Building a new EX1 editing machine
 

So I have began to purchase the bits and pieces to build my new EX1 edit and capture machine. I want to be able to do editing and capture using the SDI connection. Here it is:

The case is a Zalman LQ-1000 and I will use the liquid cooling to cool the Core i7 980X CPU. Will capture video using Black Magic Decklink HD extreme displayed using a ATI Radeon HD 5970. 24 gig of DDR3-2000 ram in a EVGA Intel X58/ICH10R board using the Hydro Copper Waterblock. I will use an additional Koolance heat exchanger, pump, and tank to cool the motherboard's north and south bridge water block, 1000W water cooled power supply, and Danger Den DD-5970 waterblock on the video card. I have free water where I live and, being in Colorado, the water is quite cold, I will use the Koolance HXP-193 to cool that propylene glycol circuit with running water. I have decided to go with two Crucial RealSSD C300 solid state hard drives in RAID 0 on the SATA 6Gb/s ASUS PCI-e card. Hoping to find some SATA 6 / USB 3 and SXS card reader solution. Will probably add 4 1 T SATA 3 drives in RAID 0+1 to store data not being used on the SSD drives.

It will take about 2 months to purchase and assemble the system but it is in progress. I can't wait to get this all together and transcode and write a Bluray using 12 threads at about 4.25GHz!

Just some links for the interested:

HXP-193 Plate Heat Exchanger [no nozzles] - Water cooling systems, pc liquid cooling kit, cpu, video card, hard drive

EVGA | Products

::: Zalman, leading the world of Quiet Computing Solutions :::

Blackmagic Design: DeckLink HD Extreme Tech Specs

DD-5970 Water Block - Danger Den

If youre using a Decklink card, check with them on exact specs that have passed their testing for Raid controllers and storage drives. This can be a massive bottleneck that will frustrate you to no end even when your raid array tests well above speeds that are right.

I am buying the motherboard last. I am hoping EVGA will produce a "Classified" MB with 2 SATA 6Gb/s(RAID 0) and USB 3.0. That should give 500-600 GB/s write speed to the SSD's.

FYI From Black Magic:

Blackmagic Recommended computer systems

DeckLink, Multibridge and Intensity can be used with:

Recommended Workstations - These computer systems that have been tested in house at the Blackmagic Design lab with DeckLink, Multibridge and Intensity. After purchasing one of these systems, you will need to install DeckLink, Multibridge or Intensity and your desired software from the list of supported applications above.

Recommended Motherboards - If you want to build your own computer for use with DeckLink, Multibridge or Intensity, these motherboards are the ones to use. You might want to do this to save costs and are comfortable with building your own PC, or else you have some special configuration you need to build. Once the PC is built, you will need to install the DeckLink card and your desired software from the list of supported applications above.

Recommended Workstations for Standard and High Definition

* Hewlett Packard Z400
* Hewlett Packard Z600
* Hewlett Packard Z800
* Hewlett Packard xw8200
* Hewlett Packard xw8600 (not recommended for DeckLink PCI-X cards)
* Hewlett Packard xw9300

Recommended Motherboards

* Asus P5E
* Asus P5B
* Gigabyte EP45-DS3
* Gigabyte x48DQ6
* Intel D975XBX
* Tyan Thunder K8WE (S2895)
* XFX 790i Ultra

Dell systems are not supported.

Chassis
If you are building your own PC for use with DeckLink, Multibridge or Intensity, the first thing you will need is a chassis, also known as an enclosure or a case.

Some chassis include space and connections for an internal disk array. Other chassis do not provide this facility and you may need to use an external disk array for video that you capture and play back depending on the video standard and codec you intend to use.

Recommended Chassis

* Antec Titan 650, HD-capable internal disk array
* Lian Li PCA77, HD-capable internal disk array
* Supermicro SC745TQ-R800, HD-capable internal disk array
* Supermicro SC745TQ-700, HD-capable internal disk array
* Supermicro SC942S-600, HD-capable internal disk array

Host Bus Adapters
A host bus adapter (HBA) is the kind of PCI card that connects a disk array to your computer. Some HBA's are designed for internal disk arrays, some for external disk arrays and some will connect both internally and externally. Please check the manufacturer's web site for details of internal and external connectors for your HBA. HBA's are available for different kinds of disk arrays including Serial ATA II (SATA II) and Fibre Channel (FC).

Recommended SATA II HBA's

* 3ware 9550SX (PCIe)
* Highpoint RocketRAID 2220 (PCI-X)
* LaCie eSATA II PCI Express Card 3Gb/s - 4Ports (PCIe)
* Promise EX8350 (PCIe)
* Sonnet Technologies Tempo SATA E4P (PCIe)
* Sonnet Technologies Tempo SATA X4P (PCI-X)

Recommended Fibre Channel HBA's

* ATTO Celerity FC-22XH (PCI-X)
* ATTO Celerity FC-24XL (PCI-X)
* ATTO Celerity FC-42XS (PCI-X)
* ATTO Celerity FC-44ES (PCIe)
* LSI Logic LSI7104XP-LC (PCI-X)
* LSI Logic LSI7202XP (PCI-X)

Disk Storage

Recommended Disk Storage for SD and HD Uncompressed 4:2:2

* CalDigit HD Pro
* Ciprico MediaVault series
* G-Technology Gspeed
* LaCie 4Big Quadra (2 units stripped RAID0)
* Maxx Digital Evo2 HD
* Medéa VideoRaid FCR2X
* Medéa VideoRaid XTRM4
* Promise VTrak series
* Sonnet Technologies Fusion 500P. Use 1 unit for SD, or 2 units for HD, in conjunction with a Tempo SATA E4P or X4P.

Recommended Disk Storage for SD and HD Uncompressed 4:4:4 and 2K

* CalDigit HD Pro
* G-Technology Gspeed
* Lacie 4BIg Quadra (4 units stripped RAID0)
* Maxx Digital Evo2 HD (on 64-bit Windows)

Recommended Graphics Cards

PCIe x16

* ATI FireGL Series
* ATI Radeon 45X Series
* nVIDIA Gforce 9x series
* nVIDIA Quadro FX series