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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Help me on my pc set up!

W

walid kafi

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Hey guys,I've been a c100 shooter for quite some time and I will soon have enough for an epic. Now I know I won't be able to use my current pc for red raw editing/coloring. I will be using primarily Premiere CC and Speedgrade CC.

I have made a list for my new upcoming Pc:
Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 (CC-9011030-WW) Black Steel / Plastic ATX High Airflow Cube Case
ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition LGA 2011 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel MotherboardIntel
Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 3.4GHz LGA 2011
2 x EVGA 06G-P4-2791-KR GeForce GTX TITAN SuperClocked 6GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP, SLI Ready Video Card
NVIDIA® Quadro® K2000 VCQK2000-PB 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Workstation Video Card
areca ARC-1223-8I-MS PCI-Express 2.0 x8 Low Profile SATA / SAS RAID Controller Card
CORSAIR AXi series AX1200i 1200W
Evercool HD-AR-RBK HDDCooling Box for Three 3.5 HDD
2xSAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE1T0BW 2.5" 1TB SATA III
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133
5xSeagate Barracuda STBD3000100 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i
2xASUS - PA249Q 24" LED Backlit IPS

Now I got a few questions:
1. How do I set up the GPU's within the motherboard to take advantage of the the dual titans SLI and quadro for premiere and speedgrade.
2. Do I plug both monitors on the quadro to take advantage of 10bit or do I plug one monitor on the quadro and one on the titan??
3. Is the Raid controller I chose good for internal AND external raid configs?
4. which RAID level would be best suited for this pc?
5. Is dual titans overkill??

Thank you in advance!
 
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The GPU acceleration does not require any SLI setup. You can run the cards in Independent mode or normal. On applications that only use 1 GPU, you have to go into the Nvidia control panel and set the GPU you want to use for GPU acceleration.

Just plug the displays into the Quadro.

That Raid controller is for Internal SAS arrays and not External. Potentially you could run the cables from inside to outside the case but that is not a clean way to do it. The Areca cards have good performance with regards to operation but not the best rebuild times if you have to rebuild an array. I am not a fan of their raid management either. The Intel/LSI cards have the best raid management out with good performance. So far they have the best rebuild rates as well. Parity verification on a raid 6 with the Intel/LSI cards has also been bullet proof.

The Samsung Evo drives run fine individually but not good in any raid setup. If you plan to raid the SSD's then don't get the Evo's. Either get the Pro versions or the Crucial M500's.

If you are going to use those Mechanical drives in a redundant parity raid I highly suggest you get the enterprise drives. The Time out recovery feature alone is worth the price due to drives prematurely dropping our during a repair/recovery process if that takes to long. The Areca cards do have an option to adjust the controller setting last I saw but that still doesn't always work. A raid 10 normally shows this problem far less so if you must use Desktop drives then I suggest you raid 10.
 
I wouldn't mess with the Quadro K2000 unless you absolutely need the 10bit support. It's a snail compared to the Titan, even for GUI tasks, and you don't gain anything by having it as your GUI display. You're only going to get 10bit output from the K2000 in a few select apps and even then, in only a few select modes. You're better off to forget the Quadro and use a card like the BlackMagic or AJA. Then you can get 10/12 bit output to a proper monitor. The AJA Kona 3G can do 4K out at 10bit (something the HDMI interfaced cards can't do), but you need a monitor with quad-SDI or quad-HDMI input that can use it.

+1 to what Eric said about the SSD's in RAIDs. Make sure you get the pro/ enterprise versions for that. That's really the difference, they are configured and tuned for such a use whereas the desktop versions are not. That said, the desktop units usually work OK as two of them in a RAID-0 stripe, but the performance gains are smaller than what you get with hard drives. Also a +1 to the enterprise drive suggestion for the HDD's. The faster time-out response, as well as cache optimizations for RAID use, make them worth it.

ATTO RAID controllers are also bullet-proof. I tend to lean that way over the LSI cards because ATTO has more user-friendly support, you can actually talk to a product engineer! They also have the best device-level support on OSX and Linux, LSI falters once you move away from Windows. ATTO also has the cutest girls at NAB, but I guess that's another discussion...

RAID 5 on the HDDs would be ideal.

Don't skimp on the power supply!
 
So for the raid card is this good?
ATTO ESAS-R680-000 PCI-Express 2.0 x8 Low Profile SATA / SAS 8-Port 6Gb/s RAID Adapter

So I'll take your word on the quadro and replace it with this
[h=1]Blackmagic Design DeckLink Mini Monitor[/h]
So just to make sure, I need to plug 1 monitor into the BM and one into the titan?

As for PSU, the corsair 1200i not any good??

What do you think about those asus monitors? Any better options?

Finally, do you think the 2nd titan is necessary?

Once again. Thank you so much guys. It's really appreciated :)
 
That raid card is the right one for External Raids. 512Meg cache should be fine for any Raid 5.

This part is the only part that can get complicated with the I/O cards. Many monitors only allow 10bit Color via Displayport. Monitors with HDMi 1.3 or HDMi.1.4 will allow 10bit via HDMi since that is part of the standard. Normally the monitors that wont support 10bit via HDMI state displayport only and that Asus does not. However that is not a definite. If it only supports 10bit via displayport then you will have to get an adapter.

