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Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Why screw up your memory and disk setup? On a 950 you need three sticks of memory, not two and why cripple the system with a green disk?
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Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
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And the WD Green drive is slow, even for a "green" drive: Its maximum sequential transfer speed is slower than nearly all of the current-generation desktop hard drives. Its 110 MB/s maximum pales in comparison to the 130+ MB/s achieved by most of the other current hard drives. And that's not to mention that the "green" drives constantly spin themselves down when idle, and take far too long to spin back up to speed. (And the spin-down does occur occasionally even if you're running CPU- and disk-intensive apps.) More importantly, the "green" drives spin at less than 6,000 RPM, with random access speed predictably slower than 7,200 RPM hard drives (as a group). Third, the FX 580 is a very poor choice for CS5.x: Hardware-wise, it is the equivalent of only a GeForce 9500 GT (which Bill Gehrke has demonstrated is much, much slower than even an ATi GPU, let alone newer Nvidia GPUs, especially in MPEG-2 DVD and H.264 Blu-ray encodes: On a stock-speed i7-980X hexa-core, PPBM5 took more than 150 seconds in MPEG-2 and more than 190 seconds in H.264 with the 9500 GT or FX 580 but 33 seconds or less in MPEG-2 and 82 seconds or less in H.264 with even an ATi card, let alone a newer, faster GeForce). Worse, the FX 580 is only offered with 512MB of RAM, which is nowhere near enough to even enable MPE GPU mode (the MPE GPU mode requires a minimum of 765MB of free, unused graphics RAM just to even work at all). Put the two together, and the FX 580 / 9500 GT is a performance mule in a herd of thoroughbreds, capable of bringing down the overall performance of a heavily overclocked dual hexa-core Xeon X56xx system with 48GB of RAM to the level of only a stock-speed single i7-9xx system with only 6GB of RAM. Had you run the PPBM5 benchmark on that system, you'll find that its overall performance score would have fallen almost to the very bottom of the PPBM5 results list (with an overall total time of well over 1,000 seconds, compared to less than 200 seconds with a properly tuned fast system) with a configuration like that. As a result, that build would have been a complete waste of money, with a very low BFTB score because most if not all of the components cost way too much money for such bottom-of-the-line performance. |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Randall,
You have an incredible understanding of what it takes to make CS5 fly. So for between $1,000 and $1500, what MOBO, processor, disk and memory configuration do you recommend? |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Dick,
Currently, I have two sets of recommendations for the core components in the $1,000 to $1,500 range: 1) LGA 1366/X58 Build
or: 2) LGA 1155/P67 or Z68 Build
In either build, go with at least an 800W (or higher-wattage) quality PSU manufactured by Enhance, Seasonic, Impervio (or maybe one of a few other actual manufacturers such as CWT or Delta, whose lines tend to be less consistent between models). These PSUs are sold under various brand names such as Cooler Master, Corsair, Antec, XFX, etc. (The Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold series PSUs that Harm has been recommending are manufactured by Enhance - and the 800W model from that line is priced significantly lower than most other 800~850W PSUs that perform slightly better.) You also need to factor in the cost of a case (a large-size case is strongly recommended here), an optical disc burner and a high-performance CPU air cooler. (And these parts are just to complete the system tower itself; the monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers are peripherals whose choice is largely personal preference.) |
Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Update from the original poster!
Along the course of time I added a firewire card ( just recently) additional ram and a large drive dedicated exclusively for video. My next and hopefully last upgrade is a suitable power supply. I have someone who has offered to put one in although it will void my warranty. Is that a reasonable risk? I want to take full advantage of CUDA however not on my current/factory 350 watt supply is wholly inadequate. Please offer some recommendations to help me end this adventure. What should I be looking for? Thank you. |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Bruce,
HP is notorious for the deviant dimensions of their PSU, that are slightly different than standard PSU's. This makes installing any PSU that you can get on every street corner a very challenging effort and may not work at all. I just hope that the person who offered you to do it, is aware of this weirdness with HP machines. |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Thanks for that input.
Do you think they did that perhaps intentionally? Here's a response that I got from another well known video forum which confirms what you wrote! Pre-built PCs sometimes use PSUs with non-standard dimensions or screw positions for mounting in the case. Measure the physical dimensions of the PSU. Use Newegg or some other website that provides physical dimensions and look at some of the better quality ATX PSUs having an appropriate wattage. Better quality means Thermaltake, Antec, PC Power and Cooling, Silverstone, Seasonic, Corsair, or OCZ, not the cheapest brands. Compare the measurements you took against those for the PSUs you find and see if any are a good match for size. That will tell you if you are likely to find a replacement. Sometimes the aftermarket PSU manufacture's product page will have diagrams that show the position and dimensions of everything. The PSU fan and cables may need be in the same place as the original, if the case is crowded. |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
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New system for 5.5
Folks am I missing something here? With an added HDD, Firewire card and Blu-ray writer, this could be a good system no?
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad Core Processor Corsair 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Two Module Kit Asus P8Z68-V Socket 1155 Motherboard Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Dual Fan Quiet CPU Cooler 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 2.5" Solid State Drive 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green Hard Drive CCL Choice NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1536MB Graphics Card LG CH10LS20.AUAU10B 10X Blu-Ray Reader / DVD ReWriter - OEM Fractal Design Define R3 Computers Case - Black Pearl 700W OCZ ModXStream Pro Modular Power Supply |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
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There are a few major drawbacks to that system: 1) There are not enough total drives on that system. Adobe requires a minimum of two drives (one for the OS, one for projects and media). But Premiere Pro performs better with three or more drives (some of them in RAID 0, which I call "AID 0" due to the lack of redundancy). 2) The 2TB WD Green drive that you selected is too slow for use as a media/projects or a pagefile drive. (It is perfectly fine as a backup drive, however.) You will need a couple of true 7200 RPM hard drives. And despite the claim of "variable speed" by WD for its Green drives, all of the Green drives actually spin at a fixed, slow speed (in this case, 5400 RPM). 3) The OCZ ModXStream cannot really provide the full 700W without going way out of the ATX +12V spec in DC output quality. That could kill your system's components very early. It can really only provide 580W while keeping the output within spec. This is because OCZ cheats on this PSU by rating it at its claimed wattage at an internal PSU operating temperature of only 40°C - but most PSUs actually operate normally at internal temperatures closer to 50°C. And higher temperatures are tougher on PSU output quality than are lower temperatures. Go for a known good 80+ Gold certified PSU such as a Corsair AX750. 4) Be advised that Sandforce-based SSDs such as that OCZ Vertex 3 may suffer from the random BSOD issue just running Windows at all. Worse, their performance deteriorates more than most with use - and the only way to fix that would be a complete secure erase and a complete reinstall of the OS and programs. This deterioration of performance may start occurring in as little as a few weeks or even a few days. In addition to the above, I'd recommend doubling the total amount of RAM from 8GB to 16GB. And the most cost-effective way to do this would be to buy four matched 4GB modules or two 8GB dual-channel kits of the exact same model number and revision. Filling only two of the four DIMM slots might increase gaming performance but actually hinders video editing performance by increasing the overall latency within the memory controller. Prosumer video editing programs like Premiere Pro runs best with all of the DIMM slots filled with double-ranked modules. |
Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
Cheers - that's good advice - I'm guessing a solid state drive is really no good for the OS?
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Re: Need sage advice in getting right CS5 PC
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And my example above pointed out that there are better choices for SSDs than that Vertex 3, especially in terms of reliability. |
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