John,

Since my first post in this thread, things have changed again. Intel has announced the availability of Harpertown, a Xeon based on 45 nm technology, better performance, SSE4 extensions, lower TDP and attractive pricing. Since I am still awaiting the final order for a new system, I have decided to go for the new Harpertown/Seaburg combination:

CPU: Intel X5472 3.0 GHz, Quad core with 1600 FSB, 80 W TDP
Mobo: Supermicro X7DWA-N
Chassis: Supermicro SC743TQ-865B

Details can be found here: http://supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/

Initial price indications are not much different than my previous suggestions.

I don't know whether you are located in NZ or AU, but here are the links to distributors in both countries:

NZ: http://supermicro.com/wheretobuy/others.cfm?rgn=154
AU: http://supermicro.com/wheretobuy/others.cfm?rgn=153

Hope this helps.

Thanks for this!

Interestingly, the X5472 Xeon does not seem to be available over here either!

I can find the X5450 (which is also 3.00GHz & the X5460 which is 3.16GHz) but not the one you've listed.

So at this stage I cannot get any indication of prices for that processor, nor the motherboard or chassis. I'll make some calls during business hours tomorrow and see what I can accomplish. Though I suspect that, as with pretty much everything in this country, they'll be vastly over-priced.

As I understand it, the case/chassis makes zero difference to the system, right? Provided that it actually fits and has an adequate power supply?

I have a couple other questions also:

Are you getting two of those processors or just one?

RAM is another thing that confuses me. There's so many numbers in every stick of RAM's model number that I just cannot figure them out. What RAM are you picking up?

Is this RAID controller any good? It's nice and cheap compared to others. I probably only want RAID 0. It's called Adaptec Raid 2420 SA/256 SGL PCIE 4 Port SATA.

Also, do you plan on running Vista or XP Pro? And which NLE do you use?

I recently built a new WS for my needs and went through same considerations. I decided for

-Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 2.4 Ghz 1066mhz Fsb 8mb L2 Lga 775
-> good if working with several tools at same time;

-Nvidia Quadro Fx1500 256mb Gddr3 Pci-express 2xdvi+hd-out Graphics Board
-> needed for OpenGL hardware rendering;

-Motherboard Socket775 Intel P35 + Ich9r 2pci 3pci-ex 2pci-ex16 4ddr-lll 8gb 8 Sata 12usb
-> supports DDR3.

This hardware works pretty well for me.

Margus

I'm getting two processors. For RAM I get 4 sticks from whatever is affordable and available and is on the approved memory list from Supermicro, whether Infineon, Apacer, Kingston or whatever. I only use XP Pro, no Vista. For NLE I use the Adobe Production Premium CS3 Suite.

I am not familiar with the Adaptec controller, but from comparison with the 2410 it looks like it is only a PCI-X card, not PCI-e and does not use a very advanced chip like the IOP341. Neither does it have cache extension capabilities. In general Adaptec is not top-of-the-bill, in price and performance.

Areca is the absolute leader in raid controllers.

Here is an overview of the new Penryn processors introduced earlier this week.

How about the Areca RC-1210 4 Port SATA-II RAID Controller - PCI-Ex8
Supports RAID 0,1,0+1,3,5 & JBOD
128MB cache, Standard & Low Profile Mounting Brackets Included?

It's only got 4 ports (which is as many as I'll ever need and only got a 128MB cache. In your post on page 2 of this thread you said the 1231ML controller had a 2GB cache. Is that correct? I can only find ones with 256MB cache.

Anyhow, I'm also running CS3 Production Premium on XP Pro so it looks like we have the same needs. Thank you so much for helping me out. I'm about to make some phone calls to see what I can find out!

Just spoke with a guy at Digicor (the Supermicro placeyou put me on to) and he saud a few things.

First of all, the prices of the components you gave me are (in AU$):

M/B:X7SWA-N: $1210
Case: SC743TQ-865B: $905

That's the most expensive case I've ever heard of and don't think I could bring myself to hand over $900 for it!!! He said I'm basically buying peace of mind because it's designed specifically to keep it cool and make it last longer. He said if I got that case, the whole system would last 5 years (which he meant as a good thing, but it made me think "Am I only gonna get 5 years out of this computer?!").

