Inspiring

Question

What PC to build?

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
March 17, 2010
43 replies
77157 views

A question often asked is what system to build for NLE.

Basically you can think along three roads, a budget PC, an economical PC and the warrior PC. Notice that MAC is not mentioned here. There are three reasons for that, one is I'm not qualified to really advise on MAC's, two is that they are way overpriced and three they are severely limited in component choices. So this is all about PC.

Whether you want to have a budget, economical or warrior PC, there are a number of common components that you will always need, a case, a PSU, CPU cooler, monitor, keyboard, mouse, DVD/BR burner and stuff like that so I'm not going into those components.

So what is this all about?

1. CPU
2. Motherboard
3. Memory
4. Disk setup
5. Video card

This is certainly not intended to be a full description of what to buy, but only to point you in a direction that will make it easier to make your own list of components required.

CPU
Budget: i7-860, Economical: i7-930, Warrior: Dual X5680

Motherboard
Budget: ASUS P7P55D, Economical: ASUS P6T WS Pro, Warrior: SuperMicro X8DAH+

Memory
Budget: 8 GB, Economical: 12 GB, Warrior: 24+ GB

Disk setup
Budget: 3-4 SATA disks, Economical: 5-8 SATA disks (plus raid controller), Warrior: 12+ disks and Areca ARC 1880iX-16/24 controller

Video card
Budget: ATI HD 5670, Economical: nVidia GTX-285, Warrior: nVidia Quadro FX 3800+

Effectively at this moment (March 2010) that means in approximate costs for the 5 components and not counting everything else you may need,

Type PC	Approximate budget
Budget	$ 1,200
Economical	$ 2,100 (excluding RAID controller)
Warrior	$ 8,500 (including Areca RAID controller)

These figures are around minimum to budget for. I hope this gives you something to ponder about.

This topic has been closed for replies.

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C

cmr302

Participant

So glad I found this forum today. I'm editing a low-budget film to be shot on Red 4k middle of next year. Since I'm not actually shooting for quite sometime I've gotten about 120GB of r3d files from a friends short film here to play with. My current system is a state-of-the-art 2005 so here's what I've spec'd out....

-Win7 64bit, Intel i7 950, ASUS Sabertooth X58, 3x4GB Partiot DDR3 1600, EVGA GTX 470 1280MB(012-P3-1470-AR)

I've seen some alt. mobo and ram suggestions on this thread that I'm currently reading up on so I'm open to any advice regarding my current choices.

Ok so here where I'm kinda losing my mind...I cant really afford 4-6 hdds right now and since I'm just jooking to learn the workflow, editing, grading/color correction, I was considering two WD RE3 drives at RAID 0 to start with. I would take one of my current 320GB SATA3 7200 rpm drive and use it as storage/backup externally over usb 3.0.

Do you think I will have an issue as I learn the art and technical skill of editing with this hdd layout? The Adobe Premiere spec sheet says RAID 0 for uncompressed footage. Would it be ok to use my 2 drive Raid 0 for the OS/Program/r3d files, and edits? Sound like a whole lot of hdd work to me.

--Thanks

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

With 191 replies, I suggest you make a new thread and repeat your question, since it is very interesting with 4K material and the disk setup. It makes it easier to find for others. Make it a topic like: "Red 4K material and disk setup?" or similar.

C

cmr302

Participant

Thanks for suggesting I start a new thread. I'lll probably make one tonight. Hope someone of your expertise will chime in.

A

Appaloosa-yachting

Participant

Just come across this staggeringly useful site having spent several days researching new PC for my CS5 Premium Pro. Meanwhile, I ended up with the idea of getting PC as below:

COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache

ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)

1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

2 x 1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm

RAID 0 (STRIPED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

CORSAIR 750W PSU (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET

TITAN FENRIR EXTREME DIRECT TOUCH COPPER CPU COOLER

Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio

ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT

6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS)

I’d be most grateful for your views – including the need for the Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (just use on board) , whether 2x1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX would be better (some doubt on this group over Raid use) and a third Disc for OS..... have plenty of external discs for Archiving and Backup......Also running Win 7 64.

Regards

Barry

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Barry,

Solid choices IMO. You can leave out the SB card and use on-board sound, but do get either a 80+ GB SSD or a 150+ GB Velociraptor for a boot disk.

