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Custom built PCs are rising.. after CS5

Mohammed El Sharqawy

Mohammed El Sharqawy

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did you guys noticed that a lot of people are asking about custom PC configurations after the announcement of CS5?

maybe overclockers will get have place.. or people begin to learn overclocking.. I've just became one since two weeks ago..

thoughts?
 
Hi Mohammed.. Good to hear from you.

I thought many time of overclocking but never tried it. I am planning to build a PC myself, and I would be very interested to know more about the experience users are having with overclocking.
 
It's up to you but.

It's up to you but.

First the good news.

This is way easier than it used to be and several manufactures have helped this process along with components to reduce the number of headaches.

http://www.tomshardware.com/us/ is an excellent resource.

OK, having said that I don't do it anymore.

The percentage gains aren't worth the headaches in my opinion. While it's easier you are still coloring outside the lines, and the lines are there for a reason.

Hardware components don't generally perform as consistently outside those parameters.

A lot of times they do, some brands are quite reliable... until they aren't, and I don't want to track all that stuff anymore.

Really the base CPU horsepower is only a part of the equation.

You can't imagine the number of people who've asked my why their spendy machines are slow, only to determine that they've spent all their money on CPU and GPU and have a boot drive and a "scratch disk" a single 7200 RPM dirve.

If it were me, I'd spend the extra money (cooling, fancy case, higher dollar components) on a good raid card and more hard drives.

Moving video around, you'd be better off with more drives in a raid 5 than a little bit more CPU. Gig drives are well under a hundred dollars, so eight of those and an atto card and you're going to be happier... trust me.

Cheers,

Steve
 
I built a quad core (8 thread) overclocked i7 recently, water cooled 2.66ghz running at 4ghz, very stable, cool runing, SSD system drive, very fast indeed, 4 x Raid 0 1gb Samsung Spinpoint video drives, SSD data drive. The new cheaper i7 6 core (12 thread) should appear soon from Intel to boost performance once more. Windows 7 64 bit makes a massive improvemment too.

One drawback, overclocking limits the amount of RAM you can employ, the higher the clock hike, the less RAM you can support, the above system has a huge rise from 2.66 to 4ghz, so only supports 6gb RAM. An i7 980 native at 3.3ghz could run say 18gb RAM, but the overclock you could achieve would be limited, however, modern mobo's with sata III and usb3 as well as multiple graphics card support (some have 3) are scary fast (and cheap) as well as offering very simple DIY overclocking.

Go for it, it's fun and cheap too!

Paul
 
install

install

If you are building a system it may be better to install windows with the overclock at normal, then after windows is installed and verified, try the overclock. Install might fail if the computer is too overclocked, but might run fine at that speed later, at least for a while...

Disk I/O can make more of an improvement than CPU on some tasks that involve reading and writing files, using SSD in RAID and such... Look at your harddisk light, if it is on much of the time then RAID may be worth looking into... There are some very fast DRAM drives made that replace HD and Flash SSD with DRAM banks.
 
Paul Bates said:
One drawback, overclocking limits the amount of RAM you can employ, the higher the clock hike, the less RAM you can support, the above system has a huge rise from 2.66 to 4ghz, so only supports 6gb RAM. An i7 980 native at 3.3ghz could run say 18gb RAM, but the overclock you could achieve would be limited, however, modern mobo's with sata III and usb3 as well as multiple graphics card support (some have 3) are scary fast (and cheap) as well as offering very simple DIY overclocking.
Click to expand...

Why's that? even with memory dividers? Are you overclocking/overvolting your memory as well? You should be able to overclock your cpu with no effect on memory, no?

Dan Hudgins said:
If you are building a system it may be better to install windows with the overclock at normal, then after windows is installed and verified, try the overclock. Install might fail if the computer is too overclocked, but might run fine at that speed later, at least for a while...
Click to expand...

Really? This can happen to a machine with a 24hour Prime95/OCCT tested overclock? I assume people are stability testing their overclocks before running them full time.
 
Stephen Lovett said:
First the good news.

If it were me, I'd spend the extra money (cooling, fancy case, higher dollar components) on a good raid card and more hard drives.

Moving video around, you'd be better off with more drives in a raid 5 than a little bit more CPU. Gig drives are well under a hundred dollars, so eight of those and an atto card and you're going to be happier... trust me.

Cheers,

Steve
Click to expand...

Yep. I have a mac pro 8-core, but instead of getting the 2.93 I went for the 2.26 to save a few thousand, and got the Atto raid card, and my cores are almost never fully used, except when using compressor as an internal qmaster cluster. My raid can do 625MBps, and the performance is great all around. If I had spent more money on more processing power, I wouldn't have been able to get as nice of a raid card or as large of a raid setup, if at all.

Tim
 
Stephen Lovett said:
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/ is an excellent resource.

OK, having said that I don't do it anymore.

The percentage gains aren't worth the headaches in my opinion. While it's easier you are still coloring outside the lines, and the lines are there for a reason.
Click to expand...

Tom's is a unrealiable source. In the past (years ago) they fudged some reviews and I have never trusted them since.

However I do agree that often the headaches are not worth the trouble.

Most people here are interested in building production rigs, where reliability is paramount, because it doesn't matter how fast your computer is, if it doesn't boot up.

Not to say that there are no simple and easy tweaks that give you good preformance boosts, but generally there are no free gigahurtz.

Before you overclock a production machine ask:
how much is my time worth if this machine goes down?
 
I used to build custom gaming PC's. I would never reccomend overclocking an edit rig, the gains you get are not worth the rig dying during a client session.
 
Here is wikipedia's warning on overclocking, from a lengthy article packed with a lot of good information.
------------
Considerations

There are several considerations when overclocking. First is to ensure that the component is supplied with adequate power to operate at the new clock rate. However, supplying the power with improper settings or applying excessive voltage can permanently damage a component. Since tight tolerances are required for overclocking, only more expensive motherboards—with advanced settings that computer enthusiasts are likely to use—have built-in overclocking capabilities. Motherboards with fewer settings, such as those found in Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) systems, often do not support overclocking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking
 
Dan Kanes said:
Uggggghhh Windows...I think I just got siiick.

The Solution:

www.tonymacx86.blogspot.com
Click to expand...

I use tonymac's method, its quite good, but certainly still can be a bit of work. It is nice to have access to FCP but I must say, but I dont share your sentiment about windows 7. I'm guessing you dont use it very much? Even on my dual boot custom workstation, I still pretty much end up only using OSX for FCP and its slightly less terrible support for 7D and RED footage. Probably will be using OSX even less with CS5 as premiere's format support is much better for RED and 7D (natively playback together realtime on the same timeline). Guess I'll still have to leave OSX on here for some RED applications (redrushes etc) and access to fcp projects...

As for overclocking, I do think its not for everyone, and it seems to me half the people who overclock do it for bragging rights, less so for real practical benefits. That said, I dont view overclocking as this this special case. If intel takes a chip and calls it 2.6Ghz does that mean its 2.6Ghz? Binning is often somewhat arbitrary from what I understand. If you are so worried about rock solid stability, why arent more people underclocking/undervolting their CPUs? The only way to have 100% stability is to not turn your computer on.

In some ways attempting overclocking can be worthwhile in that it allows you to learn more about the real stability limits your CPU and your system. You dont see too many people running stability tests on their stock CPUs, but it can be worthwhile to do so to be sure that in the most stressed situations your computer has adequate cooling etc and adjust accordingly. I might even say that in some situations an overclocked computer with carefully monitored and tested stability and cooling may in some cases be more stable than a massproduced off the shelf computer with who knows what kind of cooling system and thermal compounds. Some companies *ahem* (apple) sometimes release great looking computers but think fan vents are too unsightly to include in their design so your computer overheats out of the box... this is not good for stability and can reduce the life of internal components.
 
concerning custom built PC's...thats all I've ever used...

unless you don't have time or an interest I find it's always better and cheaper with a custom built unit

as far as overclocking you will find it does not help with a lot of apps and you won't notice the difference....

but there are exceptions...Lightwave for instance(and other 3d apps)will respond in a linear way to your overclock....10% overclock=10% faster rendering...when you are dealing with 15 minutes a frame that can add up to a lot...but it's using 100% on each core...apps like adobe media encoder and such are usually only at about 60-80% cpu and in those cases they have other design bottlenecks that don't benefit as much from ghz increases.

and as far as the whole windows/mac rules thing....OS's are just the container for applications...windows isn't behind any of the creative software I use....but what you get using that container is full access to 64bit apps and the priveledge of multiple gpu's of any design and type you want and using a gamma that the rest of the world has adopted.

just food for thought....if your using a full screen app...what do you care whats going on under the hood as long as the math behind it is fast and accurate

don't get me wrong, I own and love mac....I just wouldn't let that get in the way of building a kick ass pc
 
have to read the blog to find out why...not sure

probably isn't completely compatible with non-mac hardware
 
Mike Harrington said:
serious???

first step from the blog

//BEFORE YOU BEGIN

•If you have greater than 4gb of RAM, remove the extra RAM for a maximum of 4gb//

i would have to pull 8 gigs from my machine
Click to expand...

?
I am using tonymac's method on my workstation and OSX recognizes all of my 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3-1600 RAM just fine.

EDIT: I should note, I'm using a method of his from December, not his latest April article.
 
David Rasberry said:
Lots of ram and fast I/O and RAID are much more productive for video editing than overclocking. Also with the move toward CUDA based processing with CS5, a high level video card or two will make a significant difference too.

Check this benchmark report on CS5,

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/pdfs/production_premium_cs5_benchmarking_report.pdf
Click to expand...


I was under the impression that your actual realtime playback performance in PPro CS5/mercury engine is entirely CPU-based, and CUDA is only used for effects. Notice all the benchmarks in that PDF seem to be about sequences with effects on them. It seems like there is a good chance that big realtime playback milestones will occur that people will want to overclock to achieve. For example it may be shown that 2k RED footage realtime playback only works on an i7 quad cpu at 3Ghz and above, as an arbitrary hypothetical example, but in such a case, someone with an extremely common 2.6GHz i7-920 will get a huge benefit from overclocking only 20%. Sometimes a little overclock can be the difference between realtime and near-realtime (which means dropping down to a lower playback resolution to do any kind of effective editing).

