Asking the geniuses..

[kevin2]

I need a computer for heavy video editing and I don't know a thing at all about hardware. How do these specs look for a machine to run Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 and also to do some upgrading down the road? Here is a link to the system I plan on getting from ADK http://www.adkvideoediting.com/systems/viewsystem.cfm?recordid=90, but the CPU and GPU are different. I had a stroke last month (at 22, excellent) and this took forever to type, so any response would be greatly appreciated. Especially after I bought an Envy17 last year to run PP on and it sucked.

Case: ADK Tower: (8) 3.5" bays 6 are removable, (4) 5.25 Bays Firewire/USB2 in front

Power Supply: Silent Pro M 1000w Tri Sli, 5 yr warranty.

Mobo: Core i7 SB-E, 4 PCIex16, 2 PCIe, up to 64Gig ram no firewire

CPU: 6 Core i7 overclocked 4.5GHz or better with HT 12meg cache

Cooling: Intel Liquid cooler self contained unit (quiet)

Quieting/xtra cooling: ADK Quiet Case fans (2) 8DB Noctua

RIZZAM: 16gig (4x4GB) DDR3 1600 LV Lifetime warranty.

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64 bit OEM

OS/Programs drive: 1TB Sata 600 64meg cache 1 yr warranty ST1000DM003

Source drive: 1TB Sata 600 64meg cache 1 yr warranty ST1000DM003

Render drive: 1TB Sata 600 64meg cache 1 yr warranty ST1000DM003

DVD-RW/BDR: PX-890SA 24X DVDRW SATA Retail: Plextor 24XDVDRW with PlexUtilities, SATA, and Lightscribe
software included.

Dual Head Video: GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card - 815 MHz Core - 1.5GB GB GDDR5 SDRAM Memory Clock 4100 MHz ???

2 Year Warranty Parts/Labor

For around $3,481 (I'm assuming the price changes are because of the conditions in Thailand, or something)

 

[tsnor]

Video editing.

I personally would forget the overclock because the system will be heavily loaded for long periods of time. "CPU: 6 Core i7 overclocked 4.5GHz or better with HT 12meg cache". Overclocking eats up a system (google electromigration).

Ask about more than 16MB.

Ask about a RAID 0 array each for the source and target drives. A raid 0 array allows you to read from two or more drives at the same time upping your IO rate two or more times. This would end up with four drives in your case.

Premiere Pro CS5.5 knows how to use your very expensive video card to strongly accelerate editing. Make sure you find out how to turn this on. (google Premiere Pro CS5.5 and CUDA).

 

[kevin2]

So I chose the i7 3930k 3.2 ghz instead, shaving $110. I want to raid down the road because this is all of the money I have (for a while, actually) . Will the performance really suffer that bad? Do I really need more RAM? The next step is $180 more for 32gb..wouldn't it be cheaper to just do it myself when I get the dough? I wish I were rich. ***.

 

[traumaiv]

16gb is fine. if for video editing the gpus are really overkill. i would still recommend something from nvidia as they do have cuda tech but you really dont need 1000$ worth of graphics cards to run it.

 

[440bx]

Hello Kevin,

Take the comments I'm going to make with a grain of salt because I don't have personal experience with a setup like the one you've described but, based on the experience I do have, knowledge of specifications and a little common sense, I am going to make some observations for you to consider.

1. Premier Pro can and will use nVidia's CUDA engine to process video. This is obviously a good thing but:

2. if the CUDA engine is what is processing the video then I don't think you really need an expensive ($600.00) hexacore CPU which will be mostly idle (since it is the CUDA engine that will be doing most if not all the work.)

That's the one thing I see as a "problem" - paying a lot of money for something that may not be helping much (the CPU in this case.)

3. I am not sure if I understood your post correctly but, if you were saying that you would have 2 GTX 580s (not just one), I didn't see anywhere that Premier Pro can use 2 separate CUDA engines simultaneously. I'd check with Adobe to confirm that having 2 GTX 580s instead of 1 would be beneficial before committing money to that setup (after all each card is close to $500.00, it is a good idea to ensure you will get $1000 of processing power and not just $500.)

At first blush, it seems to me that you might be just as well off with a 2600K and one (or two depending on what you find out on point 3) GTX 580s.

If you were not going to be using the CUDA engine then I would concur that going for a 3830K and overclocking it would be a good setup.

Lastly, I feel the price is significant (and may even be high for what you're getting), I'd check in forums that are video centric and hardware agnostic. The people in such forums likely have valuable experience they can share with you and give you better direction.

HTH

 

[kevin2]

I think dual head video is just for two monitors because they want 529 and the gpu is 479.99 on newegg.

 

[kevin2]

The other two processors they offer for this model are i7 3820 4 core 3.6ghz for $310 less than the 3930k at 3.2ghz and also the 820 for $260 less at 4.2ghz

 

[kevin2]

I changed the source and render drives from 1TB Sata 600 64meg cache to 2000G raid 0 (2 64Meg 1TB drives) respectively, and the CPU down to the 3820 and its now $3291 (almost $200 less.) Also changed the OS/Programs drive down to 500g. I know its a little pricy for what it is, but this is my first rig and I want the ADK service, etc. I just want to look into the GPU but the only other nvidias with at least a gb are the 550 and 560.

 

[440bx]

The only concern I have left in the setup you mentioned is the RAID 0.

If either drive fails, all your data is gone and, it seems like drives are becoming more unreliable as time passes. (seems like manufacturers are constantly and consistently cutting down on Q/A.)

Other than the RAID 0, I think it is a solid choice.

HTH

 

[kevin2]

Would you prefer a raid5 or something else? Because I do not have that money. And do you think it is a solid choice with the corrections I made?

 

[440bx]

I would do a RAID 1. It only takes two hard drives (less expensive than RAID 5) and RAID 1 is more portable (if the RAID controller fails, you can often plug either drive into a plain (non RAID) sata port and the info on the drive will be there (with RAID 5 you cannot do that).

HTH

 

[440bx]

Would you prefer a raid5 or something else? Because I do not have that money. And do you think it is a solid choice with the corrections I made?

I forgot to mention, with the corrections you made I think your system configuration is good.

 

[440bx]

Would you prefer a raid5 or something else? Because I do not have that money. And do you think it is a solid choice with the corrections I made?

Hi Kevin,

Overall, I think the best balanced system (for the money) is as you had it originally (with the 3 1TB Hard drives). In your original configuration, I made two simple changes:

1. I selected the noctua cooler instead of the Intel liquid cooler. If you are not going to overclock, the Noctua will do fine. Also, without liquid you don't have to worry about leaks and/or maintenance (which is eventually required.) That saved a little money.

2. I selected the 700W power supply. I think the 1000W is (way) overkill and the savings are significant.

With those two changes, the cost comes out to $3113.00

As far as RAID 1, I would do it myself. You can purchase an inexpensive card based on the Sil3132 (SATA II not III though) for about $15.00 or less. Monoprice has them. I've used many of them and they work really well. The system I am using as I type this has 2 of them installed. Each card supports one RAID 1 config (that is two drives) and the performance is quite acceptable (about 110 to 120 MB/s in sequential reads with 2 Samsung HD103SJ, a tad less with a couple of 1TB Hitachis).

You can save yourself quite a bit of money by doing the RAID 1 yourself. Only thing is, you will have to purchase the additional drive(s) yourself (best is to use the same model drive) The savings from the original $3481 to the $3113 I am suggesting would easily allow you to purchase one RAID controller and one additional hard drive.

You'd have a very nice system.

As far as additional memory in the future, you can get the memory when it's on sale at Newegg and save yourself a bundle over ADK's prices. Since the motherboard they are using has 8 memory slots, you can easily upgrade to 32GB by simply purchasing another 16GB from Newegg, again, at significantly lower prices.

HTH

 

[kevin2]

I would Raid 1 both the source and render, correct?

 

[tsnor]

No way RAID1. This is VIDEO EDIT. The data can be recreated. RAID 1 is slower than no raid. Stick with the raid0 config. Get the data in and out of the disk subsystem 2X faster than raid1.

I use raid0 on my gaming system. No loss if it crashes. I don't use raid on my work system and actually have a backup strategy.

 

[440bx]

I would Raid 1 both the source and render, correct?

Hi Kevin,

I would definitely RAID 1 the source since that is where your "originals/source" files are. The render isn't as important because you could always recreate the work from the originals if the render drive got lost. (but, if the render drive has data you cannot recreate then you might want to consider setting it up in RAID 1 as well.)

As far as RAID 1 being slower (as the poster above suggested), the difference between RAID 1 and a standalone drive is so small that it can be legitimately considered insignificant. (RAID 5 however can be noticeably slower depending on the speed of the XOR engine in the RAID 5 controller.)

RAID 0, while it is true that it is faster than a standalone drive, is almost always a _very bad_ idea. IMO, speed is irrelevant if it comes at the expense of reliability.

In RAID 0 your chances of losing your data is at least _double_ than when using a standalone drive, I say "at least" because, in addition to a drive failure, if the file system gets corrupted in a standalone drive, you can almost always recover at least some of your data (and in most cases all of it), in a RAID 0 your chances of losing all of your data are significantly higher. Unless your data is truly disposable, stay away from RAID 0. Also RAID 0 is rarely portable, by that I mean, if the controller that was originally used to setup the RAID 0 fails (rare but it happens), you can't just connect the drives to any other controller that supports RAID 0, it won't work and your data will be lost. You have to find either the same controller or a "very compatible" controller (ICH9R and ICH10R fall in that category.)

If a RAID 1 controller fails, you can connect either drive directly to a normal SATA port and use the drive as if it had never been part of a RAID 1 installation. In other words, the drives in a RAID 1 can work individually and do NOT depend on the controller (except in the case of some LSI controllers that for some unfathomable reason stripe a RAID 1 setup - you won't be using an LSI controller therefore you don't need to worry about that.)

If you really need very fast I/O then get an SSD which will run rings around any RAID 0 installation without the added loss in reliability. A single Marvel controller based SSD (such as the crucial M4) is anywhere from 2 to 20 times faster (depending on the operation) than two 10,000 rpm raptors in RAID 0. (they admittedly won't hold as much space.)

Conclusion: stick with RAID 1 and get an SSD if you need maximum speed.

HTH

PS: RAID 1 does not give you any additional speed over a standalone drive (it's basically the same speed). RAID 1 protects your data from a hard drive failure by automatically maintaining a copy of everything on both drives.