A

Appaloosa-yachting

Participant

Harm

Many thanks for your help.. Will follow your advice and offer my experience back into the group when we're up and running

Best regards

Barry

A

Appaloosa-yachting

Participant

Just come across this staggeringly useful site having spent several days researching new PC for my CS5 Premium Pro. Meanwhile, I ended up with the idea of getting PC as below:

COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache

ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)

1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

2 x 1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm

RAID 0 (STRIPED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

CORSAIR 750W PSU (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET

TITAN FENRIR EXTREME DIRECT TOUCH COPPER CPU COOLER

Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio

ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT

6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS)

I’d be most grateful for your views – including the need for the Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (just use on board) , whether 2x1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX would be better (some doubt on this group over Raid use) and a third Disc for OS..... have plenty of external discs for Archiving and Backup......Also running Win 7 64.

Regards

Barry

B

bad Timing

Participating Frequently

I was interested in your potential list of computers and saw a big jump from $2100 to $8,000. I thought I might add another choice for around $4,200. Our computers are all Dell Alienware Aurora's. I never see much mention of them for video editing. We think they are a great low cost choice. That said, I am glad we are all different. So, no argument from me whatever you happen to prefer.

We are not, definitely not, experts in hardware or software. But we do have 4 relatively new computers all running CS5. So we have some benchmark data other people maybe can't produce simply because they don't have more than one computer.

All our editing is in Premier and is AVCHD. Plus we use After Effects quite a bit. So those two are the only programs of interest to us for comparisons.

All 4 computers are Dell Alienware Auroras. All purchased within the past 5 months. Please don't scold us because we have C:/ two drives raid 0 and D: one drive. We do all our work from D. I can't see where we are slowed down by disk speed for our computer intensive work. I may be proven wrong. We have had " 0 " issues with the four computers. We like them now. Time will tell. I liked my first wife at first also.

Three of the computers have the i7 920 processors and 12 mb of ram. None overclocked. Two of those have quadro 3800 cards and one has a 295.

I know all of this has been a little boring so far.

The fourth computer is new, which is why I am writing this post. This is our first day using it. It has a i7 980 3.3 ghz. We paid Dell to overclock this computer to 3.73 ghz. I am not smart enough to know if they did. The bios says 3.3 ghz. It makes me dizzy to try to understand voltage, etc. so maybe it is 3.7. I just don't know. This computer has 24 gb ram. Nvidia 460.

So our benchmark rendering:

Premier with Mercury playback enabled - 60 minuts vs. 17 minutes

without - 90 vs. 20

After Effects: 122 minutes vs. 76 minutes

On the Premier rendering we saw all 8 and 12 threads at near 100% and ram usage about the same at 8 gb for both computers. I learned in this forum from someone that the rendering is faster with Mercury PB. We all read on Adobe propaganda it helped our playback. But it is faster in render also. It does help speed. What a great surprise. What we don't know is how much the 460 card helped speed over the 3800. From the data it actually appears the 3800 aids in speed more than the Fermi 460. Interesting isn't it. I don't know what conclusion to draw.

The After Effects result is about what we guessed we would see for speed improvement. We did use 20gb of ram with the 980 processor.

That is about the limit of our scientific ability. Please don't get much more technical with us.

I am thankful for all the incredible information we glean here. You have saved us several times. I am only hoping to give a little back.

Good luck, all.

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Devys,

Great to hear you are so satisfied with all your four systems. What would interest me is how those four systems fare on the PPBM5 Benchmark because that will show how your systems perform in comparison to others.

Please do the tests and e-mail the results to Bill as instructed and PM them to me as well.

B

bad Timing

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your kind help. this is a great tool.

I dont know how I missed the MPE on/off. But I do know the computer is

running about as it should. Great tool.

B

Ben_Jacobson

Participant

I have been doing a TON of research for several months (Harm has been a HUGE help) and I was really hoping to get some feedback on this system I am about to order. I will be using CS5 Premiere and After Effects, AVCHD video, no overclocking or RAID, and hope to take advantage of CUDA and Mercury playback engine…

(1)Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930 $284.99

(1) GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $209.99

(1) GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $219.99

(2) G.SKILL PI Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7T-6GBPI $309.98

(1) CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply $109.99

(1) COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case $129.98

(1) Scythe SCMG-2100 Sleeve CPU Cooler $39.99

(3) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $224.97 (three separate discs for media, exports and proj files, and scratch/media/page file)

(1) Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB

10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $179.99 (OS and Programs…higher 10,000 RPM speed)

(1) ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor $189.99

(1) Rosewill RCR-AK-IM5002 USB2.0 75 in 1 internal Card Reader w/ 3 ports USB2.0 Hub / eSATA port / Extra silver face plate / SATA Power $21.99

Total $1,931.84

Thank you for any feedback whatsoever!

BVJ

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Ben,

It looks good, but two remarks:

1. Upgrade memory from 6 to 12 GB.

2. Consider a 850 W PSU so you have more reserve for future expansions.

B

Ben_Jacobson

Participant

Thank you so much for the feedback! I already have 2 sets of the 6gb in my wishlist and I will definitely upgrade the power to 850. Any particular brand or model you recommend?

Thanks again!

BVJ

LaciG

Known Participant

I started to build my PC. I have run into a problem at the very beginning. Following this Forum's advice, I have the ASUS P6X58D Premium MOBO with the Intel i7 CPU, and the NOCTUA NH-D14 CPU cooler (and, of course, the beautiful Lian-Li case). My problem is the fan connections and mainly the CPU fan connection.

The MOBO has 5 fan connectors:

CPU_FAN (4-pin, the 4th pin:"CPU FAN PWM" )
CHA_FAN 1 (4-pin, the 2nd pin: "CHA FAN PWR")
PWR_FAN (3-pin)
CHA_FAN 2 (3-pin), and
CHA_FAN 3 (3-pin).

I assume that those 4th pins support the power management. And here is the problem: The beautiful NOCTUA CPU cooler has two fans but both of them have only 3-pin connectors! (The Intel CPU cooler fan that came with the CPU has the required 4 pins.)

Here is another problem: the ASUS User Guide (p. 2-22) says: "Only the CPU_FAN, CHA_FAN 1, CHA_FAN 2 and CHA_FAN 3 connectors support the ASUS FAN Xpert feature". But the latter two connectors are 3-pin connectors! How can they also support power management? Or they are only monitoring?

I contacted ASUS 'Live Chat' but they couldn't give a full explanation. I am waiting from NOCTUA for their e-mail answer.

For entertainment I attached the transcript of the Live Chat with ASUS. (BTW, what does 'np' stand for?)

scan.pdf

H

hellerbrewing

Participant

I think your assumption is correct, you need all 4 pins on the fan to be able to use the fan speed control in the bios. You can disable this and let the CPU fan run at the stock speed. You just won't get the noise reduction of throttling the fan down when it is not needed. You should be able to connect the 3 pin connector to the 4 pin block on the board. IIRC, there's only one way you can connect it so you won't scre it up.

LaciG

Known Participant

Thanks. I will try to buy four-pin fans for the NOCTUA cooler (if they have

it). I am still trying to get an answer from ASUS about their two 3-pin

connectors that allegedly supports the Fan Xpert feature. - Laci.

H

hellerbrewing

Participant

I am looking at building a new i7 setup to replace my older LGA775 with the intention of purchasing Creative Suite Design Premium, mainly for premiere and photoshop. Anyway, I have a few questions:

1) I that the GTX 470 (and 480) are recommended here. I know I have read that Adobe plans official MPE hardware acceleration with the 480 but the 470 is up in the air. At this point neither are listed on the compatible hardware list. Does anyone know if official support has been announced/implemented, particularly for the 470, or is the hack for allowing the card to be accepted still necessary?

2) Is it worth running raid for your 2 non-OS drives if you are using the controller on the motherboard (ICH10R to be specific) and not a hardware-based raid card?

Not that it matters, but I am an enthusiast currently using an older version of Premiere/Photoshop Elements and a Panasonic MiniDV (SD) camcorder. I am planning on going HD after I get the new computer and CS5 built/paid for. Likely another panasonic but I don't know what format I will be working with.

What I have so far:

Antec 900 two - $80AR
Corsair 650W - from previous
150 GB Velociraptor WD WD1500HLFS - $100
9400 GT (I Think) - from previous

LG Bluray Burner - fp
LG Bluray ROM - fp

Win7 pro 64 - $30

Planning to get

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R
i7-920
3 X 2 GB DDR3 (Add more later)
GTX 285 or GTX 470 (depending on adobe support)
4 X 500GB WD black 2.5 inch drives (possibly)
CS5 Creative Suite Production Premium

H

hellerbrewing

Participant

Well, I guess I found the answer to my first question:

http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/09/premiere-pro-cs5-5-0-2-update.html

and

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

say the 470 is officially supported with the 5.0.2 update.