What's your opinion on this? I'd almost be spending the same amount on the case as I would be on one of the processors! He said it would fit into any 12" x 13"Server Case, so why do I need to be so extravagant?

Anyway, he also said that it's too risky to let any retailer build the computer for me, and that they could and should do it themselves.

The other, most interesting thing he said was that they had never built a computer that good before. He said that no one had ordered that board or had the intention of putting a processor anywhere near as fast as the X5472.

Finally, he said that he was worried there may be a compatability problem with the video card and he's going to check it out for me and also find out abour 800 speed DDR2 - apparently no one's ever ordered that either and they only stock the 667 speed.

John,

The case is pricey, € 400 over here, but consider that it is inclusive of a high efficiency 865 W silent power supply. Those do not come cheap. For instance an Enermax 850W PS is around € 200. Consider also the six fans, air shroud, 8 hot swappable bays, 8 port SAS/SATA backplane and the case does not look that pricey anymore. The only thing that could fail in that case is the power supply or the fans and SuperMicro luckily has a reputation for good availability of spare parts.

What he probably implied with the 5 year period is the life of hard disks and CPU and other not case related components.

I can imagine nobody has yet ordered such a system, since it was only announced last Monday. The problem with the DDR2 800 FBDIMMs is that the Harpertown is the first CPU to use a 1600 FSB and only Seaburg chipsets support that. But looking at the list of approved memory they must be available, but maybe rather difficult to get.

Nice to have an independent and knowledgeable guy confirm that my suggestion for a top-of-the-bill system was a good one.

I would be interested to hear his opinion on compatibility of the video card. I can not discern why it could cause issues.

Hope this helps somewhat.

John,

In reply to your question about the Areca 1210, that is a controller I'm using for a slightly less powerful system. Very good performance, but as you noted yourself, it has only 4 ports, 128 MB cache and - if memory serves me correctly - uses the IOP333. The 1231ML uses a newer and faster IOP, the 341, has multilane connections, 12 ports and has a memory slot, which contains a 256 MB DDR2 4200 ECC stick. This can be upgraded to maximum 2 GB.

John,

In the following figure you can see the impact of cache on the performance of raid controllers. Notice specially the difference between the 1280 with 512 MB and the 1160 with 1 GB cache. The 1160 is a PCI-X, the 1280 is a PCI-e card. You can imagine what 2 GB cache would do.

The Workstation Storagemark test comprises several tests oriented towards A/V applications, using PS, AE, PP, 3DSMax, WMP, etc.

I agree it looks impressive but it's all so out of my league!!

I don't know what either axis represents unfortunately. The numbers up the side or the RAID Level. I assume it means RAID 5, right?

I would probably not bother with the RAID 5 and just go with RAID 0. 5 is for security, right? And 0 is for speed? So if those figures were for RAID 0 it would be even faster? Assuming the graph represents some sort of speed...

Also, in terms of total storage space for the video drives. I was probably going to get 2TB total out of 4 500GB drives but it would probably be faster to get 8 250GB drives wouldn't it? That giant case provides enough space for 10 HDDs I think?

The vertical axis indicates speed, the horizontal axis shows the number of disks in a Raid5 array. The case accepts 8 hot-swappable disks by default and with the standard bay one floppy drive or 3.5 hard disk and two 5.25 drives. This standard bay can be exchanged for another, allowing 5 more hot-swappable disks.

In my system I use 8 x 500 disks in raid5, one boot disk in the floppy bay and 2 DVD burners. With the 1231 ML controller that leaves room for an external storage of a further 4 disks.

The risk with raid0 is that when one drive fails, you lose ALL data in the raid0.
I once had intermittent problems with a 6 disk array in raid5. There were 2 disks giving problems and you got warnings about degraded array, rebuilding etc. I exchanged first one disk, rebuild the array, then exchanged the 2-nd disk and did another rebuild. I never lost any data because I was lucky that during the first rebuild, the other disk did not give problems. This was on a server with about 500 GB of data on it. Boy, was I glad we had it in a raid5!!

I guess you're right - there is a lot of value for money. However, I am (fairly) certain that I will never use any more than 5 HDDs, 2 Optical drives (finally got a Blu-ray and a HD-DVD!), 2 8600GT video cards and a RAID controller. Plus the 2 processors of course. Is this something that requires 865W of power?

