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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 :)

New PC for video editing + 3D stereo work

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ignatius

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Hey guys,

I’m planning on building a new pc for some big projects coming up. I need a PC that can handle RED footage and 3D stereo footage in 2k or 4k. I’ll mostly be concentrating on video editing, grading, compositing and a bit of vfx work, essentially I need a PC that can do almost anything across the table pretty well.

I’ve built up 2 PC’s that I know will be more than enough to handle any of my upcoming projects but I’m not sure which one to go for. I’m hoping you guys can help me decide which setup is the best.

PC #1 (4-core):

Intel core 2 quad q9450 (2.66ghz, 12MB, 1333FSB)
4GB DDR2-1200
EVGA E-Geforce 9800GX2
500GB
750W PSU
Total: $1430 (including printer, motherboard, case)

PC #2 (8-core):

(2x) Intel Xeon E5410 quad core (2.33ghz, 12MB, 1333FSB)
4GB DDR2-667 ECC
EVGA E-Geforce 9800GX2
500GB
750W PSU
Total: $1900 (including printer, motherboard, case)

One’s a 4-core cpu and the other is 8-cores but it cost $500 bucks more and I’m not sure if it would be worth it. If the 4-core is more than enough speed and power to get the job done then I would personally go for that one and save the money for something else. But, if the 8-core would really make a big difference, than I’d go for that one instead, unless it’s overkill.

I’d really appreciate any help or suggestions on building this new pc. And if I forgot to mention anything else about my setup or what I’ll be using, let me know. Looking forward to hearing back from you guys.

Cheers,
Varinder
 
Id wait until October. Intel is going to be releasing the new nahelm processors that will be at least 40% faster. But otherwise, Id recommend going with 8 gigs of ram. DDR2 is really cheap right now, and adobe master collection runs great on my vista 64 bit rig.
yes, thats right I run vista 64, and i have had hardly any problems with it. Give vista 2 weeks (and turn off user account control) and you will like it better than xp. Vista 64 is much better than xp64.
Your #1 option is similar to my computer, differences being the amount of ram (8GB), video card (I have 8800 gts 512 and I love it) and hard drive space ( I have almost 2 TB). Also, your system will be much faster if you have more than one drive setup in a raid array (add in raid controllers are nice, but pricey, make sure your motherboard had good raid support).

Whatever you do, don't skimp on the motherboard! The motherboard is in my opinion the most important part of the pc. A good motherboard is upgradable and durable. I have really liked Gigabyte brand motherboards.


But again I suggest waiting until October, then going for a dual xeon system on the new faster chips. (or the same system you have planned, but at a much lower price)


Of the two the second looks like a better deal, But kick it up to 8 gigs of ram and you wont regret it!
 
I think to do the sort of work you are talking about at 4K or 2K you are seriously missing one part of the equation - hard drive speed.

I'm assuming you've factored in prices for Fibre/eSATA RAID set up or something though, right, and you are just talking about the bare basic box set up?
 
Hey guys,

Thanks for the super quick feedback. I figured 4gb wasn’t going to be enough so I was planning on buying 4gb of ram for now and upgrading a bit more down the road. But thanks for recommending I do that.

I also had a question about the ram as well. How much better or worse is the ddr2-667 ECC ram on the 8-core setup compared to the ddr2-1200 ram in the 4-core setup? I came across a guy who I will quote “Faster RAM does not mean improvement in speeds just by itself. For 1:1 performance (the best) your RAM will be 1/2 the number of your FSB. FSB1600= 1:1 with DDR2-800 RAM.” Do you guys agree with him?

I am planning on setting up a RAID setup and having an external HDD to backup my files. I was wondering which RAID setup most people use, RAID0? RAID5? I’ve also heard people using RAID1+0.

This is also the motherboard I’m planning on getting, http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5100/X7DCA-L.cfm It looks pretty good and also has good RAID support.

Personally, I was hoping people would recommend getting the PC #1 setup with the 4-cores and I can save a bunch of money :) . But, shutter since you were saying that you have a very similar PC to my 4-core setup, how is that PC managing with your day to day workload? Is it keeping up? And I hope you don’t mind me asking what type of work you do exactly on that PC? It would help me decide which pc to get and if the 8-core would be overkill for now.

Cheers,
-V
 
how much for the motherboard.....

a skulltrail with the 5400 chipset would probably be a better option....depending on the price of course.

there is also a brand new asus for about $500 that has the 5400...but with crossfire only not sli

personally, i have built like 10 computers....and went through a lot of motherboards...and for me I would only buy Asus or Intel....seems to be the most reliable, least quirky

Of course there are other good brands out there...but I got stung every time I strayed away from those 2.
 
The supermicro motherboard i posted above will only cost me $280 which is what i can only afford at the moment with my current budget unfortunately.

A lot of people have always recommended getting the supermicro or tyan boards which is why i decided to grab the supermicro board. If you say the intel and asus boards are pretty reliable i'll definitely check into that. Thanks!

Thor - Thanks for bringing up the new amd cpu/gpu, it looks promising. Too bad they aren't out already.

-V
 
also...
you will not be able to overclock with your board....the only controls are for the frequency multiplier....which is locked on the xeons ecept at the high end$$$

may or may not matter to you, but those processers overclock easily like 15-20% with no additional cooling or voltage...so you could be running a 2.3 at like 2.6-2.8....there is a lot of guys doing it with no problems.

and i think you need fully buffered eec memory, not just eec....a little bit more expensive
 
I'm not planning on doing any overclocking, so i guess the motherboard should be fine. However, if the overclocking is as easy as you say and you can get a 10-15% boost in cpu speed than i might look into it.

I'm not too familiar with overclocking, but i was wondering what to look for in the motherboards that will allow me to overclock my cpu? Just the frequency multiplier?

And yep, the RAM i'm grabbing are FBDIMM ECC memory. Too bad there not as cheap as the non-ecc ram.

thanks,
-V
 
http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=560
no overclocking(as far as i can tell)...about 450

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=82&l3=644&l4=0&model=2090&modelmenu=1
overclockable and crossfire...about 525

http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/D5400XS/D5400XS-overview.htm
everything you want 600+

another thing to watch is the power supply
the skulltrail requires dual 8 pin power supply for overclocking...at least $300 for that

i don't know about the asus

you got a good deal on that motherboead and i would be tepted to go that way but an extra $250 will get you a more modern chipset and 15% proc speed

also the 8 gb is great to have and i wouldn't skimp on that

the processors is what i would choose or the 2.5's depending on the price difference.
 
I'm not too familiar with overclocking, but i was wondering what to look for in the motherboards that will allow me to overclock my cpu? Just the frequency multiplier?
Click to expand...

well you have clock speed, and multiplier
however on the low end xeons the multiplier will be locked(you could however underclock)
so you need bios controls that will allow you to adjust clock speed or fsb
same thing

it is very easy to overclock
a lot of these processors are the exact same silicon as the higher speed ones....just with a lower multiplier, so there is no danger in a small overclock.

10%-15% would be a no brainer.
there are guys running your processors at 2.8ghz with stock cooling.

either way you'll have a killer system with what you have planned.
 
Thanks for helping out so much mdharrington, really appreciate it.

I will look around at some computer shops and see if i can find another good motherboard that'll let me overclock at a decent price. And thanks for explaining how to overclock, sounds incredibly easy.

Another thing i was wondering about is the appropriate power supply to get. I know the 9800gx2 card is a power hogger and requires atleast 600watts. And I've heard some people say you need to get 1000w PSU for this card.

But aside from the video card, will a 750w PSU be enough to power up the video card and dual xeons?

-V
 
ignatius said:
Hey guys,

Thanks for the super quick feedback. I figured 4gb wasn’t going to be enough so I was planning on buying 4gb of ram for now and upgrading a bit more down the road. But thanks for recommending I do that.

I also had a question about the ram as well. How much better or worse is the ddr2-667 ECC ram on the 8-core setup compared to the ddr2-1200 ram in the 4-core setup? I came across a guy who I will quote “Faster RAM does not mean improvement in speeds just by itself. For 1:1 performance (the best) your RAM will be 1/2 the number of your FSB. FSB1600= 1:1 with DDR2-800 RAM.” Do you guys agree with him?

