot #2.

should i be concerned about processor speed when adding in a 7200 rpm hd into the w3v or is the standard processor speed fine?

 

Do you carry out your composing on the move? If not, using an external 3.5" USB 2.0 or firewire HDD will give you all the speed and capacity you can get.

However, do you really need all that speed and capacity? Most current notebook HDDs can read and write at over 20MB/s (unless badly fragmented) and this represents 1.2GB/minute.

Many specifications for hardware requirements were written several years ago when the hardware was much slower. The example I quoted above of the CD ripping depends primarily on the CPU (it sits at 100% utilisation) to do the MP3 conversion and to a lesser extent on the CD reading speed. You can learn a lot from studying how your software runs on whatever computer you use at present: Is the CPU running at 100%?; how much RAM (physical / virtual) is being used and by what; and how long does it take to read or write files of a known size.

However, there will always be a constraint on the overall speed. If data can move fast enough then it will be the CPU and you have to decide whether it is worthwhile to invest another $100 (or whatever) to have a faster CPU that will do in 9.5 minutes what would otherwise take 10 minutes.

I will make a hypothetical example of a 100 MB file that is read from HDD, processed and then written back to the HDD. In this case reading and writing from / to the HDD will take 4 or 5 seconds each and the rest of the time the data can sit in the RAM and be accessed by the CPU at bus speed depending on the CPUs ability to process the data. This could take several minutes. Now, if that file is 1 GB then, unless you have sufficient physical RAM to hold the whole file, it will either be processed in blocks or Windows will put part of the file into virtual memory. This will slow down the data flow, particularly if the data goes into virtual memory.

If you are processing very large quantities of data with limited processing by the CPU then using two hard disks will be much faster than one. Instead of HDD access being a two-way business where reading the next batch has to wait until the previous batch has been written, one HDD can read a continuous stream of data and the other HDD can write a continuous stream of data.

Hope this helps to clarify and not confuse and that I have not repeated myself too much,

John

 

I keep looking at the Sony VGN S5XP and apart from it being a couple hundred more than the W3V it's actually alot better, it's tiny yet has the same graphics, amazing xbrite screen, bigger hard drive and more ram as STANDARD.

Well im off to work, im only a few days of work from the W3V or the sony!

 

John- I had written something to you this morning and my flippin' laptop SHUT OFF(Something it does lately, hence my more urgent need for a new laptop) and i lost it all.

I just got home and its almost 2 am so I am going to try and rewrite it tomorrow and I hope you will come by the thread again to answer.


Thanks for your replies so far!