To me, the backpane is of no use at this stage and I cannot foresee it being terribly useful for my needs. I guess I just figure you could get any old case with a heap of fans and space for half the price.

I've found this Antec P190 which looks good to me and is half the price of the Supermicro. Does it look good to you?

EDIT RE: "The P190s power supply: The 650W power supply has the usual ATX 20+4pin connector, and the not so usual 6+2pin PCI-e connectors. There are two of these connectors, and another two standard 6pin PCI-e plugs..."

I have a feeling this will not meet the Supermicro requirements. From the Supermicro website: "Important Chassis Notes To ensure system stability, a 550W (minimum) ATX power supply
[4-pin (+12V), 8-pin (+12V) and 24-pin are required]"

This doesn't look promising but I don't understand any of it...

Another post in this thread directed me to the Videoguys.com website DIY Page that recommends for its "Best" configuration a Thermaltake Eureka VC8000BWA case. It's the right size and is less than one quarter of the price of the Supermicro case over here.

It also recommends a Tyan motherboard. How come you preferred Supermicro to Tyan?

He was. Though he seemed to suggest that the lifespan of those bits would only be 5 years if kept cool in a case like this. 5 years doesn't seem much for such an expense!

He was very impressed. He said it was pretty much the best computer that could be built.

He only sought clarification because he said he wasn't certain about it, though was confident that it would be fine. He's just being thorough. I'll let you know what he says.

With the number of components you indicate, but with a single video card, the recommended power supply is around 800 W with 30% capacitor aging. See http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

Hot-swappable disks are very easy if you want to create a new project set or want to save all your current projects. Just exchange the whole set and you are ready to roll. If a disk fails and you need to replace it, it can be done in less than a minute. Compare that to turning off your system, removing the failing disk and start again. To use hot-swappable capability you need the backplane. An added advantage of using a backplane is that it allows SGPIO connections to utilize the LED indicators for all of the disks, showing you in one glance whether a disk has failed and identify the culprit. That is not possible with the Antec or Thermaltake cases. Just another difference between a very good consumer case and a professional case.

It certainly is a good case, but not a server case. It is a big tower and the major drawback is that, due to the depth of the case in comparison to a real server case, the length of add-in cards can be problematic, especially with new video cards, thus causing less than optimal airflow and cooling. The same applies to the Thermaltake case. The airflow in the Supermicro case has another advantage, it gets along with passive cooling of the CPU's. Both Antec and Thermaltake require active cooling, thus offsetting the price advantage of the case with more costly active coolers and with active coolers the noise is higher.

This is like preferring an Audi over a BMW. Highly personal, but in my perception Supermicro is just a tad above Tyan in terms of reliability. Tyan has in the past had some problems with the capacitors on mobo's. It is also a question of availability, feature set and price.

I take that as a compliment.

A final thought, keep in mind that Videoguys is oriented towards mass products, so they have the con/prosumer in mind with their suggestions. Your initial post was about the best money can buy and professional is a different market than consumer.

Did I Miss Something Here???
 

When I last checked, you were considering a single Core2Quad, which would have been sufficient for your needs. While I agree that the dual Harpertown with Seaburg system speced above is the fastest possible system (If money was no object) it is TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. Also, you should never expect a system to last five years. It is not economically feasible, technology moves to fast. Refresh ever two years with something just below the top of the line, and you will definitely save money in the long run, and have a faster system most of the time.

If you want 8 cores, I recommend an HP XW8400 or a Dell Precision690. Both can be purchased for cheap from Dell and HP outlet sites, to save even more money. For storage, you can put 5 disks in either one, or buy an external 8 disk array for under $1K. You definitely do NOT need 10K RPM drives. 7200RPM drives are suitable for ALL media tasks up to uncompressed 4K, provided you have enough of them. You will always be able to afford enough of them compared to 10K or 15K RPM drives, twice as many are still half the price (The only exception would be getting uncompressed HD off of 4x 2.5inch 15K RPM SAS drives, in a portable solution the size of your fist. Not needed in your application) Invest the rest of the money in a XenaLH card, and some really nice monitor. Monitors hold there value much longer than workstations. 10year old workstations are obselete, but ten year old >21" CRTs are still usable. I expect to have my 30" LCD for a LONG time.

Dual Harpertown would be great, but is totally unnecessary for HD editing. That system would work well for realtime 4K though.

Both Dell and HP have good standard systems, attractively priced, but ONLY if you go for the standard configuration. As soon as you choose an option to add to the system, it's gonna cost you dearly. Add a hard disk at nearly triple the going price, add memory at double the going price, add a processor at double the going price, etc. However, and Dell admits it, they do not have advanced systems. Woodcrest is the latest CPU they offer, not the Clovertown, let alone the Harpertown, at least in their workstations. In servers like the Precision, they offer Clovertown CPU's, but unfortunately not with Greencreek chipsets.

I build these systems for comparable prices as Dell and HP, but with much more power under the hood.

I don't know where you have been getting your information, but you are incorrect. Both Dell and HP have offered Clovertown CPUs since the month they were shipped, November of 2006. I am confident they will both be shipping 5400 CPUs before the end of the month, HP in the XW8600, and Dell in whatever their next revision of Precision will be. Certain options from both companies are overpriced, specifically hard drives, and currently RAM. CPUs are usually somewhat competitively priced, as are the high end GPUs, but you can always increase RAM and disk space after the fact.

I ordered two XW8400s on Friday, with Woodcrest chips, and I plan to replace them with Harpertown chips in 6 months when the prices are more reasonable, and I find a good deal. You can't beat it price wise, and few people NEED anything more than Woodcrest, until we really start pushing into 4K. (I plan to have an 8 core Harpertown system w/4GB RAM for $2200-2500 total by summer 08)

Buying HP also gives you the advantage of certified hardware, meaning that your software companies will take the time to fix problems for you, because many programs are guarenteed to work on HP XW8200/8400 workstations: AJA, Avid, Matrox, CAD, etc.

I agree that you speced one of the fastest systems available, but it is not economical in 99% of applications. A system with 50-75% of the power is 1/4 the price.

The Dell online store.

The fact that you are in a foriegn country may modify the options. When I go to the Dell site from the US, if I select the Precision workstation line, both the 490 and 690 series are offered with everything up to dual X5365 Clovertown CPUs. What is avaialbe in the Customize options? They haven't updated in the last week to include the new 45nm CPUs, but neither has anyone else. They probably will by the end of the month, if Intel actually starts shipping them.

HP is the same way with the XW6400 and XW8400 lines. Right there on their site. HP also has announced but is not selling the new 45nm based XW8600 series. My issueswith that system are that it only has one PCI-X slot, is trying to lock me into Vista, and has few improvements over the XW8400 series, which is why I opted to buy XW8400s recently.

X7dwa-n
 

Harm, I should have a X7DWA-N running (hopefully) in about a week. I am not going RAID on it, but I do have four SAS 15K drives waiting for my delivery. While I have not yet posted it I do have a new PPBM3 benchmark. I just have been too busy to do the supporting web pages and documentation. Since this is not an income producing hobby I am initially only going to have a pair of 5410's.

Good to hear, Bill. I will run the tests for various machines, so as to help you fill the database with relevant figures.

Maybe that's a good point. If I just went with a single Intel Quad Core processor system I'd have a LOT of money spare with which to buy something like the RAID controller or one of those cards like the Xena. I already have a 24" BenQ HD monitor and a 52" Full HD Bravia connected for previewing, so monitor-wise I think I'm set forever, give or take.

I'll be working with the EX1, which has HD-SDI output, so maybe I could look at a card for capturing live from the camera via HD-SDI. Is there a card someone can recommend that can be used with Prospect HD? It gets way too confusing for me when we start getting into this territory.

Can someone also confirm that it's worth doing this if I don't actually have an HD-SDI monitor to view the material on? Let's assume that the target screen is the Bravia.

Yes, the AJA XenaLHe will also allow you to capture directly from the camera over HD-SDI, live or from recorded material. Prospect can encode the SDI input to Cineform AVIs in real time. Capturing SDI live from the EX1 will bypass the 35Mb encoding, and while I have heard rumors that it might support true 10bit color, I wouldn't bet on it. If it did, Prospect would support it for realtime direct-to-disk capture.

If going with the Xena Card, you will want to be careful if you go with a single Core2Quad. Certain consumer Motherboards have issues with the Xena. AJA only supports it on dual proc workstations. An XW8400 is my recommendation if you want to do the Xena route, which makes sense if you so many monitoring options.

That HP workstation is extremely pricey over here to get it kitted up to 4GB of RAM and enough HDDs to make it worthwhile (and I asusme I'd need a hardware RAID controller to capture live? And it's only got a pair of dual core processors - why no quad core?

The Xena card sounds great but it sounds like I'd be paying for all the other functions too - the audio ins and outs, the SDI outs, the VTR control, all of those inputs are not needed for me.

How about the Blackmagic Intensity HDMI card with one of those HD-SDI to HDMI converters? I'm pretty sure Prospect can capture through that path (I think) and as for monitoring, I don't need any extra solutions because I'll have dual graphics cards and I can just use one of the four outputs from those.

How much of an improvement am I really going to see if I capture live? I'm so blown away by the Z1 footage that I don't know if I could be much more impressed. Sure it may be technically of higher quality, but is it something that I'm actually going to see clearly?

Maybe while you're editing it, but consider how the finished video is going to be distributed: chances are no one will ever see it at better than HDV quality. And if you'e delivering on standard-definition DVDs, any visible difference between HDV and uncompressed HD capture will likely be lost. Unless you really need the uncompressed capture, just record standard HDV and enjoy!

P.S. In case I didn't say it already, for me the ultimate editing computer is a fast laptop. Desktops aren't necessary these days for basic editing tasks.

I've thought of that too but I don't really need the portability, and I already have lots of the components that would suit a desktop so I just want to stick with that.

I guess all this discussion has taught me lots about computers and what can be done with what specifications, etc... but I think I need to get back to the essentials...

Yes, I'm prepared to spend as much as is required, but I don't want to spend unneccessarily.

I plan to run CS3 with Magic Bullit Looks in Premiere with the 35Mbps EX1 footage and want a computer optimized to run this well. It sounds like I don't need dual Xeon processors, but it would be advantageous. I don't need the Xena card, but it could be a benefit. I don't need a RAID card but it sounds like it's highly recommended.

Shortly I'm going to post what I think is appropriate for this task and see what you all think.

Thanks so much for all your help and advice! I really do appreciate having a forum where I can get such expert advice from people - otherwise I'd just be stuck with the salespeople in the retail stores!!

RAID shouldn't be necessary for editing the footage in its native format unless you do a lot of heavy multi-layer compositing. 35 Mbps is less than 5 MB/sec per video stream, which means you should be able to run several layers off a single modern hard drive. Don't use RAID just for the heck of it, since it introduces maintenance complexities.

What about running RAID through the BIOS? Is that a waste of time too?

If you're going to do RAID I'd say to buy a decent hardware-based controller for optimum performance. The main reason I could see to use a BIOS-based RAID would be to do a simple mirroring for backup purposes.

If I get a single Quad Core Intel processor - the QX9650-45nm, 3GHz CPU, there are no nVidia chipset motherboards that support it (that I can find) according to this list.

ASUS Motherboard Support 45nm Processors

So it looks like I'm stuck with ATI graphics. Am I right?

If so, what's the best ATI graphics card I can get? I've always used nVidia and was planning to do so again.

Have I just overlooked a board that supports this processor as well as nVidia graphics (I need two graphics cards by the way).

Just looked at this again and was wondering about the consequences of having too many devices plugged in - ie: over-using your PSU.

I currently have an A8N 32 SLI board with 3 HDDs, 2GB Ram, an AMD 4400+, a 7800GT, an 8600GT, DVD Burner, Blu-Ray Drive & HD-DVD Drive.

All attached to a 450 watt power supply in my Antec Sonata II case.

The performance of my computer is so pathetic that I simply cannot accept it any longer (hence this thread). I have no way of narrowing down the cause because I simply don't have the knowledge.

My processor does all sorts of strange things. Sometimes its performance varies from 0% to 100% every three to four seconds, sometimes the computer freezes and the processor says 0%.

It's just so random I can't understand it. I plan to upgrade the processor but don't know whether it will fix anything really.

Is it possible for an insufficient power supply to cause performance problems?

