Please advise on new system for HD Video editing + Gaming

[MrFilmMaker]

Hey everyone,

I am new here and would love to get adise on a new system I want to build.

It will have 2 main purposes:
- HD Video editing
- Gaming

These are the parts I am looking to get:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
MOBO: EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel
Video Card: EVGA 512-P3-N841-AR GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
Case: COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000
Memory: Not sure yet
Power Supply: Not Sure yet

Questions:
Is there any conflict between these parts?
I am looking to have SLI setup, would the 2 large 8800GTS have an issue fitting on MOBO?
Any recommendation for memory? Power supply?
Do I need any cooling system?
Any other parts I have missed???

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[aevm]

No conflict, and good choices.
They will fit, but you'll have only one PCI slot left, I think.
RAM: 2x2GB DDR2-800
Power supply: Silencer 750W, it's on sale at newegg right now.
Cooling: Xigmatek HDT-S1283
Burner: SH-S203B

In general, I found that video editing works better if a hard disk is present too I like the WD6400AAKS for example.

 

[MrFilmMaker]

Thanks aevm for the quick response. Yes, a hard drive would be helpful!

Which brings another question .. how important is speed in HDD for gaming and video editing?
7200rpm, 10000rpm or the new 15000 rpm? The prices go up substantially and size goes down (improtant for saving those video files)

Do I need any cooling or stock fan is good enough. I might try to OC later.

Thanks again.

 

[knotknut]

Will you be needing a sound card or Disk Reader/Burner?
Mass storage? What kind of volumn will you be working with?

 

[MrFilmMaker]

Sound Card: Creative sb x-fi xtreme which I have already installed on my older PC.
I will get a generic DVD reader/bruner unless a certain brand makes a better fit?

HD movies take a LOT of space. So I need a lot of HDD space. I am just wondering if the render time will significantly effected by speed of HDD 7200 rpm vs 15000 rpm? Are we talking 10% increase in render speed or 100%?

Thanks for all your help.

 

[aevm]

The HDD speed consists of 3 main things:
1. time needed to move the head from track to track to find the right track. This part is about the same in all modern disks, from the $300 VelociRaptor to WD6400AAKS to Seagate's 7200.11

2. time needed to rotate the track, once found, until the right sector is under the head. The 10000 rpm VelociRaptor has a major advantage here, and so do the old Raptor disks (150GB, 74GB, 36GB). However, this part only matters for the first sector in a file, so it's actually irrelevant in video editing and in most gaming. It matters a lot when booting or working with a very fragmented hard drive or working with lots of tiny files.

3. time needed to read or write a lot of adjacent sectors (i.e. average read/write rate). Here the density of the data matters a lot, and the VelociRaptor and WD6400AAKS lead the pack, followed by the 7200.11 Seagates and the WD7500AAKS. The older Raptors fall behind here, because they are based on older technology instead of perpendicular magnetic recording.

In short, a $300 300GB VelociRaptor would give you the best performance for what you're doing, but it's expensive at $1/GB. A WD6400AAKS will give you the same performance in video editing and still decent performance in working with small files, for 6 times less $ per GB. An older Raptor, despite working at 10000 rpm, would give you less performance than the WD6400AAKS in video editing, for a much higher price/GB.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

get 2 good 7200 rpm drives and raid them. I would sacrafice sli and get a board with and intel chipset as nvidia chipsets can corrupt data when running in raid.

 

[aevm]

That's not a bad idea at all. Two of those WD6400AAKS or Seagate 7200.11 750GB drives in RAID 0 would behave just like a single one, except that the average read/write rate would be almost double. That's exactly the part that matters most when dealing with huge files, like videos.

Just keep in mind that RAID 0 increases the risk of data corruption, as well as the risk that one drive will fail and you lose all the files from both drives when that happens. Backup more often if you go that way, that's all.

Or you can buy 3 identical disks and use a different RAID level instead of 0, something that combines the speed advantages of striping with parity checks. There's a good starter article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

 

[MrFilmMaker]

Thank you very much for the detailed help. setting up RAID is a bit beyond my limited knoweldge although it sounds the advantages outweigh the risk. I need to read up on it more, specially going with 3 identical HDDs and see if it is that is farily easy to do (again, limited knoweldge)

Would RAID3 be best option for 3 HDDs?

 

[aevm]

Actually, the eVGA 780i (and most other motherboards) only support these RAID levels: 0/1/0+1/5/JBOD. (JBOD means just a bunch of drives, i.e. no RAID at all).

0 gives you speed but reduced data safety.
1 gives data safety (mirroring), but you see only as much space as fits on one disk, and speed is actually a bit lower than a single drive.
0+1 requires minimum four disks
5 is the striped+parity type that provides both speed and data checking. It needs 3 disks or more.

Also, RAID is usually not so good when using the MB hardware. People who are serious about it usually buy special cards for it.

Maybe you should read more about RAID indeed, by all means, but leave it for your next machine or some later upgrade, when you're feeling comfortable with it. For now, a Velociraptor and a 640GB/750GB storage drive would give you the best results IMO.
Maybe a 1TB, but those are still too expensive per GB to be worth it IMO.

 

[angry_ducky]

Thanks aevm for the quick response. Yes, a hard drive would be helpful!

Which brings another question .. how important is speed in HDD for gaming and video editing?
7200rpm, 10000rpm or the new 15000 rpm? The prices go up substantially and size goes down (improtant for saving those video files)

Do I need any cooling or stock fan is good enough. I might try to OC later.

Thanks again.

HD video files are huge, and you'll want to keep backup copies of all your raw footage. For that reason, I'd get a couple 1 terrabyte hard drives and put them in some sort of RAID mirror.

I'd say RAID 1 so that you'll always have a full backup of all your files and OS.

 

[knotknut]

If you need lots of storage and a gaming computer why not look at an external RAID storage or even a server.

For example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817422024

 

[MrFilmMaker]

Again, thanks for the very quick detailed replies.

I think I will hold off on RAID as I am not that familiar with it. I will have it as an upgreade down the road.

Having external RAID storage might be better option for now.

Now, keep footage saved on tape (not ideal I know)

Might be a silly question, but can you have a combination of RAID with a nunch of non RAID in same comp? Set up 2 HDDs as RAID drive just for movie editing and have 2 other HDDs for everything else?

 

[knotknut]

^ Yes

 

[aevm]

Yes. Lots of people have two small drives in RAID 0 and a third big one for storage.

 

[MrFilmMaker]

Thanks for your answers again. I think a combop of RAID and non RAID would be ideal for me.

A couple of quick questions:
- Any recommendations for memory?
- I was planning on XP pro. Any advantages Vista advantages in terms of Video Editing and Gaming?

Again, thank you for great help.

 

[aevm]

Check your editing software, see if it works on Vista 64-bit. If it does, get Vista 64-bit. If it doesn't, and you don't want to replace it soon, stick with XP 32-bit.

The advantages of Vista 64-bit over XP 32-bit:
- DirectX 10 (some games will look better)
- the ability to use 4GB of RAM or more (XP, with SLI, will see about 2.75 or 3.25 GB)


RAM:

OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800, $80 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820227267
There's a combo with the EVGA 780i, so you might save a bit there too.

This quote from Newegg might be useful if you get that MB/RAM combo:

Pros: Cool heatsinks / handles on this ram makes installation a snap. EVGA mobo 780i had to tweak the speeds a bit in bios to give me 4,4,4,15 2.0 volt. No problem at all. Vista SP1 will recognize and say 4 gig.

 

[knotknut]

Avem recommended 2x2GB DDR800. That is all you will be able to use with
XP Pro x86 (32bit).
If you go to a 64bit OS, like Vista 64bit you will be able to use way more RAM. Something you have to be aware of is, even now, there are still some software programs that do not support 64bit OS and or Vista. If you choose to go that route just check to see if you are going to be compatable.

edit:
Looks like I am repeating. I was typing, thinking and working at the same time.
Got the lagg going

 

[aevm]

Vista 64 itself would accept 128 GB of RAM. However, "way more RAM" means only 8 GB for you, according to the eVGA 780i specs, because that's all you can put in that motherboard's slots. If you're not going for 8 GB right away, it's important to get 2x2GB and not 4x1GB, so you still have two RAM slots free later if/when you want the full 8 GB.

 

[knotknut]

True, you are limited to your hardware.

 

[MrFilmMaker]

I like the fact that Vista offers higher RAM limit. The question is there a MOBO that comes close to the Vista RAM (128) limit and still have SLI ?

 

[aevm]

None that I can think of.

There is the GA-EP45-DS3R that lets you have 16 GB of RAM and a single video card, for example. With a GTX 280 or 4870X2 in there it would beat 8800GTS SLI, I think.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128344&Tpk=GA-Ep45-DS3R

Most MBs out there are still limited to 8 GB AFAIK. Makes sense, I guess, because to get 16GB in 4 DIMM slots you need to buy 4GB sticks, and those are extremely expensive. I mean $1200 or $1600 for 4 sticks of 4 GB each. There's really not much demand for that yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=DDR2+8GB&x=0&y=0

 

[MrFilmMaker]

wow! I never realized how expensive those 4GB sticks are! I am certainly sticking with smaller mem for a while.

I was looking at the new EVGA GeForce GTX 260 and I am thinking of getting one instead of the 8800GTS.

Questions:
- Will it work with MOBO eVGA 780i ?
- I did not see any reviews of having it in SLI set up? Would I be able to buy a second GTX 260 down the rd (once prices went down!) and use on the eVGA 780i in SLI?
- If yes, would an GTX 260 SLI be an overkill/waste on Q6600 ?

Again, thanks very much for sharing your knowledge.

 

[aevm]

It should work, alone and in SLI. Can't say for sure because nobody has seen a GTX 260 yet. AFAIK they will be out on the 26th of this month. Give it until mid-July, so people can have it delivered and installed and write reviews (both user reviews at Newegg and professional reviews at serious tech sites like Anandtech), then we'll know for sure.

Whether it's overkill to buy two GTX 260 cards: for 1680x1050, yes, IMO. For 1920x1080 (1080p LCD TV) or 1920x1200 (24"..28" monitor) or 2560x1600 (30" monitor) it's probably worth it. Some games, like Crysis or Frontlines, get lousy fps at those resolutions if you max the eye candy. It really depends on the game and the resolution and the level of eye candy and even on crazy things like how many other players are in the game and where in the game you are. It's hard to predict. In general, the Q6600 is very fast and I don't think it will drag down the system. Apart from FSX, most games find a stock Q6600 plenty and the video card is their limiting factor.

You can always overclock the Q6600 anyway, especially if you do get that Xigmatek I mentioned. Lots of people got it to work at 3 GHz or more instead of 2.4. Even 3.6 GHz is possible, with a little luck and the right parts.