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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D

dslr_sc

Participant

Harm, a build your own PC almost always ends up costing me about $500 more than a configured PC from HP or Dell with the same specs (using info from this thread and Videoguys). At first I found this strange because I thought a DIY system would be a better bargain. I then guessed that HP and Dell get better deals on the main components so that's how they can sell for less... although I understand they probably cut corners in the specs they won't list, like the power supply wattage or MOBO they use.

So what are your thoughts on just buying an HP (I'll leave Dell out since I read your criticism of them) and then upgrading low cost items like the power supply... assuming your upgrades don't come close to the cost of a DIY system?

And of all the major PC companies (HP, Dell, Gateway, etc.) is there any you'd recommend to people like me considering a "hybrid DIY" PC?

M

magneter

Participating Frequently

I did a lot of shopping and comparisons recently.

What's your budget?

And what programs do you intend to run?

H

HaroldZed

Participant

Harm:

Please allow me to impose on your time (and others who may wish to comment) by asking for your opinion about a computer build that will be used primarily for photo and video processing with CS5. After investigating several possibilities, I have tentatively decided on the components listed here.
My status is that of an amateur photographer, and this system will not be used for any critical production work. I have been using CS4 with an older computer. Since I would like to build a new computer and CS5 has raised the bar for system requirements, I feel more comfortable with some critical review.

Motherboard: - GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD7 Rev 2
CPU             - Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz
RAM            - Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D Dominator 6 GB 3 x 2 GB (12GB 3x4GB?) PC3-12800 1600MHz 240-Pin DDR3 Core i7 3 channel Memory Kit
Video           - PNY XLR8 VCGGTX480XPB GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5
HDD            - OS and Programs - WD Caviar Black 1 TB WD2001FASS SATA (6G)
                   - Data - WD Caviar Black 1 TB WD2001FASS SATA (6G)- (2 drives)
Case           - Antec P183 Black ATX
PSU           - Antec Quatro TPQ 1000
DVD           - Samsung SH-S243N (2 drives)
OS             - Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit

Thanks.

Harold

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

CPU: the 960 is much more expensive than the i7-930, which is easily overclocked beyond the stock 960. The 930 is the more economical choice.

RAM: Get at least 12 GB, either 6 x 2G or 3 x 4G. The latter is much more expensive, but allows upgrading to 24 G.

DVD: Why two DVD burners instead of at least one being a BR burner?

OS: Win 7 64 Pro is more than enough, unless you realy need the bit locker features.

Video: With only very limited test results and rather immature MPE support, we have not yet seen a significant performance difference between the 470 and 480 Fermi cards, but it appears the 470 is the more economical choice and has the same number of cores as the FX 5000/6000.

ECBowen

Inspiring

Definitely go with 12 GB of ram. If you have the budget, the new i7 970 is a great choice for the price. If not then the I7 930 is the best choice for the price. Unless you need the HDMI out on the 480GTX for 10 bit color, save money and get the 470GTX. Use the extra for the CPU.

Revised - The 470GTX has a Mini-HDMI out.

Eric

ADK

A

Anonymous

Hi Harm,

I can't thank you enough for the suggestions.

Just another quick question though. I'm choosing Hard drives at the moment and everyone on here seems to love the SpinPoint drives.

However, would you choose a Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ 32MB 1TB over a Caviar Black WD1002FAEX, 1000GB, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, SATA-3?

Thanks again!!!

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

The Caviar Blacks have the advantage of 64 MB cache, which is a definite advantage. However, WD Caviar Blacks are not suitable for raid configurations, due to that infamous WD TLER utility, that can no longer be changed in the latest Caviars.

Do not be fooled by the marketing hype around SATA-3. Yes, the theoretical bandwidth is much higher, but no current disks comes even close to approaching the bandwidth of SATA-2, let alone SATA-3.

J

JCschild

Participating Frequently

not sure what you are talking about Harm? we use WD's all the time in raid. (the newer ones)

are you talking about the fact a drive can drop out of a raid 5/6 with numerous drives?

Scott

ADK

A

Anonymous

Wow this is an excellent resource for people like me (who until now didn't have a clue where to start!) Thanks harm!

I went through HP's pc building website and followed all the choices you've listed for Budget. Is there anything here that jumps out at you that you would change?

My computing needs: I'm a technical illustration student and i'll be doing stuff with CS5, painter 11 as well as FormZ and possibly Maya. Probably some tiny little videos in Affter Effects.

Note: I couldn't find the exact ATI HD card. Nor could i choose the motherboard.

This setup costs: $1,273.99

Thanks for your help!