John,

An overtaxed power supply can cause all kinds of erratic behavior. I've had three PS's quit on me and I did not enjoy replacing them. It is the backbone of your system, not one of the fancy components, but incredibly important to your system and it's stability.

I think your approach to have a look at the Penryn generation of chips is very sensible. It uses less energy and has the SSE4 extensions, apart from other benefits. Although some posters have indicated that a dual Harpertown setup may be way too powerful, I think that with your extensive intended use of Magic Bullet Looks, you can use all the processing power you can get. MBL is VERY CPU hungry when it comes to rendering.

I am not certain, but I believe certain NVidia boards support the 45nm CPUs. If not, NVidia is supposed to be releasing a new chipset soon (the 780i). I was planning on buying one until I figured out the economics of the XW8400 solution. Regardless, you do not need Nvidia SLI in order to support more the one NVidia card. Actually, SLI does not support more than one DISPLAY. Many other motherboards (with dual x16 slots) will support to independent Nvidia graphics cards. I recommend NVidia GPUs over ATI.
Also, why do you need the Q9650? It is neither required nor economically feasible, (unless you have some way of getting the chip for under $1K.) The Q6600 or Q6700 will offer similar performance for much cheaper.

Also, I still don't understand why none of you can find the quad cores on HP's site, maybe it a is a foriegn limitation, since everyone who is having that issue is from outside the US. I assure you that HP makes dual socket quad-core systems, I intend to purchase one that way.

As far as Raids go, the "bios" raid is a hardware raid, and can be effective in Raid 0 to increase speed, but puts your data at more risk. I use a single drive for my OS and Apps, and a 2 disk Raid 0 for my media, to edit compressed HD. Editing XDCam and or Cineform conversions only requires a single spindle, but a simple Raid) can increase performance, and it is cheap. No need to buy a dedicated RAID card for Raid 0, as it requires no significant processing. Using Dynamic disk (software) Raid0 will tax the CPU slightly, but should still be effective. Many dual channel hardware Raids (Raid 50) do the striping in the CPU through windows.

You seem to be having a great deal of trouble figuring out what you really want. I reccommend you set a budget for yourself for your new system, and post that number along with your suggested specs to keep the advice directed in ways you actually realistically plan on going. For example under $2K I reccommend a Q6600 based system with 4GB. one hard disk for the OS, and two disks for the media in Raid 0. No Xena, and use your current video cards if desired. I don't know a specific MB off the top of my head, but look for dual x16 slots, quad compatibility, onboard SATA Raid 0.

Attached is a quote given to me by my builder of choice.

Here's what he wrote to me about Harm's Dual Quad Core Xeon system:

I’ve reviewed the parts and pls note that the CPU and the Board is not available at the moment. The CPU is due to be released in first quarter of next year.

In the meantime I’ve prepared a quote based on Intel’s Quad core XEON CPU that runs on 1333 FSB. Also the graphic cards will not be running at full 16x speed as the Intel server board will only support x8 signal

So he's spec'd a single 2.66GHz Quad Core Xeon with the components as listed.

Is it a good system? Please remember $ are in AU.

I figured that if I only went with a single Quad Core processor I would just get a Core2Quad. It would be cheaper (I think) and the GPUs would run at 16x on a regular MB. I just still can't narrow down my options well enough.

You're right Mike - I'm not certain about what I want. I guess it's tough because I really am not terribly phased by price, so long as I know I'm getting the best system appropriate to my workflow. I don't want to overdo it for no reason, so if I can see money going towards a RAID card that is unneccessary I simply won't spend it.

But I'm not prepared to buy a system that is the "Minimum Requirement" ever again. It's a dead loss.

I guess to make it easier, I'm prepared to pay $5000 to $6000 A\U.

I guess that's the equivalent of about 4-5000 US$.

The systems this guy quoted and the one Harm suggested are much more than this, but I can always do without the RAID and the expensive case.

Anyway, let's say $6000AU max ($5000 US max).

Just a question, the PC spec'd in this thread is, I guess, at the more 'consumer' end of things and is designed as an HDV editing system. With some of the suggestions made in that thread (and what would probably be a 3GHz Core2Quad CPU, would it be appropriate for HD as well? And Magic Bullet in Prospect HD?