They need to update the hardware compatibility page as it does not list it. I guess I will shoot for the GTX 470 since it seems to be better than the 285.

Bill Gehrke

Inspiring

Personally, I would go for 3 x 4 GB of memory on a new build. The i7-920 is no longer available the current low end is the i7-930. These are generally availble from Microcenter if you have one close by for $200 if you can go into one of their stores and pick it up.

J

Joshua_Sweeny

Participant

I am building my first pc and actually switching from Mac to pc.... 'oh the irony'. I intend to build my rig around around the

Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7980X

and nvidia geforce gtx 480 or the quadro 1800

I would love to know why one graphics is better than the other.

I would like to stick a mobo with usb3.0 and ieee 1394b(fw800)

i would like at least 8gb(or12?) of fast ram

I cant find the mother that would work for this set up and I do not know enough about ram to decide?

can anyone give me some pointers

I am going to overclock

I will be using this computer to edit hd in cs5 and would like it to be super fast

I will also be taking full advantage of lightroom and photoshop and would love to be able to expand into cool special effect even though I do not know how to do that yet. I will be using cs5 and avid Xpress but NO gaming!

Thanks

flbreen9380904

Inspiring

I am a newbie at designing high performance PCs but after assembling one designed by someone else I recommend a bigger case than I used.

The CM Storm Scout case that I use was adequate but with a bigger box it would have been easier to get SATA cables around the GPU card.

I recommend 5 drives (4x1TB) in Raid 5 and one for the operating system and CS5.

I damaged my new working PC by transporting it home in my automobile.

I suggest assembling it in the same place that it will be used.

There is an article in the August Videomaker Magazine on the Cerise 12 core PC $8000.

They show the case and and I liked the extra room it has over my Scout case.

I know the the 6 core CPU cost $1000 and my 4 core CPU is under $300.

I am wondering if you will get $700 better performance.

N

namelessmike

Participant

This thread has been *extremely* helpful. Thanks all!

After years of using Premiere elsewhere, I am looking to have a NLE setup at home. I'm 90% sure I'll be buying Premiere Pro CS5, but am still considering the options. For me editing video is a serious hobby, not a profession.

Building a system from scratch is intimidating, so I went to HP's site and looked at options. Any comments on this setup as a starting place? More disks etc would be added later.

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-380t ($1300)

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-930 quad-core [2.8GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache]
9GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [5 DIMMs]
1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
1.8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters]
LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Integrated sound

Bill Gehrke

Inspiring

Something must be wrong with that memory spec. How could you have 9 GB in 5 DIMM's? Or is this another HP unique design or is it a typo?

Find out how many disk drives you can have in it and what the power supply rating is.

What media are you going to edit on this computer?

CS5 requires an absolute minimum of two drives and that may be marginal.

A

Anonymous

>>How could you have 9 GB in 5 DIMM's?

Perhaps 4 x 2GB + a 1GB stick?

J

JayNewWeb

Inspiring

FYI, I just ordered the 12GB.

I'm glad I took the time to inquire here and you did your best to help me out... because the price dropped about 20% at CDW since I first asked about it a few days ago.

For what it's worth, a tech suggested to me yesterday that there is something to be said for getting a "kit" consisting of the three modules together, even if it does cost a little more, rather than buying three of what is sold as one single module. I don't know how much there is to the reasoning but maybe it makes a little sense.

I've heard in the past that it's best to get all your memory from the same manufacturer just to ensure that much more consistency between modules.

Well, this tech believes that the major memory manufacturers, when selling a three-module "kit" for triple-channel use, are going a step further and making sure the three modules come from the same production batch to even further ensure consistency.

Who knows. Just thought I'd share.

(I must have bought the line of thinking. I sprang for the three-module kit that costs a bit more.)

ECBowen

Inspiring

The boards that have 4 slots support Tr- Channel just like the 6 slot boards. You just can only use 3 slots. Tri Channel is really decided by the CPU and not the board since the memory controller now resides there. The only reason the memory has any bearing on this is simply the amount of ram you put in. Now Memory manufacturers also adjust sub timings on the memory to better ensure functionality based on whether the kits will be packaged as dual or tri kits. This does not mean you can't buy the dual kits and put them on a Tri Channel system. It just means you will have a higher chance of having issues with the ram working together. The HP tech you spoke to is correct and that board does support Tri channel.

Eric

ADK

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Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7980X

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