I7 Computer build for video editing Premiere CS4

[limp]

Hi i am looking into making a PC build with the Motherboard from Intel intel dx58so and the i7 core, 6-12 gb ram but i am in doubt if i should buy a 3.0 gh or just a smaller one, now i only do DV project with som HDV sequence but one important project is in DV. I wonder if a i7 quad 3.0gh is good enough for hd content hd/hdv, i cant seem to find out if it is strong enough or if i need dual processer.
And when it comes to the harddisk i read about ssd and was thinkin of making a ssd raid0 and use it only for windows and premiere pro cs4, and with a WD 1 tb harddisk on the side. but i read up on the net that its hard to find a standard for sd, because if you delete stuff in them over time the sells wil not work an replacement is needed. so its a jungle to find out which ssd card is good.
i would love some input, i really just wanna make my movies not a computer wizard (but not dumb at it)

 

[comet48]

Yeah, I had read about that and that's why I was leaning towards that particular card

The ATI plugin does not work if you have an INtel CPU, only and AMD cpu!

 

[Guest]

hey peoples..what os the best motherborad and cpu i should used for my computer to do video editing""can anybody tell me?

 

[xoral]

i7

 

[tacos1313]

And I would be able to do that with my motherboard? Could I just purchase two of the ram sets I mentioned?

I just bought a system for video editting as well. I went with the i7 930, 12 gb, of ram, ATI 5770, and the gigabyte x58a-ud3r mobo. You're better off buying the 12 gb of ram together. $370 for corsair ram on new egg compatible with the 1337 socket mobos. They test ram in sets when they sell it, this way you know it works together. I also think most new mobos should have their own raid controllers although intel ones are nice. Have to do more research on this as I had someone set up my RAID 10 for me.

I also have a question for anyone who might know. I have the 12gb of ram, however when I am rendering or encoding CS4 really only uses around 4gb. Is there an add-on to boost this or am I just not going to get higher usage rates?

 

[Guest]

So, if you decided, can you give your final "ultimate computer" spec/build?
Thanks.

I've been doing some research in this area over the last week and haven't finished yet, but I'll shared what I've found out. Info if probably over the top, but I've been spending alot of time because I want the machine to perform to peak for the money spent.

OVERCLOCKING
You can overclock the 920 easily with the Mobo you've selected and is good value for money. You'll be able to get 3.4-3.8 easily but you'll need:
* an aftermarket heat synch / cooler.(without getting complicated with a liquid cooled system, I like the Thermalright 120 or the Skythe Mugen 2 air cooling solutions (but you need to double check if these will fit on your chosen Mobo with the cards you plan to install as they are quite large)
* a case with excellent cooling design and tidy cabling
* if you search the internet for overclocking 920 for your board you'll find enough info to get this done. Here's an excellent article on the Core i7 architecture with a good introduction to overclocking on the platform.

VIDEO CARD
Although the 4850 was recommended to me, feedback I've received so far from other forums (I haven't confirmed this to be true) is that Premiere will not utilize the 2nd GPU in a dual GPU / graphics configuration (e.g. with either CrossireX configuration with two separate video cards or single card with dual GPU's, 2nd GPU is not utilized), so your second 4850 you've included may not be giving any added performance there (unless you're wanting to use for games). I'm considering the GTS 280 as i also like to play games occasionally.

STORAGE
Minimally you need separate physical storage drives for your OS/applications and your media/video.

For OS/application drive:
You could do perfect with a smaller cheaper version of the drives you've already selected (say 300GB). For me, I'm going for the instant access times when loading apps, etc. with a 128GB solid state drive from Corsair for about $325,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233087&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Solid+State+Disk-_-Corsair+Memory++Inc.-_-20233087

but am also considering an interesting option included with Mobo ASUS P6T Deluxe - an onboard SAS RAID controller (SAS ports look like SATA ports, but you can put 2 x 10,000 (test result showed 137 MB/S Read Avg) or 15,000 RPM (showed 172 MB/S) SAS drvies in RAID 0. It gives almost 3 times the storage for same price as solid state drive, but also I hear these drives are quite loud, so I’m not sure yet.
Here is some more info on the latter option:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/910/1/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16822116058

For your video storage:
The hard drives you mentioned are fine for standard definition video. However, if you want to edit high definition or otherwise have complex / advanced ideas for your projects, you'll need something with higher read rates than just those single drives. This gets pricey, so depending on what you're intending to do, may not be appropriate for you. Options I've investigated for this so far are:

* Native SATA RAID solution included with Mobo configured for RAID 0 with 2-4 drives, although onboard RAID solutions vary in performance and some provide almost no improvement vs a single drive. this requires investigation for your particular motherboard (or you could just buy the number and size of drives you want, then if performance is not suitable, add card from next option and use the drives you already bought)
* PCI Express RAID controller card (about $300 will get a decent card for this purpose) configured for RAID 0 with internal SATA ports to connect to 3-5 SATA II hard drives. For performance, the RAID controller has to have substantial cache memory and chip, will usually indicate DDR, etc. in the description (e.g. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116042)
Above options require a computer case with plenty of space for lots of hard drives and good cooling design.

* You can also go with an external SATA drive RAID enclosure with eSATA connector, but these tend to be more expensive, but its easier to expand capacity later, replace drives that fail, etc.. Some of these even support SAS drives now. Some have a RAID controller card built in the enclosure, so all you need is to connect it to your computer via eSATA cable. Others come with a PCI Express RAID controller card with eSATA ports on it or require you to boy one t

Note that RAID 0 provides the best performance but also increases random chance of volume failure (if one of the drives fails), so you'll need seperate backup of your video files. Alternatively, RAID 5 will allow recovery of a failed disc by simply replacing it, but performance will not be as good in this configuration (whether you notice a difference in performance btwn RAID 5 & RAID 0 depends on your chosen solution).

 

[sudosonic]

Just found this old thread on my laptop while my desktop is chunking away at a 2 hour 1920x1080p clip with Adobe Media Encoder CS5. I'm running an i7 920 with 6 gigs of ram, and a 1T 7200 OS HD and another one for source and rendered media.

The 2 hours is broken down into actually 12 sequences from Premiere. I'm rendering CBR (constant bit rate) because it's tutorials of an overhead shot of a music keyboard that the make up of the image doesn't really change (I own sudosonic.com). It takes roughly 2 hours to render a 7 minute clip thats around 2 gigs. There's no way there's a bottleneck in the HD because as you know you can transfer 2 gigs around on a 7200 in about 5 minutes. Also my RAM usage stays around 3gigs. Basically what I'm saying is the processor can't process and write data to the drive faster than the drive can accept it-not even close.

Point is, if I had 12 gigs of ram, or a Raid hard drive configuration,..it really wouldn't make a difference. Rendering video is highly dependent on your processor speed and number of cores. My i7 920 is pegged at 100%. And has been that way for hours.

I can still open (with some lag) browsers, Outlook, run skype, messenger, etc, but you don't want to open up large photoshop 500mb photoshop files or anything like that. You'd risk locking some things up.

If you're rendering video everyday, or even 10 days out of the month, your best bet is to save money on all that raid business and just get another computer or a laptop. If you're only rendering a project that's 30 mins every couple months, or you're editing video with no title effects or layers, then I'd say don't even bother getting more than a cheap 64 bit processor and 3 gigs of ram.