I am planning on setting up a RAID setup and having an external HDD to backup my files. I was wondering which RAID setup most people use, RAID0? RAID5? I’ve also heard people using RAID1+0.

This is also the motherboard I’m planning on getting, http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5100/X7DCA-L.cfm It looks pretty good and also has good RAID support.

Personally, I was hoping people would recommend getting the PC #1 setup with the 4-cores and I can save a bunch of money :) . But, shutter since you were saying that you have a very similar PC to my 4-core setup, how is that PC managing with your day to day workload? Is it keeping up? And I hope you don’t mind me asking what type of work you do exactly on that PC? It would help me decide which pc to get and if the 8-core would be overkill for now.

Cheers,
-V
Click to expand...

I always want a faster computer, no matter how fast it is. Mostly I do After effects work at 720p. I haven't played too much with red footage on this computer, because of no adobe support (yet). I tried some tests on this computer with an OSX86 partition and final cut, and it handled pretty well, real time editing. Where your really going to want the processing power is for when you export out your finished product. Some projects take days to render, and when your in a hurry, that hurts. Anyway, it wont be long at all until we have 8 core chips, double 'em up and you get a 16 core monster. I almost cant fathom how powerful that will be.

all in all I have been impressed with the q9450 cpu... but then again i was upgrading from a Pentium d. Recommendation on the ram, id highly recommend getting all 8 gigs at once. Your system will be much more stable if all of the ram is from the same manufacturer and the same model. Ram companies are always changing things, it may be impossible to have"matched" ram if you wait. This may sound trivial, but believe me, you dont want o be scratching your head on why you get the blue screen of death, search through online support pages for answers, and eventually figure out you have ram issues. I have been there, and I never want to go back.
 
ignatius said:
Thanks for helping out so much mdharrington, really appreciate it.

I will look around at some computer shops and see if i can find another good motherboard that'll let me overclock at a decent price. And thanks for explaining how to overclock, sounds incredibly easy.

Another thing i was wondering about is the appropriate power supply to get. I know the 9800gx2 card is a power hogger and requires atleast 600watts. And I've heard some people say you need to get 1000w PSU for this card.

But aside from the video card, will a 750w PSU be enough to power up the video card and dual xeons?

-V
Click to expand...


For a 8 core setup Id definitely go with 1000 w power supply. i like Antec brand. i have an 850 in my 4 core system. maybe overkill, but I got it when compusa went out of business for half price.
 
More core = faster debayer, option 2 better. That said, Im more than happy with my iMac :)
 
shutter said:
Of the two the second looks like a better deal, But kick it up to 8 gigs of ram and you wont regret it!
Click to expand...

Hey Shutter,

Is 2.33GHz processor (Dual Quad) speed good with for premier pro espcially when handling R3D files.
 
Render farm with AE

Render farm with AE

Joon said:
Hey Shutter,

Is 2.33GHz processor (Dual Quad) speed good with for premier pro espcially when handling R3D files.
Click to expand...

Remember that processor is only 1 part of the equation(ram speed, harddrive speed etc), but that sounds like a pretty capable CPU option. Im sure it will be great for editing. I don't know how much will be enough with R3D and Premiere. Unfortunately, I'm not part of the alpha testing group.

You ultimately need to buy what makes the best sense for you (obviously). If that is the fastest you can afford, its probably fine. But when your dealing with exporting 4k footage, or even 2k, it can take a while to debayer and render the footage. How much is that computer time worth to you? There are trade offs here, and only you can decide what matters most to you.

I'm planning on editing on my quad core system (should work just fine), finishing in after effects, and then (if its possible with the red plugin) setting up a render farm with a few other, older computers that I have hanging around (Pretty easy in after effects).

http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/8.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a4f2dff7-79a3.html

But, again, Id wait until intel releases their new nahelm processors this fall, the price performance ration will be much more in your favor then.
 
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