PLease comment on my new system config to run APProCS5 smoothly
 

Hi

Your (any) comments about following system is much appreciated. At present I am experiencing choppy video(draft quality video on monitor) and slowing the process on my Dell Dimension 8400(Pentium4/3.4GHz,2GB DDR2 RAM, 500GB HDD)when running Adobe PPro CS4. Video Camera used Sony PMW EX1 with Sony SXS memory cards.

The system I am intend to buy is mainly to run the APPRo CS5 initially and later associated Adobe Master Collection programs( Eg. Fireworks, Dreamweaver, After Effects,Encore, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop and Soundbooth).

Dell Precision T7500 (Workstationchassis with 1100watts power supply (85%+ Efficiency Power Factor Correcting power supply)

Intel Xeon E5630 2.53GHz, 12M Cache, 5.88GT/S QPI, Turbo, 4C
Intel 5520 chipset
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Dell back-up and Rcovery Manager for Windows 7
24GB (6X4GB) DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1333MHz, CC
600 GB (15000rpm) SAS HDD Drive(for C:\)
Two 600GB (15000rpm) SAS HDDs
PRC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card
SAS Connector cable
SATA Cable for 2nd Optical drive
All SAS Drivs, RAID 5, 3 drive XtremeMusic
Addiional Broadcom 5722 10/100/1000 Ethernet Networking LAN Solution
Dell MS 111 USB Optical Mouse
Dell QuietKey Keyboard
3yr on-site warranty
2 Monitors - 24" - Dell MOdel G2410H Widescreen Flatpanel monitor s
Integrated Intel SATA 3.0GB/S controller with support for RAID
Integrated Broadcom 5761 Gigabit ethernet controller
Integrated High Def Audio

Slots: All full length except as noted
1 PCI-e X16 Gen2 wired as X4
2 PCI-e X16 Gen 2 slots wired as X8 (one is half length)
2 PCI-e X16 Gen 2 Graphics slots
1 PCI-X 64bit/100MHz slot with support for 3.3v or univrsal card
1 PCI 32bit/33MHz 5v slot

Standard I/O ports
11 USB 2 (2 on front panel, 6 on back panel and 3 internal)
IEE 1394a (One front, one rear)
1 Serial
1 Parallel
2 PS/2
1 RJ 45
1 e-SATA port on back panel
Stereo LINE-IN and Headphone LINE-OUT on back panel
Microphone & Headphone connector on back panel

Bays:
4 Internal 3.5" HDD Bays
3 xternal 5.25" optical bays, one of which can accommodate a fifth HDD
1 xtrnal 3.5" flex bay for floppy driv or Media crd Reader

Total Weight 25Kg

Your help on comments for above system are much appreciated.

Thanks.

Since the specs did not mention a graphics card (GPU), it would be of help to us if you specifiy a specific GPU/graphics card installed.

I didn't see a price - do you know what it is?

Is Dell your only choice? If not, then I HIGHLY recommend HP and their Z800.

Full disclosure: I have a 4 month old Z800 and here are my specs and the cost:
Dual (2) Xeon X5650 2.66GHz SIX Core CPUs
PNY Quadro FX3800 1GB
850w PSU - I didn't need their standard 1100w PSU.
6 Sata ICH10R
8 SAS LSI 1068E
3yr Onsite Warranty
I got the PC for $4500 which included 25% off. I am ordering their Z400 & Z600 and the sales guy gives me 25% off automatically.

$1000 - Kingston 24GB Ram purchased from Provantage.com - much cheaper than HP. Use Kingston's system specific tool to find the correct ram. FYI, for more than 24GB of ram, you need 'Reg ECC' and not just ECC.

HP made the perfect PC as it is so easy to take apart and add components. Look at this video: YouTube - Rosie tackles the new HP Z800

On your build, why do you want 15k SAS drives? They provide almost no benefit for video editing.

I have 2 external SAS cases, a 4 drive and an 8 drive. The 8 drive has 2TB Seagate Constellation ES drives connected to an Areca 1680ix inside the PC, and the 4 drive is connected to the LSI SAS 1068E using 1TB Seagate 7200.12 drives. The 2TB drives are in Raid 5 and hold all assets and the 4 1TB drives are in Raid 10 and hold encoded/rendered video.

For the OS drive, I have an Intel X25 80GB SSD ($200). For OS drives, nothing can even come close to SSDs.

I have an EX1 also and I use a Siig Expresscard to PCI Express adapter to download from SxS cards. PROVANTAGE: SIIG Inc. JJ-000082-S1 PCIe to ExpressCard Bay

Steve.....Can you clarify??
I've been out of the PC loop for a while. I'm starting to play catch up.

So i take it you have your main PC, hooked up to two other towers that provide added space, and configured in raid??

And also, were you able to marry the proper RAM to the board? Were you able to choose your own Cadence number on the RAM???

Hey Pete,

This is what I have below:
8 bay SAS/SATA
"+getMessage("iPrintVerKit")+"
4 bay SAS/STA
"+getMessage("iPrintVerKit")+"

About the ram: No, there aren't many settings available except for being able to share the 12GB connected to each CPU. I am using Registered ECC ram @ 1333MHz. This eliminates just about any bit error during long renders with AME and Cinema 4D (for example, a single 1920x1080 frame in C4D can take 5-10 mins to render for some of the stuff I do). AFAIK, Registered ECC ram also helps prevent problems when a stick starts going bad.

EDIT: I used Kingston's website to find the ram that works in the Z800 - I have 6 4GB sticks with 6 slots free.

Sorry Steve.....

I don't wanna highjack the post here...
This seems like a perfect solution...But please help me understand..

I'm guessing your main workstation has a simple SAS external I/O that hooks up to your 8 bay enclosure.
But the Raid card is inside the enclosure..

How is the enclosure recognized by Windows? Does it see it simply as an external device? Much like an external hard drive?
And if a drive fails, do you only rely on the LED lights on the panel when you start swapping, or does the build information show up through your main computer??

These are fundamental questions i've been asking myself, but haven't had the opportunity to ask anybody..

Thanx, sorry for the inconvenience.

@Pushpanatha.
What kind of raids were you planning to run?
You could probably save yourself some money, and stick to SATA hard drives.
You're not editing uncompressed video....

Is the Sony codec your main usage?
What's a single stream of SxS codec, something like 35mbps???

That shouldn't choke SATA drive, but then again, i don't know your budget...
You should think about looking at a list of video cards (nVidia) that support Premiere's Mercury playback engine..

Hey Pete,

My HP has the Areca raid controller inside it and has 'multi-lane' connectors that combine 4 SAS/SATA connections into each multi-lane connector. Use Wiki and read about SFF-8087 and SFF-8088 connections. '87 is for internal and '88 is for external. My Areca has 2 '87 and an '88 but only 2 can be used at a time. There are cables that go from 8087 to 8088 and 8088 to 8088 and I have both for my Areca and these cables connect to the external cases.

The Areca card beeps loudly when a drive has a problem and doesn't stop beeping until user intervention.

The Areca software sees each drive - the type of enclosure doesn't make a difference.

The Graphic card is nVideia Quadro FX 4800 with 1.5GB RAM...

I am intend to install RAID 5 system and with 5 SAS 600GB HDDs initially.
Yes u are right...around 35Mbps
Video card (I have forgotten to mention)it's nVidia Quadro FX 4800

What do u think about the system?? It's going to cost me around A$8700 all inclusive with 2 HighDef 24" Dell monitors.

thx vm 4 ur input 4 my query.. ur comments are much appreciated.
Pushpa-Australia

Siig xpress card slot module is very handy to have for the PC...rather using USB2 i/faced Sony external SXS reader...very tidy alternative. Thx for introducing above unit..

Hi , The graphic card is nVidea Quadro FX 4800 with 1.5GB RAM.

Pushpanatha, you should have a read on some of Harm Millards pages...
Basically, unless you're editing uncompressed HD and you don't need raid redundancy, you can save some money on expensive raid solutions. Steve's suggestion for RAID storage seems very wise. I'm going to post a new thread about that..
As far as video cards go, even the GTX line of nVidia cards are validated for MPE.

I'm not suggesting to go cheap on the system.
I'm simply suggesting to research your what your workflow needs are, and not overspend on what isn't necessary..

Also, see what kind of pricing an i7 chip, with proper RAM memory costs versus the Xeon route..

Remember, 35mbps equals about 4.5MB/S..
This kind of bandwidth shouldn't be a problem...

I agree with most of this. But I also want to clarify that only two of the GTX series GPUs are validated for MPE: the GTX 285 and the GTX 470 (the GTX 470 has been verified beginning with release 5.0.2 of PPro CS5). The other GTX series cards still require the software "hack" as described in one of the threads in this forum.

Thx for ur kind comments...Harm's pages are very useful and informative...
I am still not decided and still wondring what to do with it..
Probably I will drop down to 12 GB DDR3 RAM
and also drop to nVidia quadro FX3800.
Will upgrade the monitors to Dell U2410 Ultrasharp(1920X1200 @60Hz) which has component INPUts and HDMI INPUT and etc.,
What do u think about the Processor speed of 2.53GHz (Xeon E5630) ?
Thx...Pushpa

You want my recommendation... if you're looking at spending that kind of dough, check out BOXX Systems in Texas. I've owned a BOXX for nearly a year now and I'm extremely happy with it. It's a fantastic computer, very fast, has not crashed once, and I've got full tech support from BOXX--unlike Dell, the guys at BOXX build systems exclusively for the type of work we do, and they are all trained on the software we use, so they can do much better troubleshooting. The techs and reps are extremely helpful, accessible immediately (without having to wait hours or call India for Dell support).

I'm running a 3DBOXX with an i7-920, 12GB Ram, and about 6TB of HD space in various RAID and non-RAID configs, along with dual 24" widescreen monitors, and paid only a little over $3k for it.