New video edit droid system. Suggestions?

[Gerry Jones]

Building an edit droid for using Sony Vegas 11, Acid Pro, Photoshop, After Effects. Budget was $1K. This is running $1,225 at Newegg.

Suggestions? Overspent on... Underspent on...?

CASE Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $99.99

PSU SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply $69.99

MOBO GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $129.99

CPU Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) $229.99

CPU Cooler Rosewill RCX-ZAIO-92 92mm Sleeve Bearing Fan CPU Cooler $17.99

RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL $46.99

VID EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1461-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $199.99

HD (2) Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s (2)@$124.99 = $249.98

READER Rosewill RDCR-11002 All-in-one USB 3.0 Card Reader $19.99

BURNER ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM $19.99

OS Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit $139.99

Suggestions?

Thanks!
Gerry

 

[Gerry Jones]

Definitely want a legal OS so I'm eligible for all updates.

Good tip on sound. Forgot to mention sound since it is a separate budget from the computer.

Will be running an external sound box:
Focusrite Saffire 6 USB - 6 Channel Audio & MIDI USB Computer Interface. It handles live recording/MIDI performance/ and monitoring playback.

I've read the experiences of many people using SSD's and it seems like the storage medium is rarely where the bottlenecks occur. That said, I'll be running 7200RPM 6G/sec HD's with a 6G/sec MOBO to make sure it's not an issue.

GPU, MOBO and CPU are far more likely culprits when it comes to snail-like rendering behavior than HD from what I've read. Hopefully I've got those fairly well ironed out by going i5 2500K/Z68/GTX 560.

Thanks for the feedback!
Gerry

 

[Gerry Jones]

After getting pounded on by a few other editors, I'm leaning towards several upgrades:
Instead of 2500K/Z68/GTX 560, I'm thinking 2600K/Z68/GTX 570 should give me appreciably better render times. Also I'll bump RAM to 16G to take advantage of the full capabilities of the 8 threads in the 2600K.

Long render times suck eggs. I really want my vid renders to be blazing so I can go from raw video to final DVD as quickly as possible.

 

[andwhy]

Getting failed renders with that nVidia card yet? I am looking to upgrade to a GTX 570 but i've heard it doesn't work consistently.