Help! Is this PC build enough to edit AVCHD vacation video etc
 

Hey Guys,

I just shot lots of honeymoon video on my HF100 and also have to edit my high def wedding video. I built a computer to do all this but am thinking maybe I should have built a more powerful machine. Here is my build, give me your questions, comments, criticisms, or suggestions. They would be greatly appreciated!

Asus P5k3 deluxe board (45 nm with P35 chipset)
Q9300 overclocked to 3.1 gig with 400 mhz FSB
2 gigs of OCZ Gold DDR310666 (1333 mhz) - Have 2 more but am wondering if I should upgrade to platinum or reaper to have more success overclocking higher.
ATI HD 3870 OC with 1 gig of gram
Ultra X3 100 watt PSU
1 WD raptor 74 gig for OS
1 Seagate 7200.10 for program files
2 Seagates 7200.10 in Raid 0 (strip) for media

I have also read there should be another drive for scratch. I don't know how you would designate that on the software, so if you can give a heads up on that, I would appreciate it.

Regards,
Mario

It'll work fine. Put in more ram, drop the overclocking. Stability is king.

Thanks for the responce Doug. The build is stable at that frequency. I have notice it studders on playback with plugins and I have read of builds using server boards on this forum so that is why I was wondering.

Any more thoughts?

Also, which software is less CPU intensive? Are there any that make use of the Gpu?

Thanks!
Mario

The P35 chipset is not 45 Nm.
Q9300 OC is not advisable. The FSB is not 400 MHz.
ATI OC is not advisable.
The PSU can't be 100 Watt.

You seem to have your details wrong. Please resubmit with the correct details.

I use a Q6700 Quad Core with 4 Gigs of RAM and I edit AVCHD footage at 1080i (true, not 1440 horizontal) without a problem or stutter in Premiere Pro CS3 with Mainconcept Mpeg Pro HD 3.2 plug in.

Thanks Harm,

The P35 chippset does support 45 nm, I have the q9300 working on it right now.

Why is the Q9300 not advisable? I wrote in the fsb because I am overclocking it to 400mhz. Stock it is 300mhz, I have it running at 400mhz, as stated in my original post

Why is the ATI not advisable? What is?

Ok, there was a typo, but I think that could have easily been sussed out. The X3 is 1000 watts.

What are your suggestions?

Regards,
Mario

45 nm CPU's can be supported by the P35, it itself is baked on a 130 nm scale if I remember correctly. Why not opt for a P48 mobo/chipset?
Nothing wrong with the Q9300. The Q9550 is much better with a higher clock speed and double the cache.
Overclocking is wrong. You want stability. If you need more speed, get a faster CPU.
So your FSB is 1600?
ATI is advisable. A good card. Overclocking is not advisable.
PSU is OK then.

Thank Harm,

I hate to say it, but you are incorrect. The P35 does support 45nm cpus. Look in the internet. I myself am typing this message on a P35 based board (p5k3 deluxe) that has a q9300 2.5 quad core working on it. There are no if ands or buts on this...P35 supports 45nm. Sorry....

My Dram frequency is 1333mhz the cpu is running overclocked at 1600mhz. I have performed all stability test. The system is stable at 1600 FSB. Please provide a reason why overclocking is not preferrable. I would appreciate it.

THe ATI card comes factory overclocked.

Any other suggestions, like what software to use?

Regards,
Mario

The P35 uses 130 nm chipsets, but support 45 nm CPU's as I said. Please be exact in your statements, otherwise a lot of people can not understand your arguments.

I said: "45 nm CPU's can be supported by the P35, it itself is baked on a 130 nm scale if I remember correctly."

If you use a 1600 FSB, why do you mention 400 in the original post? Trying to confuse us?

Why is overclocking bad? It decreases stability, it leads to higher temperatures in all components, it reduces life span, it gives a marginal speed benefit and possibly voids your warranty. It puts more strain on the PSU and with aging of the system and thus with significant capacitor aging on the mobo you may overload both mobo and PSU. It just is not worth it when stability should be your primary concern in video editing.

Hope this clears it up a bit.

Premiere Pro CS3 with the Mainconcept Mpeg Pro HD Plug-in works wonderfully.

Thanks Doug, I will try it.

Harm,
I don't know why you say things like "trying to confuse us?" Obviously, that is not what I am trying to do. Why would one seeking advice try to confuse those he is seeking advice from? As far as FSB, if you are using a quad core and you go into your bios, the fsb (front side buss) is designated for each core. Running four cores at 400 can be considered as a front side bus 1600, but really it is 4 cores at 400. I thought most would know that. Sorry if it confused you. It was not my intention.

Also, when I wrote the P35 comment, I was responding to your "The P35 chipset is not 45 Nm." comment. You are right you cleared it up and I misread you subsequent post, sorry about that.

As far as stability, the ASUS P5K3 is made for overclocking, feel free to check out the overview at http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...11&l3=534&l4=0. That is why I paid $250 fro it instead of $160 for an X38 intel baord. The conductive polymer capacitors are extremely beefy. My cooling system inhibits the cores from getting any hotter than if they were running normally. Even so, computers are only viable for 3 years max so life span is not an issue, especially when considering thefactors I just deliniated. My PSU is 1000 watts, strain?...I think it can handle it. Lastly, the performance gain is 20% and that is not insignificant. Overclocked my system runs faster. Lastly, I backup my system nightly to a external hard drive, so if the thing fails, I just reinstall, but I don't think that will happen.


As far as an x38 or x48 chipset, what are the concrete benefits of that chipset other than crossfire support? I research this and the test shows there is negligable improvement other than the PCI express 2.0 support. Is there something I am missing?

Harm, I trully thank you for your input. It is valued and informative and I will weigh your input and consider bring my system down to normal levels, but as it is, I really don't see the drawbacks of overclocking.

Kind Regards,
Mario