System recommendations for editing 3K raw Scarlet footage

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The upcoming chipsets are more exciting than the Sandy Bridge CPUs, IMO. Although, those who can use the cores for rendering, etc.. the 8-core SB CPUs in about 6 months will be a nice bump. The new chipsets bring more PCIe lanes and other offerings. The next CPUs to really get excited over are the Ivy Bridge ones, which are probably still 14 to 16 months away. This is the next process shrink to 22nm. Sandy Bridge architecture should allow for the LGA2011 socket right from the start, which means we should be able to drop Ivy Bridge CPUs into a Sandy Bridge system, just as we could drop WestMere CPUs into a Nehalem motherboard, provided we had a proper EFI/BIOS update. The only issue I really see coming is that motherboard makers may not include the necessary voltage regulating options to allow such an upgrade. With the 22nm shrink, we will see quad and 6 core offerings for mobile CPUs and possibly even 8-core mobile CPUs Q1 or Q2 2012.

 

[Joseph Podlesnik]

That's fine. 12GB can be a bit light on the RAM, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Many apps are still 32bit and can't use more than 2~3 GB of RAM anyway. This includes the current tools from RED. Adobe CS5 is 64bit, but with the exception of AfterEffects, you really won't need more than 12GB unless you're doing a lot of very complex projects or you're trying to load up several apps at once. If you can go to 24GB, then do. But also watch out for higher memory capacities on that motherboard and most motherboards out there. They often force the RAM to run at slower clock speeds as capacity increases. So you may be taking a performance hit in that regard.

Thanks, Jeff, for this very helpful, nice and tidy summation.

Don't waste your time/money. First of all, two of these isn't going to be enough. 600GB is nowhere near enough storage for working with 3K RAW or HD footage unless you're only going to work on a single short film at a time or a TVC or two and then offload all that to backups before starting anything else. You will get faster and more reliable performance, as well as 3.5X the capacity, out of 4 x 1TB 7200rpm HDDs in a RAID-5.

This may be more of a waste of 'time' than money here, as the 2 300GB WD 10K drives are a carry-over from my current system. I have some AVCHD projects that I'll be working on BEFORE Scarlet (light of my life) ships, so the two 300 GB drives will suffice for now. Four 1TB 72Krpm drives in RAID-5. Gotcha! THANK YOU.

And set up a good methodology for backup and archival.

Gotta research this. Thanks, fellas!

If you don't need this system now, then I would wait. By the time Scarlet is shipping, there's going to be entirely new options to consider.

Actually my current system, described above, can't even handle AVCHD, so I do need this system now (arriving custom-built from WA state on/around Sept 8th). What with a processor upgrade (to i7 980x) and RAM increase, both of which the above-mentioned Asus motherboard supports, and your helpful suggestion on the storage array set-up (plus the Nvidia graphics card's support of PPro's mercury playback engine) I *trust* I should be able to work with RED 3k raw footage within a PPro working environment. According to the PPBM5.com site, dual-cpu machines don't seem to be as needed as they were before, correct? Thanks again, Jeff.

 

[brian hanson]

Please don't attack me for my technical ignorance. But what I would really like to know is what off the shelf PC and Mac is going to work with 3K footage. And what is the minimum extras your going to want IF any to cut this stuff.

These days new Computers have pretty beefy Specs so i am wondering what systems people have used and have done the job. I wanted to go mac cause I like Final Cut and was hoping the new Imac would work. But Ilive in Asia where mac are not the norm so wondering about the PC option as well.

been wondering the same thing as far as mac is concerned. I just sold my macbook pro, i was running 4 gigs of ram, 2.4 ghz intel duocore and it could not handle 4k red files. I would like to wait til scarlet drops to buy a new computer, assuming that happens towards the end of the year what would be a good option?

