Trouble figuring out motherboard

[mikecral]

I've been asked to build a PC for work primarily for CS5 usage (heavy after effects, premiere, photoshop, illustrator usage and probably some cinema4d and 3dsmax). I don't really care about the mercury playback engine or CUDA, but for after effects I would love a lot of cores with a lot of RAM to allocate to each core. I'm looking at something like this:

Win 7 64 bit
radeon HD 6850
i7-2600K
2 2x8GB RAM
p8p67 pro

Main Question:
1) I don't really understand what memory or memory capacity I can have with that chip and motherboard. Will the 4 DIMM slots accept 2 2x8GB dual channel DIMMs? The intel site says "32GB of RAM depending on the memory type". The ASUS memory QVL lists samsung and a-data 8GB RAM but it looks like there are plenty of other 2x8GB non-ECC sticks available.

Should I look at a different motherboard that supports 2 2x8GB better, if so, any recommendations?

Side Questions:
1) Will after effects efficiently utilize all 8 threads of the 2600K? Or should I just go with the 2500K if it might only see 4 cores?
2) The graphics card seems decent, maybe too good for what I want to do. I know nothing about nvidia, but any recommendation taking into account everything I've said by either ati or nvidia would be appreciated.

LASTLY, if anyone thinks it's possible to build a better workstation with a xeon cpu for a comparable price, let me know.

Thanks so much everyone, sorry about the long-winded post! I've been researching for so many hours and I'm still so undecided!

 

[bliq]

It might be easier to find something that has more than 4 DIMM slots on a motherboard that supports Xeon as they are Workstation/Server class CPUs. The RAM might be more expensive though as they might need to be "FB-DIMMS" (FB=Fully Buffered). I don't have much experience with building a server class box. most people would just buy a server from a company like HP/IBM/Dell.

 

[Rockdpm]

No your set, everything is compatible and doable here, you can have 4 8GB sticks in the motherboard. For the 2600K yes, that CPU will handle ANYTHING. for your last question the 6850 is anything but too good. its AMD's midrange champs. but a GTX 570 or a AMD 6950 might be a little better for you. the Radeon 6850 should do ok. So your set. i see nothing incompatible with this set up.

 

[jaquith]

Old post; see -> http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/296533-30-which-chipset-choose-video-editing#t2009717 ; the prices are not up to date but I've built several Workstations off those products, and they're all working perfectly fine. Updated prices and options:

The alternative as a 'consumer' product line the SB-E 6/12 core/thread with 8xDIMM.

Simple Xeon Workstation:
Type Price Description Link
CPU 385 Intel Xeon E3-1275 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115085
MOBO 230 ASUS P8B WS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131725
RAM 192 16GB Crucial UDIMM 2x(2x4GB) DDR3 1333 ECC CT2KIT51272BA1339 http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=P8B%20WS&Cat=RAM
SSD 350 180GB~256GB ; options -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%2050001077&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=636|20-233-211^20-233-211-TS,20-233-208^20-233-208-TS,20-226-237^20-226-237-TS,20-147-135^20-147-135-TS,20-147-164^20-147-164-TS&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=m1j33ypcxwcb
HDD 167 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
HDD 167 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
PSU 170 CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139015
CASE 140 Antec P280 Black http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129179
OS 140 Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit - OEM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992
ODD 25 ASUS 24X DVDR - Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
ODD (BluRay) optional
GPU 348 EVGA 012-P3-1570-AR GeForce GTX 570 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130593
<or>
GPU 458 EVGA 015-P3-1580-AR GeForce GTX 580 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130587
; or best on a Quadro/Tesla expensive.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 GPU acceleration - http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/tech-specs.html

If what you're doing is 'final' product then Xeon + ECC, and as much RAM as you can afford.

 

[mikecral]

Thanks a lot for everyone's help. I assume selecting a best answer will help the community overall? I'm new here. All the answers were very different but equally helpful haha.

The premiere gpu acceleration is appealing, but the work won't be very premiere-heavy. It will be a lot more of After Effects, with which I'd prefer to stick to CPU rendering. I decided to just go with the i7 build and OC it a little with some good cooler to keep the lifespan up... I think it should be plenty fast and the budget isn't there to build even a basic workstation. That E3-1275 processor has the exact same specs as the i7-2600, both sandy bridge, I'm curious to know what the difference is. And I added a small SSD for OS and programs.

I'm also curious what the benefit of using ECC RAM is if the product is final.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[mikecral]

Best answer selected by mikecral.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr