Going to Build a New Computer Input Welcome
 

Hi Everyone,

I own a Canon XL H1 and plan to mostly use HDV and run Premier Pro 2. I currently have an older Dual Xeon 2.4, 400 FSB, 2 gig Ram, SCSI Raid, IDE System Drive, 32 meg Nvidia Graphics Card. The setup will not cut it for smooth playback on Native HDV through Premier, although it just makes it with Aspect HD. In addition, I have no way to play HD off of the timeline to a HD plasma display.

I also want to leave myself open to adding a Prospect / Xena package in the future if down the road I want to make use of SDI out on the Canon. I am assuming that in order to do that I would have to use an SDI recording solution at the time of shooting. In addition, after reading coutless threads, I am hearing that the output quality to an HD monitor on a Xena may be cleaner than the Matrox APVe?

Here is what I've come up with. PLEASE feel free to beat this up with better suggestions. I don't want to have to do this all over again very soon.

Asus P5W DH Deluxe board with - 2 x PCI-E x 16, 2 x PCI-E x 1, 3 x PCI
Intel Core 2 Extreme processor 2.93
4 gig dual channel ram
Matrox APVe video card
3 Seagate 250 SATA drives: 1 for system drive & 2 for SATA Raid
Antec Sonata II case

This all comes to about $2500 from Newegg.com

If you feel it's lacking, or for that matter overkill, please fire away. I was all ready to order it yesterday, but I thought I'd put it to the Big Dogs before making a mistake.

Thanks very much,
Richard

I would pay close attention to your chip choice. It will be one of the most important choices. Do a lot of research, contact your software manufacture to ask them for benchmarks on different core technologies etc.

I'm not a big fan of RAID, but that's just my two cents.

Also you might want to pay some attention to the new QUAD cores coming out I think this year. Or atleast that's the threat.

I think you'll do well to catter your system to your needs. That way you'll be happy.

excellent choice of Mobo. We do not recommend MAtrox graphics cards anymore. They have poor OpenGL support and more and more NLEs are tapping into OpenGL.

We just started building our DIY5 - Conroe based system using the
Asus P5W DH motherboard and an ATI 1900 graphics card. We are going to be putting a Matrox RT.X2 in it for realtime HDV editing in Premiere Pro 2.

Check out these two articles on our website:

DIY–GPU:Picking the right graphics card for your NLE workstation http://www.videoguys.com/DIY-GPU.html

DIY4 - Dual Core Face-Off http://www.videoguys.com/DIY4.html

Gary
Videoguys.com

Instead of the duo core, would it be worth it to upgrade to a xeon duo core? You know the one with the 1333 FSB
I've always wondered if there is a real advantage in having one of those.
I'm not talking about two duo core xeon as in the new Mac Pro, I'm talking about a single xeon duo core instead of a duo core.
What do you think?
Waste of money?

Ready to replace computer myself but holding of for woodcrest processor quad core i think it is Dec/Jan release. The woodcrest is (as far as i know) the replacement for xeon. If the same jump in performance with the conroe duo core is similar with woodcrest then it should do realy well.

As someone said do your research. I like the case you selected.

There was a post here on this forum or possibly over at DVX about someone having a lot of trouble building it themselves. It is a worry if like me you dont have a lot of experience with setting up the newly built computer. Just thought i would throw that in for you if it helps?

Hope it goes well for you.

Michael

Chip and Case Input
 

I have the older P4 840EE, the dual core, hyper-threaded 3.24 Ghz chip that has "only" an 800Mhz front side bus. Despite that I can reach 100% CPU usage (PremPro2.0+CineformAccessHD4), so the higher FSB may not be essential for "streamed" stuff video editing. The CoreDuo may get similar performance with less heat. I have Zallman's biggest cooler (7700Cu) and I can run the machine full blast but cannot overclock it even 10%

I first built the machine with a 4 disc RAID5, but write performance on RAID5 throttled CPU usage at about 70%. I added two discs as RAID0 to the second controler on my mobo (Abit AW8-max) and easily reached 100% utilization.

I used the Antec P180 case. It is huge, has room for 6 drives and is inaudible with all the fans on low. I moved the speed switches for the two fans near the CPU to outside the box and attached with superglue. Now I boost the CPU fan (already on an external control) and those other switches up a notch ONLY on long renderouts and Cineform ingest. I can hear the machine then, but then I am not sitting there!

Nose around endpcnoise.com for other ideas on keeping your machine a quiet good neighbor.

We just posted our DIY5 article:

DIY5 – Intel Core 2 Duo Strikes Back!
Intel regains the top spot for NLE workstations

This summer Intel began shipping their new Core 2 Dual CPUs (code name Conroe). I’d been watching and following the leaks and reports about the new Conroe chips for months. All my favorite hardware websites – Tom’s Hardware, ExtremeTech, Anandtech and many others where posting articles on the remarkable performance of these chips. I knew I had to have one. I would make my own personal dream machine, to use in my new home editing suite. I called my dream machine the Vaporizer, and I could not wait to get it built.

Click here for the complete article http://www.videoguys.com/DIY5.html

Gary

Gary, You say on your site that the new DIY5 system "blew the Premiere Pro test out of the water". Now that's great and all, but could you tell us the ... um ... actual benchmark number?

(I know you plan to add the RT.X2, but I'm sure many people would like to know how the base system performed before you do that.)