Operating system	Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-bit	edit
Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-860 quad-core processor [2.8GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache]	edit
Memory	8GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs] from 6GB	edit
Hard drive	1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 640GB	edit
Graphics card	1GB ATI Radeon HD 5570 [DVI,HDMI, DP, VGA adapter]	edit
Primary optical drive	Blu-ray player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner	edit
Networking	Integrated Ethernet port, No wireless LAN	edit
Front Productivity Ports	15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio	edit
TV & entertainment experience	No TV Tuner	edit
Sound Card	Integrated sound	edit
Speakers	HP USB 2.0 stereo speakers	edit
Keyboard and Mouse	HP USB keyboard and optical mouse	edit
Office software	Microsoft Office Starter 2010	edit
Security software	Norton Internet Security(TM) 2010 - 15 month

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Looks like a nice budget system, but I suggest you add another hard disk.

For video I would say add two disks, but for illustrations and Maya add at least one disk. You can buy this disk around the corner for probably half the price that HP charges and you can build it in yourself. Have a look at Samsung Spinpoint F3, very fast, quiet and affordable.

There are some other articles I wrote, all in the hardware forum where you may get some additional background and info that is worthwhile to read. Just have a look around.

Bill Gehrke

Inspiring

Newegg currently has the Spinpoint F3 1 TB on special fo $65 with this code (you may have to sign up for it to be usable) EMCYTNN25. Free shipping.

M

MUMediaDept

Participant

This is all great info. I'm pretty excited about an upcoming build, but would love some input.

With CS5 I'll be doing at most 3-4 AVCHD files at a time with minor effects. I cover events, so an hour or two of footage is not unusual. I'll be using AfterEffects quite a bit too. And Audition 4 to edit some pretty long lectures (4 hour +). Hopefully Audition will take advantage of multithreading somehow.).

I have $3000 to spend this year and already have the following:

4 old 74Gb Raptors (right now in raid 0 booting Vista 64, but will be moving to W7 64)

2 good monitors (plenty for me)

6 1TB drives in a raid 6. (This right now suffices for storage, but out of 4 TB I only have one free, so I need to expand this.)

a 3ware 9650SE-16 port raid card with battery backup

An older Quadro card

A decent sound card (which, I take it, is no longer important)

A big old Coolermaster Stacker case running two power supplies (a 680watt for MB and a 580w on all my drives)

Two 5-bay Sata backplanes (SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B I think I need one more soon?)

I think I could scare up another $1500 next year to add on a little more, so buying something now that's upgradable would be fine. With that in mind, should I splurge on a single hexacore (x5650?) with that crazy EVGA SR2 board (I'm not afraid of moderate air-cooled overclocking)? Or go for a tried-and-true Tyan with a couple of Xeons? Or just overclock a single 930?

And how much will a 480 help me in AfterEffects? Should I instead throw the money at more CPU goodness?

I just want to use the $3k to get the most performance possible.

Thanks in advance

-Tim

John T Smith

Community Expert

>how much will a 480 help me in AfterEffects?

You might want to check the AfterEffects PDF to veryify this, but I don't think CUDA/MPE does anything in AE, only in Premiere Pro CS5

CS5 User Guide - Right click PDF link to save to your computer
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/CS5/Using/index.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/CS5/Using/index.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Encore/CS5/Using/index.html

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Correct John, MPE does not work in AE.

LaciG

Known Participant

Thanks! Started reading your publications...

LaciG

Known Participant

Read the two articles: they are very useful. In the meanwhile, I have two more questions: 1. What about a solid state 'drive' for system 'disk' (I was told that they are faster, but rather small - and probably expensive). 2. This is about the case: Antec P183 looks good, has 120 mm top fan, 120 mm rear fan and 120 mm lower chamber fan. Is this enough for the system described above, or do I need the P193 with 2 x 140 mm top fans, 120 mm rear fan, 120 mm lower chamber fan and a 200 mm side fan? How does one calculate the needed fan 'farm' based on the power dissipation of the system? Also, would a slight over-clocking change the picture (other than an extra CPU fan)? Thanks, Laci.

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

First the case: neither is very good, because both are too limited in width to allow a large CPU cooler to be installed. Maximum height of a CPU cooler is 140 mm and that precludes the use of modern coolers like the Noctua NH-D14. I would always opt for a big tower, because of the easier installation, the better expansion capabilities, better cable management and better cooling capabilities.

SSD's as a boot disk will probably shave of a couple of seconds from the boottime. For instance reducing it from 70 seconds to 65 seconds. It will also make the loading of applications like PR faster, reducing the load time from 6 seconds to 2 seconds as an example.

Look at the time required for POST, the staggered spin-up of the disks, the initializing of raid BIOS and network connections, before Windows starts to load and realize that a SSD will have no impact on all that time at all, and that is by far the largest wait. Realize further that a SSD has no impact at all on the editing performance of your machine, that you normally only boot your machine once per day and load PR once per day, and the question is justified whether a 80 GB SSD for € 192 (current local prices) is worth it in comparison to a 1 TB F3 for € 60. Per GB a SSD is € 2.40 and the F3 is € 0.06, about 40 times more expensive. And the performance gain will be negligent.