The workspace monitor/monitors go in the Titan. Full screen display goes in the Blackmagic.

That Corsair 1200W is fine for 2x Titans with the current config. 1300W would give you more head room later.

Those Asus monitors are really nice for the price. The only thing you may need is a colorimeter to calibrate it. Really most should have 1 anyway unless they get the Pro monitors with built in correct factory profiles anyway such as Flanders. Xrite Colorimeters are the standard but Spyder will do for many.

The 2nd Titan card will really depend on the applications you are using. Premiere will definitely show a difference with 2 Titan cards and Red. Speedgrade I am not so sure about. You might want to look at Davinci there.
 
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So I will as advised I will be getting server HDD 5 X Western Digital WD SE WD3000F9YZ 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Also I opted for the internal raid cardATTO Technology ExpressSAS R608 8-Internal Port 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID Adapter


What if I wanted to purchase an external raid later on, how would I connect that??

For the Monitor, since I need 10 bit out, can you recommend me a 24 to 27 inch monitor that would output that from the BM decklink in HDMI? is this good ?[h=1]Dell U2413 24" LED Backlit IPS Monitor[/h]
I was thinking of getting it Hackintoshed, should I go mavericks or windows 7 pro? What would be the advantages?


There's one problem, the case that I have chosen only supports only 2 x3'5 HDDS and 5 X 2'5 SSD, So I got Evercool HD-AR-RBK HDD Cooling Box for Three 3.5 HDD or Four 2.5 HDD
to replace my two 5'25 into 3 HDD. Could there be any problems with this for my internal raid setup?

Much appreciated
 
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The Nvidia GTX 780 Ti is supposed to be coming out soon so you might want to wait a few days/weeks to buy your graphics cards.

Rather than worrying about an external raid, why not get 4 TB enterprise grade drives instead?

I have never built a hackintosh or even looked into it, but my gut feeling is that you probably won't be able to find drivers for all of your components.

Why not just choose a larger case?
 
Hi Waldi,

I have just build a similar system. Here are a few things that I would recommend:

Use a server standing tower. You'll want to be adding drives/cards etc in the future and the room will help for heat distribution. You might also want to base this system on a dual server CPU setup, as they have a larger level 3 cache, which (afaik) is what is used during transcoding. I have an i7 on a 2011 board at the moment and I often max out the CPU when working with RED footage. Look at building a 12+ core with dual xeons.
 
Hey Rusty,

When you say max out, is the cpu actually causing any bottlenecks? Does it slow down your workflow? Would you say a 12 core would remedy that?
 
The R608 is internal so you would have to take 2 SAS cables and run them from inside to outside the Chassis to the enclosure. That will take a slot or some metal work.

I am not sure on the 10Bit via HDMi on that Dell. I would suggest calling them since they don't state Displayport only. Also that reminds me I need to call Blackmagic and ask if the Minimonitor card supports 10bit via HDMI or SDI only. They are kind of funny that way.

OSX is a personal preference here. Win 8 right now has better performance than Win 7 but you have to get use to the interface change.

That drive mounting unit looks fine since it has a fan.
 
So I have been doing multiple research online and Im going to buying a 3rd screen as a reference monitor. Sony Oled monitor seemed to be the best out of the bunch. I was thinking of getting the panasonic plasma, but unfortunately I wont have enough room in my home office. Any tips or advice?
 
I know this has nothing to do with performance, but I've built tons of computers over the years, and for the past 10 years, I'd only stick to Lian Li cases. I haven't seen that corsair case before, but in my experience their cases felt very flimsy. I never had that kind of issue with Lian Li or Silverstone cases.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112388

Their cases are nice and sleek, and very high build quality.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...60-lian-li-pc-a76-full-tower-case-review.html
 
If you have the budget left then the Flanders LM-2461W would be worth looking at. So far the feedback has been excellent once the firmware update is in.
 
Hmm that would be half of my budget Eric, already I was aiming for the 17 inch sony oled and thats 3.3 grand, already pushing it. But are you not convinced with the sony???
 
If 17 inch fits your requirements and you don't need 2K preview then I don't see any reason not to get the Sony. I don't have any experience with it so I cant say positive or negatives to actual experience.
 
If I was to compare lets say the HP Dream color to the sony oled or any pro monitor like a flanders, what am I gaining with them aside from the scopes. Because 2.3k$ for the Hp vs 3k to 4k $ for the pro ones is quite a difference.
 
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The SDI connectivity is 1. The option to preview in actual 24 frame output is another. The Pro monitors give you YUV preview on other connections besides HDMI. The Pro monitors have built in colorimeter calibrated profiles. If you get standard displays then you would require a colorimeter to calibrate it. Some of the Pro Displays will scale resolutions. Most of the Pro monitors will allow firmware updates where as standard displays wont.
 
So basically the fidelity of your image will remain true with a pro monitor. Cool.

I got a last question , sorry for bugging you guys.

Now As a processor what would be best. I did much research, but still seem a bit confused. Some say the i7 would perform better and others don't. so what would be best.

an i7 4960x 6 core
a single xeon e5-2687w v2 at 3.4 ghz

or dual xeon e5-2630 v2 at 2.6 ghz

Once again thank you so much for the tips guys.
 
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