 

[Arun R]

How about the Dell Precision M4500 Mobile workstation for 3k post work on Premiere CS5
spec here: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor (6M Cache, 1.6GHz ,6GB Dual-channel 1333MHz,500GB 7.2k RPM,& NVIDIA® Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB memory

Does anyone have idea about this system ?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

One thing to keep in mind if you're running CS5. The Mercury Playback Engine is still predominantly CPU based for much of what it does. As far as processing RED footage, it is entirely CPU based for the debater and demosaic operations, but gains its speed from multiple CPU cores. GPU acceleration is for color LUT application, scaling, transitions and FX that support GPU acceleration, etc.. So to maximize Premiere CS5, you need both a good GPU and a number of CPUs. It seems Mercury Engine scales very well up to about 10 CPUs or so. On a system with 12 cores (24 virtual), I can start to see a lot of performance fall-off right around the 12 core mark. Transitions and FX label themselves to let you know if they're GPU accelerated or not.

6 physical cores (12 virtual) is great for running CS5. It's a great balance for the current software and when combined with a capable GPU, it can handle multiple streams of 3K and 4K REDCODE with ease if the rest of your system can keep up -- fast RAID to work from, etc..

That Dell Precision M4500 should be a great mobile platform for CS5. But I haven't worked with one myself.

 

[Graham_C]

The upcoming chipsets are more exciting than the Sandy Bridge CPUs, IMO. Although, those who can use the cores for rendering, etc.. the 8-core SB CPUs in about 6 months will be a nice bump. The new chipsets bring more PCIe lanes and other offerings.

Just how significant are the upcoming chipsets,and should i therefore assume that current one`s are something of a bottleneck ?..it seems more popular to focus on cpu speed and vast amounts of Ram,when in fact it may be wise to pay just as much attention to the chipsets and associated systems,or have i got my thinking upside down?

 

[Randall Nott]

Just wanted to note that if you're planning a system similar to this, the i7 950 CPU is supposed to have a price cut to $294 starting next week.

I wonder how quickly they'll become hard to find. Also, the Quadro 4000 has been released which out-performs the 3800 for about half the street price (seeing them around $750).

 

[Joseph Podlesnik]

6 physical cores (12 virtual) is great for running CS5. It's a great balance for the current software and when combined with a capable GPU, it can handle multiple streams of 3K and 4K REDCODE with ease if the rest of your system can keep up -- fast RAID to work from, etc..

Jeff, this is like GOLD to me. Thanks!

Ok:

6 core cpu (or TWO 6+ core cpus)
24 to 48GB RAM
3 or 4 1 TB 7200 rpm drives configured to RAID-5

and we're off to the races with a 3K raw Scarlet (16mm film equivalent) post workflow. Thanks again! :hurray:

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Just how significant are the upcoming chipsets,and should i therefore assume that current one`s are something of a bottleneck?

Upcoming chipsets are significant in that they provide more PCIe lanes among other things. But current chipsets are not a bottleneck with the current CPUs. The new chipsets will arrive with the new CPUs for use with those CPUs... If you are using Nehalem or Westmere current Xeons, you only have the option of two Intel chipsets. If you are running i7, there are chipsets available from Intel and nVidia. Both have very good options.

Jeff, this is like GOLD to me. Thanks!

Ok:

6 core cpu (or TWO 6+ core cpus)
24 to 48GB RAM
3 or 4 1 TB 7200 rpm drives configured to RAID-5

48GB RAM will be overkill. You can go with two 6-core CPUs, but it will drastically increase the price of your system. Probably not worth it at this stage and the benefits of the additional CPU/cores is mostly seen in rendering applications.

If you already have the 10Krpm HDDs, I would say use them. May as well. The two together in a RAID-0 would make a nice scratch disk for temp files and audio.

For your primary RAID, I say go with RAID-0 if you use 2 or 3 drives. If you go with 4, it's really a toss-up between RAID-0 and RAID-5. 0 still offers more performance, 5 a bit more security at the expense of less capacity and speed. With 5 drives and up, it's best to use RAID-5 or RAID-6 for the security it provides and by adding more drives you move away from the performance problems and storage obviously increases with more... With a good controller (Areca, ATTO, etc..) performance will be good.

For your RAID, do your best to keep each drive on its own SAS/SATA channel. When you get into cheaper solutions, typically external RAID cabinets that connect via 1 or 2 SATA ports, you begin using port multipliers. They're fine and great for attaching multiple drives to a single port, but it kills your bandwidth.

The fastest 7200rpm HDDs out there right now are the Western Digital Black-X 1TB 6Gbps SATA w/ 64MB cache. They're awesome, but expensive and faster than the 10K VelociRaptors in many tests. The Hitachi or WD 3Gbps models with 32MB cache are less than half the price. 2TB drives are great for capacity and both the Hitachi and WD units seem to be very reliable so far here. But they are slow compared to the latest 1TB units. More platters and not as many heads per surface area (not enough room in that drive enclosure), so slower drives.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

The 2010 Westen Digital VelociRaptor 600GB are the fastest hard drives out there today. Do note that the older 300GB VelociRaptors are much slower. The second fastest is the Samsung Spinpoint F3, followed by WD Black. However, two Spinpoint F3 1TBs in RAID0 will be faster than a single VelociRaptor, half the price, and provide greater storage! For multiple drives, RAID 0+1 is an interesting option. In my experience, it offers very erratic write speeds - dipping well below what you would expect on a single drive.

Also, Nvidia have exited the chipset business for over a year now. The only Core i7 chipsets are made by Intel, and Intel only.

 

[Joseph Podlesnik]

48GB RAM will be overkill. You can go with two 6-core CPUs, but it will drastically increase the price of your system. Probably not worth it at this stage and the benefits of the additional CPU/cores is mostly seen in rendering applications.

48GB RAM will be down the road some, certainly not now. And you're not kidding about the cost of the two 6 core cpus. Two Xeon 5680x cpus will run about $3,400 (about the cost of my entire new upgrade), not to mention a motherboard that will support this. I don't think one can run the i7 980x in dual configuration, yes?

If you already have the 10Krpm HDDs, I would say use them. May as well. The two together in a RAID-0 would make a nice scratch disk for temp files and audio.

Thanks, yes I will. They're two of the slower 300 GB Velociraptor drives. I don't intend to trash them yet, plus the Areca RAID card should help,

For your primary RAID, I say go with RAID-0 if you use 2 or 3 drives. If you go with 4, it's really a toss-up between RAID-0 and RAID-5. 0 still offers more performance, 5 a bit more security at the expense of less capacity and speed. With 5 drives and up, it's best to use RAID-5 or RAID-6 for the security it provides and by adding more drives you move away from the performance problems and storage obviously increases with more... With a good controller (Areca, ATTO, etc..) performance will be good.

For your RAID, do your best to keep each drive on its own SAS/SATA channel. When you get into cheaper solutions, typically external RAID cabinets that connect via 1 or 2 SATA ports, you begin using port multipliers. They're fine and great for attaching multiple drives to a single port, but it kills your bandwidth.

The fastest 7200rpm HDDs out there right now are the Western Digital Black-X 1TB 6Gbps SATA w/ 64MB cache. They're awesome, but expensive and faster than the 10K VelociRaptors in many tests. The Hitachi or WD 3Gbps models with 32MB cache are less than half the price. 2TB drives are great for capacity and both the Hitachi and WD units seem to be very reliable so far here. But they are slow compared to the latest 1TB units. More platters and not as many heads per surface area (not enough room in that drive enclosure), so slower drives.

Thanks for the added info. Am writing all of this down.

 

[Steven Hammer]

As far as I know, there are no motherboards that support multiple i7 chips. If you want multiple CPUs, you have to go with Xeon and server motherboards. There are a bunch out there, though, and you could certainly build an amazing system if you don't mind spending >$5,000 or more.

Oh, does anyone recommend SSDs for any part of a system? I hear that they're not good to write to, but that if you put the operating system and Premiere Pro on the SSD and then set the operating system to "not write" to the SSD, that you could get some performance boosts because the software response off the SSD would be lightning fast. Has anyone tested this?

 

[Subhadip Sen]

As far as I know, there are no motherboards that support multiple i7 chips. If you want multiple CPUs, you have to go with Xeon and server motherboards. There are a bunch out there, though, and you could certainly build an amazing system if you don't mind spending >$5,000 or more.

Oh, does anyone recommend SSDs for any part of a system? I hear that they're not good to write to, but that if you put the operating system and Premiere Pro on the SSD and then set the operating system to "not write" to the SSD, that you could get some performance boosts because the software response off the SSD would be lightning fast. Has anyone tested this?

Do you have a source for this? Because, from whatever reviews I have read, the write speed is great for SSDs.

In fact, random write speed is one of SSD's major trump cards. Even the fastest of hard drives do sub-1 MB/s whereas the fastest SSD can do well over 50MB/s. Even the cheapest SSD will outperform the hard disks by several times.

If you are intend on working with multiple layers of R3D or other high bitrate footage (maybe even uncompressed), SSDs are a must.

 

[Steven Hammer]

Do you have a source for this? Because, from whatever reviews I have read, the write speed is great for SSDs.

In fact, random write speed is one of SSD's major trump cards. Even the fastest of hard drives do sub-1 MB/s whereas the fastest SSD can do well over 50MB/s. Even the cheapest SSD will outperform the hard disks by several times.

If you are intend on working with multiple layers of R3D or other high bitrate footage (maybe even uncompressed), SSDs are a must.

My "source" was a salesman at Fry's... so, take it for what it's worth, i.e. not much. However, before I was talking to him, I had read about write speeds slowing down over time. But, I didn't have a good source or any first hand knowledge, which is why I was asking.

Here's something interesting:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/15

This article basically says that, yes, SSD write speeds do degrade over time, but even at their most degraded state, they're still way faster than HDDs.

I'm curious, does anyone have experience with this?

The other concern, of course, is that getting much memory in an SSD becomes VERY expensive. But, I guess if someone had enough money, they could get a 256 GB SSD for the operating system and applications and another for working files and then set up a RAID 5 with a bunch of HDDs for storage.

 

[james Mallon]

been wondering the same thing as far as mac is concerned. I just sold my macbook pro, i was running 4 gigs of ram, 2.4 ghz intel duocore and it could not handle 4k red files. I would like to wait til scarlet drops to buy a new computer, assuming that happens towards the end of the year what would be a good option?

I expect a lot people are wondering what fast budget off the shelf machine will cut Red footage, but let everyone here talk Motherboards and chip-sets until they get bored and maybe a normal person who doesn't live in their parents basement and builds computers for "fun" :emote_hanged: can share for the sake of the majority.

 

[Eric Lagerlof]

I know that people are looking at upgrades but what about existing systems? I've got an Intel 9450 quadcore with 8 gigs of ram and will be running CS5. I guess I will need to do a raid configuration but I'm hoping that it can handle 1 layer of 3k along with 1 layer of HDV for a specific set of projects. Any thoughts?

 

[Keith Stark]

Well, I'm not the best source, but for what it's worth. A few weeks ago I brought a copy of some of the old "red relay (4K)" clips over to a friends house. He's running vegas 9 on a fairly new off the shelf but beefy icore. I want to say it had 4gig or ram, but nothing special beyond that. I was able to view with the preview at 1/4 no problem. Rendered to 1080p with color correction in something like 3-4X real time, didn't notice any de-bayering issues. However, I did not have a large number of clips loaded...

 

[Alan Carpenter]

Joseph, I am not sure how to take this but the Asus docs on the P6x58d motherboard say in
Section 2.4.2 "Due to Intel spec definition, XMP DIMMS and DDR3-1600 are supported for one DIMM per channel only".

Yet I've seen several reviews where they are testing 12GB of RAM at these rates. The Asus forums seems to say it may work, but it's not guaranteed.

Corsair seems to think this is ok
http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85853

Also, there's the variant called the P6x58d-e: http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1015&page=1
Lower cost and pretty much the same.