Sorry for not making that clear enough. All of my info in the above post are in CS6 relative to those same tests done in CS5.5. ... View more

The PPBM5 benchmark will run in CS6 although you will have to do several additional steps: 1) When it asks you to save the project on first launch, leave this as the default "Benchmark_1.prproj". Then, after you run the render/export portion of the PPBM5 test (as per instructions), resave that project as the original "Benchmark.prproj" file name (this will overwrite the original "Benchmark.prproj" file if done correctly; if it asks you that the file will be overwritten, click "Yes"). 2) Now, when you load in the three timelines in Adobe Media Encoder, change the H.264 output file name to "H.m4v". After all that is done, when you look at the results, the Disk I/O time and the MPE Off time should be slightly faster (lower times) while the H.264 Blu-ray and MPEG-2 DVD encode times should be quite a bit slower (higher times). ... View more

Another Photographer wrote: Is this an issue even with GTX 670 and GTX 680? Yes. This is exactly one of the reasons why the GTX 680 is only slightly faster than the previous-generation top-end NVidia GPU, the GTX 580, despite triple the number of CUDA cores. But you also have to remember that the total VRAM bandwidth of the GTX 680 is only about equal to that of the older GTX 580. This hurts performance to the point that a GPU with more cores isn't all that much faster (if at all) compared to an older GPU with fewer CUDA cores. ... View more

How about a GT 640 with 384 cores and DDR5 (but only 128 bit)? Unfortunately, that particular version of the GT 640 is OEM-only (meaning that it is only supplied to big-name PC brands for use in their PCs at present). No retail cards are available in that configuration (at least not yet). The only announced retail version(s) of the GT 640 all use 128-bit DDR3 VRAM whose memory throughput is only about half that of your current GT 240 (28.5 GB/s on the GT 640 versus 54.4 GB/s on your current GT 240). In addition, that particular GT 640 and all retail GT 640s are Kepler-based, whose shaders are only about half as fast (relatively speaking) as the shaders in Fermi (GeForce 400- and 500-series). Put it this way, while Fermi shaders run at double the core clock speed, Kepler shaders run at only the same clock speed as the GPU core clock speed. This greatly diminishes, if not completely eliminates, the effect of the greater number of CUDA cores. As such, the GT 640 retail would not be a sufficient inprovement over your current GT 240 to justify its cost, in your case. It would cost around $100, all right - but its performance would be slower than even a two-generation-old GTS 450, let alone a GTX 560 Ti. ... View more

1) Number of CUDA cores 2) Memory throughput (in GB/s) Your GT 240 has only 96 CUDA cores and a memory throughput of only 54.4 GB/s. By comparison, the GTX 560 Ti that I recommend has either 384 or 448 CUDA cores, with a memory throughput of 128 to 152 GB/s. ... View more

Prices on RAM are, if anything, creeping upwards slightly. Upgrading to 32GB if you are getting 4 x 4GB sticks will require taking out all of the RAM and replacing them completely: No LGA 1155 enthusiast-level motherboard has more than four DIMM slots. And as I stated earlier about the GPU, it is best if it is (relatively speaking) a good balance with the CPU that you'll be using the GPU with. Your existing GT 240 is OK for a slow system with only a dual-core CPU or an old LGA 775 Core 2 Quad-based PC, but will definitely bottleneck even a totally stock-speed i7-2600K, let alone an overclocked one (especially if your particular card has only 512MB of VRAM or uses slower DDR3 VRAM instead of the DDR5 VRAM). ... View more

Intel isn't the only "good" brand of SSD. Other "good" brands of SSDs are: Crucial and Samsung, plus certain Corsair models (Performance Pro, which does not use a Sandforce controller like other Corsair SSDs). However, I do not count Kingston as a "good" brand because all of its models use either JMicron or Sandforce controllers. ... View more

Another Photographer wrote: Harm, Aiming for an Economic build, does this look like a good balance of components for a DSLR shooter? Intel i7-2600K with stock fan Z77-based Asrock mobo 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 (1.5 v) RAM nVidia GT 240 (already own this) SSD for OS; 3 WD Black HDDs 750Watt Gold from Seasonic Lian Li aluminum case If you were to improve one item, what would it be? I'm not Harm, but that system needs an upgraded GPU: That system is strong on the CPU and weak on the GPU. Go with at least a GTX 560 Ti (or better still, a GTX 670). ... View more

geffyb wrote: Here's the screenshot, I can confirm I'm missing MPEG-2 It is ridiculous that we can't export to 5.1 out of premiere. I thought the partnership with DTS would bring this about? or was this a dropped feature? http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dts-alliance-adobe-brings-dts-120000997. html Actually, you still cannot encode to DTS even with Encore CS6's internal encoder. Adobe completely lacks a DTS encoder in the entire Creative Suite because DTS encoding requires the payment of a hefty licensing fee to the company that markets DTS that would have substantially increased the price of the Premiere Pro application into the tens of thousands of dollars per copy (as opposed to the current price of several hundred dollars). What Encore CS6 adds as far as DTS is concerned is just add support for already-encoded DTS audio with or without transcoding. Encore CS5.5 did not handle DTS audio at all even on import. ... View more

Unfortunately, with a Mac Pro, your choice of GPUs is extremely limited. None of the GTX 570 cards are compatible with any official Apple Mac Pro at all (or put it this way, the card will require major modifications that will completely break compatibility with Windows if you want it to be Mac-compatible). With NVidia you are limited strictly to a GeForce GTX 285 or a Quadro 4000 or FX 4800 (but both the GTX 285 and FX 4800 are old-generation GPUs). You see, a Mac-compatible graphics card absolutely requires a BIOS that's fully compatible with the Mac Pro's EFI in order to even access the EFI or see the boot screen. None of the Windows-compatible graphics cards are compatible at all with the Mac's EFI. In other words, all of the users that you have noticed that are running a GTX 570 are all using Windows, not Mac. ... View more

Jim, I generally agree - if the disks are of a very modern (e.g. single 1TB platter) design. However, some older-design 1TB hard disks are too slow (sequential-speed-wise) to handle HD video material, especially since nearly all NLEs (including Premiere) decompress video on the fly during editing (and then holds that decompressed content in the media cache). The slow disks can make a high-end i7 system perform nearly as slowly as a pedestrian i5 quad-core system overall. If those 1TB disks are of such an older design (or are just plain slow in sequential performance in non-RAID setups), the OP may want to configure the disks as two aid0 (RAID 0) volumes or one 2-disk aid0 volume (to be used primarily by the media cache files) plus two separate non-RAID volumes. That way, the OP will have all 4TB available as opposed to the OP's originally planned setup of four 1TB drives configured as either RAID 01 or RAID 10 (which is far from ideal since all four 1TB drives combined are treated together as one single 2TB disk for all practical purposes). ... View more

Actually, RAID 10 has basically the same effect as RAID 01. Only this time, each pair of drives are mirrored first, then the two mirrored pairs are striped together. So, you'll still get the usable capacity from only two disks either way. If RAID 01 is called a "mirror of striped arrays", then RAID 10 is a "stripe of mirrored arrays". In other words, any RAID with a "1" in it will automatically steal half of your disks in capacity, so that you'd get only 2TB total usable capacity out of four 1TB disks. ... View more

The other major hole is that the OP did not specify a case. After all, it is not recommended to run a PC with no tower case whatsoever. And some cases are too cramped on the inside to accommodate all of the components in your planned build (for example, the case that the builder provides might be too cramped from front to rear to even fit a GTX 570 unless two or more hard drives are completely removed from the system). Furthermore, some cases have very poor airflow, causing the internal components of the PC to run significantly hotter than they should. ... View more

As Bill stated, there are a few holes in the specs of your planned editing PC. Especially in the disk configuration: A RAID 01 is a pair of striped disks that are mirrored to another striped pair. This gives you the speed of a two-disk aid0 but with four disks and the total capacity of only two disks. So, you'd end up with a four-disk setup with only 2TB total capacity. ... View more

RjL190365 wrote: Note that this hack will not work with any of the Kepler-based GTX 600 series or most GT 600 series cards at the present time: RayTracer does not currently run properly on Kepler. The only GT 600-series cards that the hack will work properly on are the GT 645 (which is the new name for the GTX 560 SE) and the 192-bit DDR3 version of the GT 640 (which is the new name for the GT 545 DDR3). That applied only to version 11.0.0 of After Effects CS6. Today, a new 11.0.1 update was released, and now the Kepler cards will work with the RayTracer feature. However, among the new Kepler GPUs only the GTX 680 is officially supported for RayTracer GPU acceleration in this release; GTX 670 and GTX 690 users must still apply the "raytracer_supported_cards.txt" hack to enable GPU acceleration. ... View more

Arnold, There is a "hack" to enable RayTracer CUDA GPU support in After Effects, similar to the CUDA hack to enable MPE GPU acceleration in Premiere Pro for those cards that are not officially on Adobe's supported cards list. It's called "raytracer_supported_cards.txt" and is located in the "Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS6\Support Files" folder. Open the "raytracer_supported_cards.txt" file as Administrator (this is done by right-clicking on the file and then clicking "Open as administrator"), then add the line "GeForce 560 Ti" (in the case of your particular GPU) to the list of files (which by default is the same as Premiere Pro's official list of supported cards). Save the file. Note that this hack will not work with any of the Kepler-based GTX 600 series or most GT 600 series cards at the present time: RayTracer does not currently run properly on Kepler. The only GT 600-series cards that the hack will work properly on are the GT 645 (which is the new name for the GTX 560 SE) and the 192-bit DDR3 version of the GT 640 (which is the new name for the GT 545 DDR3). ... View more

czarek jb wrote: Nicol Simard wrote: Take a look at http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php. The best AMD machine ranks 377 out of 868. AMD computers simply do not compare to an Intel rig. In this rank you have old generation AMD CPUs only. Actually, there are now a few FX series (Bulldozer/Zambezi) AMD CPUs on the chart. In that rank the fastest of the three PCs that are powered by such a CPU ranks only 437 out of 868. ... View more

Yes, Windows 7 64-bit with Service Pack 1 is absolutely required to even run Premiere Pro CS6 at all. It will not even run at all with an older OS or with any 32-bit OS, and the program might not even install at all in such older OSes. ... View more

Dorothy, You will likely pay around a 30 percent premium for going 4x8 instead of 8x4. However, this will give you room to expand whereas going with 8x4 would require you to completely replace some or all of those sticks just to expand RAM. ... View more

DeePeeBee wrote: If I had 24 gb of existing COMPATIBLE memory, I would start with that rather than buy an 8x4 set, the WS mobo has memory configurations for 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 sticks. Then if 24 GB isn't enough and you need to go to 32 you could then buy a 4x8 set and then eventually add another 4x8 to get to 64 (although I have read that sometimes adding an unmatched set just doesn't work, so that's somewhat of a gamble). Dorothy, The only problem with that is that the memory controller bandwidth will be reduced if you're not using RAM in sets of four on this platform. For example, if you're using six sticks, what the LGA 2011 memory controller does is map part of the installed memory as quad-channel and the remainder as single-channel. So, with 6x4, only 16GB will be mapped as full quad-channel while the remaining 8GB will be mapped as single-channel. (Obviously, using that system with only one or two sticks will result in the memory controller be constrained to single- or dual-channel mode, respectively.) Also, the LGA 2011 platform does not officially support a three-stick memory configuration because the memory controller does not have a triple-channel mode. Only single, dual or quad channel configurations are supported. ... View more

Jim Simon wrote: For an occasional user 50% faster does not mean much No, it would.  But you didn't get 50% faster than the 560 with the 680. Yes, Bill's "50%" figure is relative to the percentage points worth of improvement over software-only MPE. He was using software-only MPE as a starting point. ... View more

lasvideo wrote: RJL - Arent pros that dont sell there work called hobbyists  True. But some people lump hobbists together with fumble-fingered amateurs. And that's another thing that I shudder at. With that said, I'm done with this thread until I have something more useful to contribute. ... View more

Fair enough. And not all pros sell their work, and thus those pros make no money at all whatsoever (at least from video work). And like Todd, I stand in disbelief when I see people on other threads obsess over the sheer performance of their PCs without mentioning their generally mediocre to poor workflow decisions. ... View more

I actually responded to Todd's post, not your post. ... View more

Not only that, but sometimes work doesn't get done on time simply because the PC that one is using simply can't keep up with the demands of the material that (s)he is working with. This could lead to a money-losing habit - so much that (s)he might as well pack it in. Or it could lead to overreaction - spending an astronomical amount of money on the fastest PC out there. ... View more

On the other hand, a lot of people spend so much money on fast equipment only to lose money and go completely bankrupt. Remember, for every user making money with judicious use of expensive fast PC components there are dozens or even hundreds that fail and go bankrupt. In fact, there are lots of people who are actually wasting money just to even have the fastest PC out there - so much that many people who have the very slowest of current-generation PCs or even old-generation PCs who are actually far more productive. In this case, then, it boils down to the quality of the work that each individual is doing. Remember, a fast PC does not guarantee even good results, let alone great results. ... View more

Thanks, Bill, for your testing. This means that the GTX 680 is still not worth the premium at its current street price. It needs to be priced about $100 lower just to compete with the GTX 560 Ti 448 in terms of overall bang for the buck. And those results only confirm that any CUDA GPU with less than 192 CUDA cores on a PC with a highly overclocked CPU or an expensive high-performance CPU might as well be forced to use CPU-only: The GPU results would have been slower than the CPU-only results with such cheapo GPUs. ... View more

Yes, Bill, the GTX 680 may be a gamers' and Premiere Pro users' dream. However, it is relatively weak in some other applications that take full advantage of the compute capabilities even when compared to some of the older and lower-end GeForce GPUs. This is a GPU that for now I'd place in "great for gaming and Premiere, weak on everything else" category. ... View more