For notebooks it may well be worth considering, because there is usuallly only 1 disk, no raid controller to initialize, no staggered spin up and multiple times per day to boot again and battery use, but not for an editing workstation.

All those claimed high read and write speeds are great on paper, but does it make your editing faster and more efficient? Testing has not proven that to be the case.

It all ranks under pennywise, pound foolish IMO.

LaciG

Known Participant

Reading the thread (the first time), I put together (also using some of the 'Videoguys' suggestions) a plan for an editing 'workstation' to be used for editing HD hobby videos, and would appreciate any comment:

Thanks, Laci

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Skip the GTX-295, go for the GTX-470/480

Get a better PSU: eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Pro v2.5

No floppy needed. Have you seen a shop that still sells them?

Have a look at some of my articles, like

Adobe Forums: A PC buying guide for NLE (mainly Intel)

Adobe Forums: Storage rules for an editing rig. Some...

and various others.

A

Anonymous

Hi Harm Millaard

I seriously need help choosing the components for my next pc!

I’ve been trying to come up with a decent configuration over the last few weeks but each time I star to choose components I seem to blow my budget. I live in New Zealand where PC components tend to be more expensive than what they are in the US/ Europe.

I am currently a media assistant at a marketing firm and find that I often need to take my work home to work to tight deadlines. I plan on using on my future PC CS5 (for work) and Avid Media Composer (for my own personal projects). Potentially I would like to play around with Maya as well at some point.

I’ve never built my own PC before but I’ve decided that I would like to give it a try. That said while I can use a computer (fairly well) I still have allot to learn in terms of putting one together.

My budget is $4000.00 (New Zealand dollars)

I have come up with the following list of components so far:

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-960 3.2GHz Quad-core with Hyperthreading

MB: Asus® P6X58D Premium Supporting SLI/CrossFire, USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s

MEMORY: 12GB Kingston HyperX Triple-Channel DDR3-1600MHz Low Latency

GRAPHICS CARD: NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX580 512MB GDDR3

DVD-RW: LG Electronics GH22NS50 DVD Writer, DVD 16R/22W/8RW, CD 48R/48W/32RW, Internal, SATA, Black, OEM

SOUND CARD: Creative Sound Blaster 5.1 VX Sound card, 5.1, PCI

WIRELESS ADAPTER: D-Link DWA-520 Xtreme-G, Wireless Adapter, 108Mbps, 802.11b/g, PCI

HARD DRIVES:

(RAID 0) 2x VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS, 150GB, 10000rpm, 16MB Cache, SATA-2

Caviar Black WD1002FAEX, 1000GB, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, SATA-3

As you can see so far I’m missing cooling, a case and a power supply, potentially a RAID Controller card, usb ports (i would also like to add a HDMI output port) etc

Could you please give me a hand and modify what I have above in any way that you see fit and help me by completing the list of all the other components that i will need?

I would really appreciate your help!!!!

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Well, you asked for it.

Lose the i7-960 and get an i7-930 instead and overclock it a bit. Half the price and the same performance when OC' ing.

Lose the FX580, get the GTX-480, much much faster and has the HDMI port.

Lose the sound card, use on board sound instead. Saves $$$, compatibility issues and bloated software.

What is the use of the wireless adapter? Lose it or if you really need one, get a 802.11 b/g/n version.

Do not raid your boot disk. One Velociraptor is sufficient.

Get at least 2 or better yet 3 Caviar Black's.

Cooler: Noctua NH-14D

Case: many to choose from, as long as it is a big tower. For instance CM HAF932, Lian Li PC-A77B

PSU: CoolerMaster is very good. Look here for requirements: eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Pro v2.5

The mobo has a number of USB ports on board.

Consider a LG GGW-H20L BR/DVD burner.

How does this fit into the budget?

A

acgold777

Participant

Note that many people have reported problems with the LG GGW-H20L BD burner disappearing under Win7, never to return. I'm one of them. It worked perfectly under Vista 64 but none of the fixes proposed on the web have worked for me. Device Manager reports a problem with the driver but the Microsoft troubleshooters say they can't find a better one.

Fixes proposed on the web and in various forums include uninstalling and letting the system reinstall, hacking the registry, running the Microsoft Auto-Fix program and disabling AHCI on the mobo. The drive is not listed in the Win7 compatibility list and the LG website includes drivers and SW only for XP and Vista.

Others are recommending the Pioneer BDR-205. I've just ordered one.

D

Dave514

Participating Frequently

Harm:

I'm a video editor using a Sony ZI and editing in HDV burning in SD. Hope to up grade to NX5. Need a new computer to use Cineform Neo 4k and CS5 Production Studio.

The following suggestion has been made:

Gigabye GA-P55M motherboard with Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire and eSATA ports,

8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM (4x2 GB)

Intel Core i5 750 quad core processor (2.66 GHz)

2x1 TB 7200 rpm WD "Black Series" HDs-32 MB cache

nVIDIA GTX 285 video card - dual monitir support

2x LG DVD Rewritable drives with Nero software

Mini tower case with room for 3 Hard Drives

Win 7 Pro 64 bit

Rosewill 650 watt 80 plus Certified power supply- energy efficent and quiet

3 yr warranty

$1700 approx

What do you think of such a set-up? How can it be improved and hopefully lower cost or at least not increase it too too much?

Thanks

Dave514

Scottsdale AZ

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Dave,

A couple of remarks:

1. Only two disks. That is cutting it thin, unless you did not mention a separate OS/program disk.

2. Mid tower. I would always opt for a big tower because of the better cooling and expansion room.

3. A P55 board limits you effectively/economically to 8 GB memory. A X58 board allows for 12 GB.

4. 650W PSU with a GTX-285 may be on the low side.

A

Anonymous

Hi Harm Millaard,

First of all I would like to thank you for the great posts I've seen here, about hardware in general, and the rich information you have been providing for long. Then, as I need to assemble a NLE PC capable of dealing with 2 or 3 simultaneous layers of AVCHD and TOD video files with average 35GB size, with a 2.500,00 € [$ 3.000,00] budjet, after reading most of your articles I've managed to come with the following configuration:

CASE:
- 1x CoolerMaster RC-690 II Advanced (89,90 €)
- 1x Fan 80mm NoiseBlocker Silent X1 Black/ Blue (4,40 €)
- 2x Fan 120mm NoiseBlocker Silent XL2 Black/ Blue (6,00 €) (12,00 €)
PSU:
- 1x Corsair HX-850W (165,00 €)
MOTHERBOARD:
- 1x Asus P6X58D-E Skt1366 iX58 (224,00 €)
PROCESSOR:
- 1x Intel Core Quad i7 930 2.8Ghz Skt1366 8Mb (277,00 €)
COOLER:
- Noctua NH-D14 Fan 140mm (69.90 €)
GRAPHICS:
- Asus GeForce PCI-E GTX470 1280Mb GDDR5 (359,90 €)
RAM:
- 2x Pack 3x 2048Mb DDR3 GSkill PC3-16000 (2000) CL9 RipJaws Tri-Channel (194,90 €) (389,80 €)
HDD-SYSTEM:
- SSD Intel 2,5" SATA-2 80Gb X25-M (225,00 €)
HDD-PRODUCTION [RAID0]:
- 4x Western Digital SATA-2 1TB 7200rpm 32Mb Black (85,90) € (343.60 €)
HDD-STORAGE:
- N/A [available USB 2.0 2TB device]
BR-RW:
- 1x DVDRW Blu-Ray LG BH10LS30 8x SATA LightScribe bulk (189,00 €)
DVD-RW:
- 2x DVDRW SATA Asus 24B1LT 24x LightScribe Black bulk (26,00 €) (52,00 €)
OTHERS:
- PCI OEM w/ 2 Firewire + 1 Mini-Firewire (9,90 €)
- Sharkoon Media III Card-Reader (5.25/3.5/USB) (10,90)
OS:
- 1x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit PT OEM (112,90 €)

---

TOTAL: approximately 2.500,00 €

---

Well, what can you say about this assembled machine? What modifications would you do? Any recomendations?

Regards.

Harm_MillaardAuthor

Inspiring

Two questions and one remark.

Question 1: Doesn't the motherboard have two on board firewire connectors? If so, you don't need the PCI card.

Question 2: Do you need two DVD burners PLUS a BR burner? The BR can also burn DVD's.

Remark: I know SSD is a hype nowadays, but is boot time that important? For editing it makes no difference and you can save a bit by choosing a Velociraptor for boot and another WD disk for expanding a raid.

A

Anonymous

Thank you for your fast reply!

Notes: The "2x" DVD is a typo! It was from another custom machine! And extra Firewire is needed for several peripherals [client arguing]. And I guess you may be right with the SSD HDD..

Now, imagine you can spend more 500,00 € [maybe $ 750,00], what would you do to increase performance and reliability? And for Win7 what are the main settings that I should do?

Software to use: Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Corel Video Studio Pro, Pinnacle Studio HD Ultimate Collection.

PS: I had some problems in the past with some PC configurations that used to stuck / crash during HD editing [not rendering], that's why I chose that particular graphic card.

Regards.

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