Those are some nice processor specs (I know AMD is the leader in 64-bit on the PC side of things, but all these should be comparable) and 2GB RAM is a good number to aim for. This setup should work very nicely with pretty much any editing suite.

I would recommend a hard drive a LOT bigger than 80 gigs. Of course, how much drive space you need will be dependent on the length of your projects and how many you'll be working on at the same time. I have found that for my needs (one feature-length film and several shorts), a comfortable amount of working space is 900 gigs. This may sound like a lot, but 500 gigs is external storage for backups and archived footage and such, then I've got an 80 gig drive for the system and application files and all my non-movie related documents, and a 300 gig drive just for storing video and project files.

You can probably survive on 80-100 gigs, but it's bound to be tight, and it's no fun to need to comb through your files and delete anything non-essential just so you can capture that last little clip.

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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my vodcast on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=96931870
and my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com

Avid don't like AMD, so if you plan to run Avid software, buy the Pentium.

Can editing programs also run on Laptops...?

Life is definitely something that takes practice...

I've never heard of (or personally experienced) any problems regarding running Avid on an AMD architecture, but I don't really keep up with the PC side of things, so it's quite possible that there are problems and I've just never heard of them.

Laptops certainly can (and DO) run editing software, but tend to be a bit more sluggish (especially if running on battery power), and they're less expandable so you'll probably end up with several external hard drives. Also, note that any laptop powerful enough to run the latest versions of Avid, Premiere or Vegas smoothly and responsively are going to generate a LOT of heat.

This is not to say it can't be done--I'll be switching from a G5 to Final Cut on a MacBook later this month, myself. But again, I've got 800 gigs of external storage to lug around with me, so it won't exactly be 'portable.'

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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my vodcast on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=96931870
and my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com

quote:

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I've never heard of (or personally experienced) any problems regarding running Avid on an AMD architecture

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Then you don't read the Avid web boards often enough.