I actually do daily video editing, and a 5 year old rig that hasn't been treated all that well still does the job. Sadly, in order to get it to function with video files of higher quality, ones that I can edit in real time, I have to recode the video at a lower quality, edit it, and then replace it with the original. So in about a year and a half, I'll be switching to my fifth PC. I really hope I won't have the same headaches with drivers that Brad has had. I'll do my best to keep things simple, just a six cored beast with 16-24 GB of ram and over 2TB of HDD space. No complicated stuff.
Although that last bit has been bothering me. So far, I've only had one HDD fail on me, after about 4 years of constant use, and it was already used when I got it. Now, everywhere I look in the comments for an HDD, all I see is "had bad sectors, returned it, other one was broken as well". All I can think of now is "what would happen if the whole archive goes dead over night". I've had nightmares about stuff like this in the past, ever since I accidentally deleted a week's worth of shows, and had to redo them all in one day.
For a while I thought of going the SSD route, but the price on one is just ridiculous right now. But maybe in 1.5 years they'll drop to something I can manage on a budget. This is certainly going to be the most expensive PC/thing I ever bought, but hell, unless they invent something with higher definition than 1080 HD, and make it the new standard, I'll be safe for another couple of years. I just wish my favorite hardware store hadn't gone out of business. Ordering components on-line around here can yield surprising results.
At least I'll finally be able to see what this Windows 7 hubbub is all about, although by then, Windows 9 will probably be in production already. Although, then I'd have to change the software, and that's going to cost a lot as well.
I don't really mind the computer being loud, as long as the noise means it's doing it's job and working fine. Ever since my old 8800Ultra video card went up in flames, I want to hear the fans running, just to make sure they're not dead or on fire. Also, to prevent stuff like that in the future, I actually stuck a room fan to the case of this PC. So far, it hasn't spontaneously combusted.
I hope your new rig treats you well, without giving you any more problems and without needing upgrades anytime soon. It sounds like a beast of a machine, so unless you plan on building SkyNet, it should handle a lot.
PS: Please, don't built SkyNet.
