New Serious Video Editing Build

[pokemon]

Its been a while since I've been on these forums but I've kept up somewhat with new products. I've really gotten hooked on video editing and know the difference a faster computer would make. I'm working mostly in Adobe After Effects but also some Sony Vegas and figure some 3d stuff down the road. I'll eventually look into HD capturing, but I'll work on setting up a RAID when that day comes. I'll be focusing on insane render times (I want the most fluid editing possible) and probably working with HD footage.

~$1500
Case: Kind of lost, but the more 120mm, the better
CPU: Q6600? (What ever makes for a smoother editing experience)
Mobo: P35 vs X38?
Memory: I think I'll hold off on the DDR3 so DDR2 800+ for now. 4GB?
GPU: No experience shopping for cards for video editing
PSU: I've had good luck with Enermax and FPS but welcome to suggestions

Everything else I think I can handle though. Feel free to leave suggestions!

 

[pous]

Good case to look at is the Thermaltake Armor series on NewEgg... great amount of space, and excellent cooling. If you don't need so much space look into Antec 900 or Antec P180/182.

As for CPU, the Q6600 is a good option for performance, and is able to OC nicely to 3.0-3.2 on air cooling. Other than that, not really sure what to advise... maybe the E8400.

Not sure on Mobo, the GA-P35 DS3R is nice though and works well to OC if you choose to go that route.

4GB Memory not a bad idea... look at G.Skill, they tend to have low cost and good performance.

Not really sure what makes one GPU better than another for video editing... I like to think more video memory is good, so maybe look into an 8800 series card... I'm sure others will have good advice on this.

As for PSU, you could look into the PC P&C Silencer 750w, or Enermax Galaxy.... or for lower cost you can look at Antec NeoHE PSU's, they're reliable as well.

 

[bc4]

Intel's new quads coming out (i think the Q9450) will support SSE4 and supposedly will speed up encoding by up to 40% for programs that will support SSE4 instructions. I'm pretty sure both Adobe and Sony will offer upgrades to support this. (hopefully they will be free updates but they may throw it into the new versions)

 

[amd_fanboi]

go fot the Q, adn try ATI cards, as they tend to do better for video support

 

[snarfies1]

go fot the Q, adn try ATI cards, as they tend to do better for video support

I used to use ATI cards, but for video editing they've caused me nothing but problems. I could never get the preview monitor in any version of Premiere Pro to work correctly with any Radeon series card.

Me, I'm waiting on the Q9450.

 

[vangvace]

Its been a while since I've been on these forums but I've kept up somewhat with new products. I've really gotten hooked on video editing and know the difference a faster computer would make. I'm working mostly in Adobe After Effects but also some Sony Vegas and figure some 3d stuff down the road. I'll eventually look into HD capturing, but I'll work on setting up a RAID when that day comes. I'll be focusing on insane render times (I want the most fluid editing possible) and probably working with HD footage.

~$1500
Case: Kind of lost, but the more 120mm, the better
CPU: Q6600? (What ever makes for a smoother editing experience)
Mobo: P35 vs X38?
Memory: I think I'll hold off on the DDR3 so DDR2 800+ for now. 4GB?
GPU: No experience shopping for cards for video editing
PSU: I've had good luck with Enermax and FPS but welcome to suggestions

Everything else I think I can handle though. Feel free to leave suggestions!

Case: I got a lot of suggestions for the antec 900 case.
Q9450s are coming soon but might seriously dent your budget. Either way quads are better for video editing I'm told.
DDR2 800. Might recommend a 64 bit OS (your choice on XP or Vista, really depends on the software you'll be using) and take that puppy up to 8G. PSU the corsair VX and HX series are both quality. Here's a good list of PSU offerings as well. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088

 

[dario77]

the ati cards are preferable for video editing. better color, better aa for hi def video. intel chipsets + crossfireX + 2 3870x2's (or wait til june/july for 4870x2's) = pretty serious power!
also, considering the fsb of the q9450...upping the memory might not be a bad option, if not a budget buster. such is the nature of video encoding (again, especially hi def).
serious enough that this old amd boy is falling to the dark side to build just such a beastie...
i too will wait for q9450. and those 4870x2's (1gb gddr5/core).
i'd better get a louuuud case to cover up the sound of my system screeeeeeeeeeming!!!

 

[lunyone]

I think for the best performance for the $, I'd go with this:
CPU - q6600

GPU - 8800gts 512mb (g92) or 3870. Not sure if this is really overkill, but both are good and solid and generally run fairly cool, since they have double-slotted cooling solutions.

Memory - 4 gb's or more here. I'd start with 4 gb's of DDR2 800mHz. Make sure you get the CAS 4 stuff, since it OC's better and runs a bit faster than the CAS 5 stuff. I'd go with Corsair/Crucial/GSkill/Patriot for manufacturers.

Case - I'd probably go with a Antec 900 or Cooler Master 690 case. Both are pretty good at keeping things cool and are pretty well priced ($40-$120 depending on the deals that are out there). Both of the cases have plenty of space, so if you add another GPU or whatever, you'll be able to fit it in.

Here's the best steal right now on a decent case:
$20 after MIR's + shipping!!! Can't beat that right now!
CM 690 ATX Mid Tower
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0265143

Edit: Forgot to mention to go with a 64 bit OS, so you can take advantage of the added/installed RAM.

 

[pokemon]

Case: Coolermaster (COSMOS or Stacker) or Thermaltake Armor - I've had the Shark case before and it was a very solid case, but the Armor definitely offers better customizing and performance. The Cosmos seems like a newer version of the stacker (being the cooling case of choice without breaking the budget).

GPU: Apparently you can't get realtime editing with really any realistically priced video card so I'll just get something to play the occasional HL2 mod. Anything above a my previous X1950XT will be overkill.

CPU: Q6600 (for now), E8400 (just for insane clock speeds with SSE4), or Q9450 (definitely will have to get a primo mobo and ram to help the multiplier, but SSE4 and 12MB L2 will be nice to work with)

Mobo: The ASUS Formula Mobos look good

Memory: Crucial has treated me very nice but I always check to see what works best with the Mobo. 2x2GB DDR2 800 CL4 will be good for now.

OS: I've been switching back to XP on every Vista Laptop I've got so I'll look at the XP 64-bit as long as I can use 4GB+ of memory.

I'm mainly looking at as close to realtime as possible in After Effects and Sony Vegas with the budget in mind. So 64bit support for both and hopefully SSE4 support down the road.

HDD: I'll be looking at getting a Black Magic Intensity HD capture card and a Raid setup down the road but I'm considering a Raptor for OS and programs and larger HD for video files.

 

[grieve]

CPU: Q6600 (for now), E8400 (just for insane clock speeds with SSE4), or Q9450 (definitely will have to get a primo mobo and ram to help the multiplier, but SSE4 and 12MB L2 will be nice to work with)

The title of this post is 'New Serious Video Editing Build'
A Quad processor is the only choice... Fact of the matter, Q6600 performs the same or better in games as E8400... Video cards are the bottle neck. No matter if you clock the e8400 or Q6600 to 9000MHZ, the video card is still the bottle neck.

 

[pokemon]

I'm not going to be gaming really. Essentially unless I want to get one of those Matrox Realtime editing kits, the video card won't be top priority, but I'm set on quad core.

 

[weinheimer]

Go for one of the new Harpertown Mac Pro's

Very nice for video editing. Dual QuadXeons for 8 cores on Final Cut Pro goodness!

 

[grieve]

Yes I know this wasn’t for gaming, that’s why I was surprised to even see mention of an E8400. What I meant earlier was even if you were to game the Q6600 performs the same or better the E8400.

Q6600 is simply a better processor the E8400 overall.

 

[pokemon]

Lets just keep this to PCs, Final Cut is the only good thing I find about macs, but I still would use Vegas or Premiere over that.

The only reason I ever considered the E8400 is because of the price with SSE4, but I'm going to wait with SSE4 until I can get a Q9450.