Re: Need computer component suggestions for new editing system
 

I ended up getting the Nine Hundred Two V3 case, which has 9 drive bays, as the earlier version was somewhat hard to find. I built the computer last night, and strangely enough, it worked first time! :-) Well, almost...

I started installing Windows 7, and the installer said it couldn't format the hard drive. When I looked at what the installer was looking at, I saw that it couldn't detect any drives in the system (there was only one, the 10,000 RPM WD Velociraptor, installed on the first of two 6gb/s SATA connectors).. After a reboot, it was able to see the drive again and the installation of the base Windows 7 system completed.

After installing Windows 7, I went to update the motherboard, GPU and sound drivers, and the computer kept freezing, and then randomly rebooting. It got to the point where I couldn't boot at all. I reinstalled Windows, twice more, but it became more and more flaky.

Ultimately, I realized the hard drive was not working properly. I sent it back this morning, and installed Windows on a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive I had lying around. This installation went smooth as silk, confirming that the earlier diagnosis of a bad drive was correct. I'll go through the entire process again when the new 10,00 RPM Velociraptor arrives.

The system seems pretty snappy (24GB RAM and a GTX 570 helps!), but the bottleneck definiately is the hard drive at this time.

Re: Need computer component suggestions for new editing system
 

Just wanted to update people on my new computer system...

I'm still running it with a 500GB 7200 RPM hard drive as the only drive in the system, until my Velociraptor arrives from Newegg (probably Monday or Tuesday).

On my old computer (Dell XPS 720, Windows 7 Ultimate, 4GB RAM), using CS5.5 Trial, it took nearly 2 hours to render a 2 minute Canon 5D mk II native MOV sequence to a Youtube HD CS5.5 preset H.264 video, -not- including the time it took to Warp Stabilize a 30 second clip (from AE)!

My new system, with the slow single hard drive, rendered a *16* minute segment, -including- a 30 second Warp Stabilized clip (from AE)... in 13 minutes!

I haven't tried to overclock the system at all. Not sure I'm smart enough to do that! :-)

Re: Need computer component suggestions for new editing system
 

Haha, I'm the same way! I am very tempted to attempt to overclock, but I'm wondering if I'm pushing the boundaries of my knowledge/abilities a little too far in that regard.

This is the first computer I've ever built, and I'm just happy the thing works.