!HELP! Building new Dual Xeon Quad Core Video Editing Sytem

[flyhiloone]

Hi,
I have been put to the task of building a new system and it is a little out of my knowledge base. I just built a new Quad core system and it is not powerful enough and need to build a Dual Xeon Quad core system.

I was hoping i could get some help from you. I need to know good motherboards that have all the features that a video editor would need i.e. plenty of sata II ports, 1394 ports, lots of USB etc. Most of all it has to support the Xeon 5300 series of processors. Also help with ram would be good. I have never bought FB-Dimms.

Any examples of current working systems would be great.


Thanks in advance

 

[dasickninja]

If you want dual quads, you'll have to deal with FB-DIMMs. I'd seriously suggest going to a system builder, since these things aren't a joke to build. Pray tell, what exactly are you doing that maxes out a quad core? ()?

At least if I know that, I can put together a comparison system for you to look at.

 

[flyhiloone]

Its really not that hard to max out a quad core.
All you have to do is buy a live video mixing board from Newtek such as the VT-4 and then try to stream live video at 1.5mbs over the internet using windows media encoder, and pump the quality and keyframing all the way to best settings. All this while playing back dv quality video's and capturing an uncompressed Master to a set of 4 scsi hd's.

I should tell you that right now it can be done but we want increase the quality settings in windows media encoder. This is what we need the Dual Quad core's for

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Hi, OP. Seems you're going for the same type of system that I've been angling for. I've been sifting around for a couple of months on it and I've decided to hold until autumn to see what K10s and Penryns might be kicking around then. However, after all my digging, this is the best allround deal I've found. You should check the specs to see if the motherboard suits you though, and BE CAREFUL WITH DELL! THERE ARE HORROR STORIES POPPING UP OF MEGASCREWUPS.

# PowerEdge SC 1430


Date 2/23/2007 10:21:56 AM Central Standard Time
Catalog Number 4 Retail 04
Catalog Number / Description Product Code SKU Id
PowerEdge SC1430:
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5320; 2X4MB Cache, 1.86GHz, 1066MHZ FSB 143C18 [222-6814] 1
2nd Processor:
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5320, 2x4MB Cache, 1.86GHz, 1066MHz FSB 4PC18 [311-6863] 2
Operating System:
No Operating System NOOS [420-6320] 11
Memory:
DISCOUNTED UPGRADE to4GB 533MHz (4X1GB), Dual Ranked DIMMs 4G4D5DP [465-8268] 3
Hard Drive Configuration:
Onboard SATA Controller supports 1-2 Hard Drives - No RAID MSTNR [341-3825] 27
Hard Drive Controller:
Onboard SATA Controller - No RAID OBSATA [430-1949] 9
Primary Hard Drive:
500GB, SATA II, 3.5-inch, 7.2K RPM Hard Drive 500S272 [341-3759] 8
2nd Hard Drive:
500GB, SATA II, 3.5-inch, 7.2K RPM Hard Drive 500S2A7 [341-3753] 23
Floppy Drive:
No Floppy Drive NOFD [341-4035] 10
CD/DVD Drive:
16X DVD-ROM Drive 16XDVD [313-4336] 16
Modems:
56K Internal Modem for PowerEdge and PowerEdgeSC INMODM [313-3553] 14
Network Adapter:
On-Board Single Gigabit Network Adapter OBNIC [430-0488] 13
System Documentation:
Electronic Documentation and OpenManage CD Kit EDOCS [310-8146] 21
Keyboard:
No Keyboard Option NOKYB [310-5017] 4
Mouse:
No Mouse Option NOMSE [320-2346] 12
Monitor:
No Monitor Option NOMON [320-0058] 5
Hardware Support Services:
3Yr STANDARD SUPPORT: 7x24 Tech HW/SW Support, NBD Onsite After Diagnosis 3STDU [970-6242][970-6282][980-2590][985-0848][985-0857] 29
Installation Support Services:
No Installation Assessment NOINSTL [900-9997] 32


The whole thing $4000 out the door. Not bad!

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

Did you look at the mac pro?
also for video you want a hardware raid card there are some dual amd boards with on board hardware SAS and lots of pci-e lanes also they use cheaper ddr2 ecc ram and will have quad-core cpus real soon.