What you say about RAM and I/O is true for uncompressed HD+ editing, but I think it would be misleading to say that for editing footage that requires lots of processing to decompress/debayer. REDCODE 36 4k 24fps will stream fine over any modern Sata HDD that isnt fragmented, but very few people have computers that can process and display all the data in that 36MBps stream. It is true that running at lower playback resolutions in CS5 reduce that processing requirement but not the I/O requirement, so it may be easier to achieve playback of several 1/4 or 1/8 res streams by adding a RAID, but if you want to also be able to play back those streams at 1/2 or even at full, you need fast CPUs. It is best to have both I/O and CPU unless you really are used to editing low res proxies and dont care about higher res playback at all. You'll have to process that timeline at full res for export eventually, though, so youll want fast CPUs for that as well anyway, as CPU will always be the bottleneck in that situation.
 
Hi Kujtim, hope everything is well with you..
I'll try to write most of my experience.. but, really if you are the kind of guy, you'll enjoy.. overclocking was a real fun for me.. I just loved the game..

Noah Yuan-Vogel and Mike Harrington...
you're getting the right vision through the discussion..
what you've explained in your posts represents most of my experience with building a custom overclocked PC..

its very true.. when you do very little overclocking things gets just right.. I'm on an i7 920.. and when I overclocked I just got a CS4 realtime playback of R3D files.. and I'm sure CS5 apps will get more benefits from overclocking while they are more optimized.. 64bit etc..

when you tend to overclock.. you have to choose the right hardware..
don't worry most of the expensive hardware is ready for this task..
I love the 2 oz copper PCB motherboards from gigabyte.. gigabyte are fine motherboards for hardware side.. but I really hate their bios..

cooling is the CORE of overclocking.. just spend some time designing your cooling system inside the case.. its not just adding a fancy fan.. make sure you design things right to get the most lower centigrades..

for me I used air cooling.. I didn't go for water coz I hate the idea of water pipes going in and out of the case to connect to the radiator.. simply.. not practical.. water cooling needs to be re-implemented in the case itself..
air cooling is just planning where the air comes form, how much? how its path goes on.. I remember thermaltake cases with something they called wind tunnel.. I think they were designed for BTX boards.. it was a nice design.. just an example for well designed air cooling inside the whole case..

OEM? .. don't forget that now Steve Jobs separates the designers completely from the engineers.. so you get what's engineeringly possible on what ever beautiful looking machine.. I know.. some people love this concept.. but for me I only care about how good my circuits work.. a lot of my friends are screaming from their MBPs coz their fan gets really noisy and needs to be replaced.. never seen such a thing on a laptop before.. simply its not the right hardware with the right TDP to put on that well designed laptop.. six months after this version they introduced the full aluminium one-piece carved laptop..
I loved Boxx tech.. they was able to sell overclocked machines because they spend some time caring for cooling.. one of their representatives once phoned me from Dubai and I was amazed about the concept they use dealing with their machines..

back to my rig,, I used Thermalright Ultra 120 TRUE Copper .. yeah that's 1900 grams of pure copper.. its heavy.. but really cools my CPU down to rates similar to water cooling.. I put on dual 120mm fans setup.. and another two 120mm fans intake/exhaust on the case.. they where already built into my case.. and was able to overclock smoothly.. first I ran 3.57 GHz with max 72C after hours of prime95.. then I went back to 3.37 GHz coz I'm not using the machine that much these days.. and also I don't have air conditioning in the room where the rig sits (I live in a hot country).. I know I can push the hardware to more GHz.. but simply 3.57 gave me around 20-25% percent of speed improvement for most apps which what I needed..

for RAM issues.. just get the highest MHz RAM available.. but simply.. if you're serious about getting the most out of overclocking get i7 980x CPU and overclock using the multiplier instead of using bclock.. then overclock the RAM by the its multiplier to give it some boost.. get ram banks with heatsink on it for cooler run..

Stability? if you don't push it so hard.. then you're fine
I didn't find any stability issues till now..

Life expectancy of hardware? first we have to agree that (formally) you're are risking your hardware.. don't do it.. it damages your hardware.. no one will guarantee your hardware if its fails from overclocking..
come on then, why companies like asus, gigabyte and others promote it? i don't have an answer for this question.. that's why I decided to give it a try..
and what I thought is: no computers lives with me for more than three years.. simply if they didn't fail, they get obsolete.. I got the first year running with no overclocks .. two years are left.. so, let's give it a try..

Custom built PCs simply gives you the chance to upgrade your system freely, use hardware that is not supported on other systems (FX 5800 :banghead: ) and of course you don't pay for more and more engineering coz you have to do it yourself.. if you have the patience and enthusiasm..

and of course overclocking alone doesn't serve everything in your custom built system.. its a game of killing the performance bottlenecks in your system..
 
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