Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: this week (the closer the better)
Budget Range: ~$1,000 after rebates and shipping and tax
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Running Adobe CS 6 (Premiere, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator (likely some AfterEffects as well)), internet/web. I do not play games at all. Not even a little.
Are you buying a monitor: No. Have dual 24" Dell Ultrasharp IPS panels
Parts to Upgrade: brand new build
Do you need to buy OS: Yes (Perhaps a dumb question, but I see Microsoft is allowing previous owners of Windows to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39... would this work if I installed 7 first and then upgraded? I only own a version of 7 that I paid 10 bucks for when I bought a new Vista system shortly before it's release. Would those licenses not be valid on the new motherboard?)
Please note that if you're using an OEM license of Windows, you will need a new one when buying a new motherboard.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I like newegg (and amazon), but I'm open any place you guys recommend
Location: City, State/Region, Country - Dallas, TX
Parts Preferences: Open to whatever is recommended. I want an SSD for the boot drive but am not sure how big it needs to be (would CS 6 run on it or just Windows?). Also saw something on an ASUS board having two 6GB/s SATAs (or eSATAs) that could be use for a boot drive and the other one for caching only or something to speed things up. Also would like to have a RAID 0 with two drives in there. The RAID controller can be integrated into the motherboard, right? (I have a feeling I'm pushing over the $1k with asks like these.)
Overclocking: Yes. I would like to overclock if I can do it safely. Seems like from what I've been reading some of the motherboards have some overclocking presets that are "safe". Definitely want to squeeze maximum performance out, but I've also never overclocked.
SLI or Crossfire: I think this has to do with multiple graphics cards and I think no.
Your Monitor Resolution: 2 x 1920x1200
Additional Comments: I value a quiet PC. Is there a way to keep an overclocked machine cool without lots of loud fans?
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Current system is 3 years old and running Adobe Premiere CS6 is no bueno.
I have always purchased prebuilt computers... Dell and HP. First time building a system.
I work with Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator for my work daily. I also have loads of HD video that I've shot on my SLR over the past couple of years that I would like to edit in Premiere. This is the primary reason for the upgrade. My current system just basically can't edit it with any fluidity or efficiency... and things like Warp Stabilizer are especially slow.
I found this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/369936-31-modest-video-editing-computer-build-2012 which prompted me to pick up the i7 3770K from Microcenter for $250 (after tax) and the Gigabyte nVidia GTX 670 for $330 on Newegg a couple hours ago. Was thinking about the ASRock z77 Extreme4 or Extreme6, but some of the reviews mentioned quirks, instability, and a bad manual. I definitely want reliability and didn't know if ASUS would be worth the premium here?
In researching the motherboard, I came across a lot of info that recommended the X79 chipset for video editing. The Videoguys.com DIY builds all use them and I saw this recommended in other places too. I saw the 3930K processor pop up a fair amount. I also understand that the quad channel RAM would be good for video I editing. And last, the results of this Premiere benchmark seem to demonstrate pretty clearly that the top performers all run X79: http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php. But obviously that comes at a price.
So I guess I am asking two things:
1. What system would you recommend based on the info above? (And how would it differ from the recommendation in the other thread?)
2. Could you also shed some light on the cost to benefit ratio of going the X79 route. Clearly things seem more expensive by going that route. I would almost certainly be willing to spend $1500 to get 3x the performance (or 1/3 the render times) but almost certainly would not for a 20% bump. I just don't have a sense of where in that range I would be (cost or performance wise).
Thanks very much guys. I resisted posting for hours thinking the answers are probably already here somewhere. But I felt like I just didn't know enough to make a good judgement call here so I finally broke down and decided to lay out my questions. Many thanks for the help.
Budget Range: ~$1,000 after rebates and shipping and tax
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Running Adobe CS 6 (Premiere, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator (likely some AfterEffects as well)), internet/web. I do not play games at all. Not even a little.
Are you buying a monitor: No. Have dual 24" Dell Ultrasharp IPS panels
Parts to Upgrade: brand new build
Do you need to buy OS: Yes (Perhaps a dumb question, but I see Microsoft is allowing previous owners of Windows to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39... would this work if I installed 7 first and then upgraded? I only own a version of 7 that I paid 10 bucks for when I bought a new Vista system shortly before it's release. Would those licenses not be valid on the new motherboard?)
Please note that if you're using an OEM license of Windows, you will need a new one when buying a new motherboard.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I like newegg (and amazon), but I'm open any place you guys recommend
Location: City, State/Region, Country - Dallas, TX
Parts Preferences: Open to whatever is recommended. I want an SSD for the boot drive but am not sure how big it needs to be (would CS 6 run on it or just Windows?). Also saw something on an ASUS board having two 6GB/s SATAs (or eSATAs) that could be use for a boot drive and the other one for caching only or something to speed things up. Also would like to have a RAID 0 with two drives in there. The RAID controller can be integrated into the motherboard, right? (I have a feeling I'm pushing over the $1k with asks like these.)
Overclocking: Yes. I would like to overclock if I can do it safely. Seems like from what I've been reading some of the motherboards have some overclocking presets that are "safe". Definitely want to squeeze maximum performance out, but I've also never overclocked.
SLI or Crossfire: I think this has to do with multiple graphics cards and I think no.
Your Monitor Resolution: 2 x 1920x1200
Additional Comments: I value a quiet PC. Is there a way to keep an overclocked machine cool without lots of loud fans?
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Current system is 3 years old and running Adobe Premiere CS6 is no bueno.
I have always purchased prebuilt computers... Dell and HP. First time building a system.
I work with Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator for my work daily. I also have loads of HD video that I've shot on my SLR over the past couple of years that I would like to edit in Premiere. This is the primary reason for the upgrade. My current system just basically can't edit it with any fluidity or efficiency... and things like Warp Stabilizer are especially slow.
I found this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/369936-31-modest-video-editing-computer-build-2012 which prompted me to pick up the i7 3770K from Microcenter for $250 (after tax) and the Gigabyte nVidia GTX 670 for $330 on Newegg a couple hours ago. Was thinking about the ASRock z77 Extreme4 or Extreme6, but some of the reviews mentioned quirks, instability, and a bad manual. I definitely want reliability and didn't know if ASUS would be worth the premium here?
In researching the motherboard, I came across a lot of info that recommended the X79 chipset for video editing. The Videoguys.com DIY builds all use them and I saw this recommended in other places too. I saw the 3930K processor pop up a fair amount. I also understand that the quad channel RAM would be good for video I editing. And last, the results of this Premiere benchmark seem to demonstrate pretty clearly that the top performers all run X79: http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php. But obviously that comes at a price.
So I guess I am asking two things:
1. What system would you recommend based on the info above? (And how would it differ from the recommendation in the other thread?)
2. Could you also shed some light on the cost to benefit ratio of going the X79 route. Clearly things seem more expensive by going that route. I would almost certainly be willing to spend $1500 to get 3x the performance (or 1/3 the render times) but almost certainly would not for a 20% bump. I just don't have a sense of where in that range I would be (cost or performance wise).
Thanks very much guys. I resisted posting for hours thinking the answers are probably already here somewhere. But I felt like I just didn't know enough to make a good judgement call here so I finally broke down and decided to lay out my questions. Many thanks for the help.