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

If you want dual quads, you'll have to deal with FB-DIMMs. I'd seriously suggest going to a system builder, since these things aren't a joke to build. Pray tell, what exactly are you doing that maxes out a quad core? ()?
.

Using software raid and Intel's shard fsb can choke it up.

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Did you look at the mac pro?
also for video you want a hardware raid card there are some dual amd boards with on board hardware SAS and lots of pci-e lanes also they use cheaper ddr2 ecc ram and will have quad-core cpus real soon.

I dunno about the OP, but yes, I configured a Mac Pro roughly the same way and it came to almost twice the price. Steve Jobs still thinks that users should pay several thousand dollars extra to get his signature on the motherboard... :lol:

Hey, if your company is paying for it, go Mac. If you have to cut the check, forget Mac.

 

[flyhiloone]

Thanks for the reply

I looked over the dell page and actually i was just there before i posted this thread. The only problem i have with that build is that I have to have either the xeon 5345 or the 5355 cuz i am afraid it won't have enough power to handle all of the processing it needs to do. I already have an qx6700 and even after overclocking it to 3.4 it wasn't enough.

Also i am not too worried about building my own system. I have alot of experience. I have built Xeon's before and have done well.

Is there a motherboards that anyone could recommend for this application?

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Is there a motherboards that anyone could recommend for this application?

If I was gonna do a build, I had settled on the TYAN S5372G3NRRS Motherboard, mostly because it would do the job and it was cheap. Dunno if it would fit your requirements though!

Edited because I'm old, senile and I got distracted by a news feature on Hooters on the TV. :lol:

 

[Synthetickiller]

Not that you'd be interested in doing this, but you could always get the cheap 1.86 ghz quad core, E5320 i believe, and OC it to 2.33 ghz. I know of a forum explaining how, though it sounds incredibly difficult to me. Just a thought if you want to save some serious cash.

I'm not sure how much ram you need. I know the if you run quad channel with only 4 physical slots taken up, its faster than 8 slots. I don't know if that would warrant the cost of purchasing four 2 gig sticks. I'm also not sure just how much ram you need to run.

FB-Dimms are comparble in price to high quality DDR2 800. I don't consider that "expensive" compared to DDR2 1000 or so that run 400-600 bucks for 2 gigs.

You could probably get a price quote from dell or wherever and see if you can built it yourself for a good bit cheaper. I've built a dual opty server and its not more labor intensive than a single CPU computer. Just 1 more CPU and heatsink to install.

 

[flyhiloone]

Hi,
Even though i hate mac's i would buy one in this case. Except for the fact that i have to be able to run Newtek hardware/software which is PC based and I really like the quality of microsoft's vc-1 codec. Also we have to stream and i don't think Quicktime has that ability...

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Yeah, the E5320 is the processor in that Dell system I priced out but I dunno if the Dell motherboard leans towards OCing, furthermore, if the OP is doing mission critical work, I doubt that he wants to OC it at all. Reliability is first and foremost. And I don't care about the old-time OCers who claim that they have been folding their 478 Northwood at 4.4GHz nonstop since 2003, IMHO the more you OC the more risks you're taking with reliability. I wonder if Dell would upgrade the CPUs in this config. It would be interesting to ask them.

 

[BaldEagle]

Did you look at the mac pro?
also for video you want a hardware raid card there are some dual amd boards with on board hardware SAS and lots of pci-e lanes also they use cheaper ddr2 ecc ram and will have quad-core cpus real soon.

Mac, cough, gag, vomit......... I think they use one in kindergarten class though.

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

Hi,
Even though i hate mac's i would buy one in this case. Except for the fact that i have to be able to run Newtek hardware/software which is PC based and I really like the quality of microsoft's vc-1 codec. Also we have to stream and i don't think Quicktime has that ability...

the new mac can run pc software

 

[mo65]

Have you looked at the supermicro x7dal-e. It will alloww a Quad-Core Intel®
Xeon®Processor 5300 sequence (Clovertown processor) up to 2.66 GHz

 

[CaptRobertApril]

the new mac can run pc software

Which is kinda like buying an Xbox to run medical imaging. :lol: