Is this a solid first-timers PC to build?

[Zach Tucker]

I've been waiting for the new mac pro's (take long much?) but needed to get a new rig now and equivalent mac is about $8000 compared to the $5300 below. Opted for a pc with cs5 as I do CG as well and the workstation GPU's are a'plenty on the pc side. below is what i'm about to buy. given my budget and trolling these and many other forums this is what I managed to throw together. Again, primarly cs5 (with hddslr footage and eventually red footage) and CG apps like maya.

Windows 7 64-bit Pro (i've confirmed all parts below are either win7 compatible from microsoft or have drivers for win7 64bit)

ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614&cm_re=p6x58d-_-13-131-614-_-Product

Cooler Master ATCS 840 Aluminum Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=cooler_master_840-_-11-119-186-_-Product

i980x intel extreme 3.33ghz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115223&cm_re=980x-_-19-115-223-_-Product

24gb RAM 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220477

Corsair H50 liquid cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010&cm_re=H50-_-35-181-010-_-Product

Areca 1222 raid controler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151039&Tpk=areca 1222

8x 1TB WD Caviar Black drives (i went with higher priced non-OEM drives for piece of mind and 5 year warranty)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD1002FAEX/

CMPSU-1000HX Corsair PSU 1000w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139007

PNY Quadro FX 3800 (again, i want mercury playback and workstation-class GPU for CG so i'm avoiding ATI and Geforce)

and some other nuggets.

i'm putting 6 of the drives in the case as raid 5 on the areca, one in a closet for a matching-brand spare and 1 for a system drive. i figure that gives me about 4.5 TB of usable space with at least 300 MB/s read/write, plenty for my projects. i avoided SSD for a system drive as i don't really need that uber speed and all my data gets backed up off-site nightly, and hourly locally. i chose to keep it all pretty mainstream (non-server mobo, single fast chip) as this is the first time i'll have built a computer and i figure mainstream (and a huge case) will make it easier to make it all happen.

anything crazy wrong with this??


Thanks!

.z

 

[Allan Tabilas]

Everything here looks pretty good, very powerful gear with the future in mind. If you are going all out with the Core i7 980x cpu, I'd suggest getting a Geforce GTX 260, 285, 470, 480, or newer cards, as they are likely much faster than the FX 3800 (that's based on older generation hardware than the two year old G92 based Geforce 260/285s = Quadro CX/5800 series of cards). Then just use the mercury playback engine "hack" to get the unsupported nvidia cards to work with cs5.

http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm

 

[Uli Plank]

I wouldn't hack, you never know what happens next at Adobe. The GTX 285 is officially supported, and the 470 or 480 look like good candidates for the next version.

 

[Allan Tabilas]

I wouldn't hack, you never know what happens next at Adobe. The GTX 285 is officially supported, and the 470 or 480 look like good candidates for the next version.

It's not really a hack, other than editing a text file to add your new card (like a 9800GT, GT 240, GTS 250, GTX 260, 460, 465, 470, 480, and so on), and changing a setting in the nvidia drivers. It's completely non-destructive. That said, the GTX 285 is officially supported, but slower than the 470/480 from a pure architecture standpoint. I've tested it on two GTX 260 models with no problems, and it works on $90 9800 GT / GT 240 models. The minimum requirement is 1GB on the GPU however.

http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm

Also Zack if you aren't overclocking I'd use the Intel heatsink fan solution included with the retail cpu. Either than, the Corsair self contained watercooling unit H50, or some other high end air (Noctua or Thermalright, etc), or other watercooling.

24GB of ram is pretty sick, even if you aren't doing that much motion graphics/vfx with After Effects. AE CS5 and even Photoshop, doing massive panorama stills, can use all that ram (again, overkill, but sick). Also, the CS5 programs (Premiere, Pro, AE, PS) share a pool of memory, but each program can go outside the pool AFAIK (AE for sure).

 

[Zach Tucker]

i'm all for spending less money on a gtx 285 or gtx 480, but until someone convinces me that a card like this will work full-on in a 3d CG app environment, i'd be hesitant to commit. Yes, the gtx 285 is supported for CS5 but there are some very real issues with non-workstation-class cards in 3D apps like maya. I've used non-workstation cards in Houdini/Maya before and they suffer miserably. Maybe for the lighter weight stuff they're ok, but for heavy duty particle simulations, etc, they choke. Can someone prove me otherwise?

thanks again

.z

 

[Peter Moretti]

Zach,

You are correct, the Quadro cards do render fine detail and construct some surfaces in CAD/CAM apps better than gaming cards do.

I don't believe this issue also exists with video editing apps, but I can't tell you for certain.

 

[Ricardo Reyes]

i'm putting 6 of the drives in the case as raid 5 on the areca, one in a closet for a matching-brand spare and 1 for a system drive. i figure that gives me about 4.5 TB of usable space with at least 300 MB/s read/write, plenty for my projects. i avoided SSD for a system drive as i don't really need that uber speed and all my data gets backed up off-site nightly, and hourly locally. i chose to keep it all pretty mainstream (non-server mobo, single fast chip) as this is the first time i'll have built a computer and i figure mainstream (and a huge case) will make it easier to make it all happen.

.z

The Areca ARC-1222 is a good choice to RAID internal disks. I would also suggest looking at the Areca ARC-1680ix-8, which has 2 internal MiniSAS ports to connect the six drives, plus it has an external port to add additional storage if you need it down the road.

http://arecaraid.com/product_info.php?cPath=49&products_id=65

 

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

i just built a new build myself. heres my advice.

dont bother with the corsair h50 water cooler. i have it. its nothing special temps are same as a very cheap air cooler. get a nice air cooler instead. the h50 doesnt hold a candle to a $80 air cooler. anyways u gotta throw fans on the rad anyway.

i love ur hd setup. i love my caviar blacks. very reliable.

i wouldnt spend that much on the cpu. id much sooner go for a 930 and oc. for the amount of money u save, ul have a small drop in rendering performance mainly cause premiere absolutly loves those cuda cards- (480 myself) and uses the card alot to do the rendering. but bla bla. i dont know that much about that stuff but there ya go.

 

[H. Farberg]

For this much money, get yourself a nice SSD to put your operating system and apps on. Either Intel or OCZ Vertex 2. It will literally save you minutes over a day's use.

 

[Danno Anderson]

Here is Adobe's third party hardward recommended list for CS5.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/dvhdwrdb.html

It has been reported on this forum for GPU's you can add GTX480 to this list soon.

For GPU's

Manufacturer Model Support NotesATIRadeon X1950 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportATIRadeon X1900 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportATIX1900 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportATIFire GL V5700Full supportATIFire GL V5600Full supportATIFire GL V7700Full supportATIFire GL V7750Full supportATIFire GL V8650Full supportNVIDIAGeForce 7300 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAQuadro FX 55/5600 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAQuadro FX 4500 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAQuadro FX 3500 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAQuadro FX 1500 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAGeForce 8800 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAGeForce 7800 PCI-ExpressLegacy supportNVIDIAGeForce GTX 285Full supportGPU AccelerationNVIDIAQuadro 380Full supportNVIDIAQuadro FX 3800Full supportGPU AccelerationNVIDIAQuadro FX 4800Full supportGPU AccelerationNVIDIAQuadro FX 5800Full supportGPU AccelerationNVIDIAQuadro CXFull supportGPU Acceleration

 

[Bob Gruen]

I'd do storage a lot differently...

Lian-Li has 2 cases that have 12 external 5.25" bays. Populating them with 4 into 3 adapters w/ fans gets you to 16 internal 3.5" bays.

Adaptec RAID 51645 has 16 internal and 4 external SATA ports. They have been doing it longer and better than anyone else.

Seagate 1.5 TB drives have the best storage/value/performance ratio of anything running today IMHO... With the Adaptec you can add disks to existing volumes as needed, but I'd probably start with a single volume of 6 disks in a RAID 6 and add additional whole volumes down the road as needed.

Spend an additional couple of hundred dollars up front and you'll never have to buy the expensive external high performance disk system.

Oh, and get a tape drive cause no disk system is bulletproof.

Bob