I guess if I just knew opinions about a good starting point like that I can build upon it or remove from it...

I'm thinking that if the dual Xeons is excessive and that a single Quad Core Xeon offers no real benefit over a Core 2 Quad I'd rather go with a Core 2 Quad for a few reasons. Heat and noise are apparently less of an issue. Therefore motherboard and case selection are less of an issue.

I'm probably learning towards the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Quad Core CPU, 3.0 GHz, FSB 1333MHz or maybe the 6950 but as you say Mike, the benefit of it may be minimal, particularly over the 6850.

Thanks,

-- John.

Here are my notes on your Dual Xeon config:

Good CPU choice
Makes sure that the RAM is 4 sticks that are 1GB each. 4 sticks are required for optimal performance with the 5000X chipset. $900 seems a bit high, but not unreasonable.
Raptor is a good choice for OS drive, I have the 74GB one.
Are you planning to run Raid 0 or 5? Samsung 500GB should be fine (1.4-1.8TB total) but the Raid card is a bit over the top, but for Raid5 might be helpful. I have had problems with a 3ware controller in the past, and the drivers leave a bit to be desired. I would at least reccommend at least considering other manufacturers.
I would recommend a better video card. If you aren't going to get a Quadro card, and you are going for a Geforce8 card, at least invest in an 8800 varient. The GT as probably the best value, but hard to find. The GTS320 and the GTX are both great as well. A high end VGA card should help if you are planning to use it to power multiple displays at higher resolutions. If you use AE, you will also see performance benefits in 3D. Weren't you planning to get 2 VGA cards?

All prices in this country are inflated. It's incredibly annoying.

RAID 0. Speed is my only concern. I already own 1.5TB in extrernal HDDs and have been using them for back-up of footage. I'm happy to continue doing that the hard way if it saves me buying extra internal HDDs purely to mirror my RAID 0. But in the end, I don't necessarily see a huge advantage to RAID. If it speeds up my rendering then fine. But by how much will it do this? 50%? 25%? If it's only 10-15% I don't know if I can justify it. Magic Bullet is like a sloth but if RAID can turn it into a cheetah then I'm in! But if all it does is turn it into a sloth who drinks Red Bull then I'm probably not interested.

I was under the impression that neither PPro CS3, Prospect HD or Magic Bullet make use of the GPU. What's the benefit of the 8800? Or even of the Quadro?

Yeah, the reason I selected 8600GT is because I already own one, so I'd just need to buy one more. What about the fact that in that Motherboard, the GPUs would only be running at 8 speed?

You definitely do NOT need a hardware Raid card for Raid 0 Arrays. The MB you speced has SATA RAID0 built in, and will be fine for your purposes. That MB is a server board, a similar but 'Workstation' class board might be a better fit. Any reason why that one in particular was selected?

The video cards don't have to match in order to use them together. That is only for SLI or Crossfire, which combine the power of multiple cards to drive a SINGLE DISPLAY. Your 8600GT can be a secondary card for a 8800GTS or whatever else. I would need to know what monitors your using to be really specific on an optimal setup. The PCIe x8 is no big deal, many high end SLI systems run on x8 bandwidth, and it should be sufficient for most things. Speedgrade and possibly MB use the bandwidth for returning CCRed images to the system, but x8 is still 2GB/s. A faster video card WILL help for MagicBullet, at least that is what I am told. GPUs are used by many CCR applications, as they are optimized for that type of processing.

That settles that! No RAID for me!

I asked for them to quote me using Harm's suggestion but it's not availble in Australia yet so the dealer suggested this one instead, which I suppose is a step down. I'd rather have a workstation board but I guess they won't provide for two processors, will they?

I am currently running a 7800GT & an 8600GT but when I first put them together it runied my computer. It reset the BIOS and I had to re-format my computer. The guy who fixed it said it was the result of the 7 series & 8 series drivers not understanding each other. He said it's safer to use the same model card. That said, now that he's fixed it, it's working fine. I guess I'm just being paranoid. If the 8800 will make it faster, I'll take it!

I have:
2 x 22" Samsung 226BW (1680x1050 each)
1 x 24" BenQ FP241W (1920x1200)
1x 52" Sony 52X3100 (1920x1080)

These are all connected via DVI (the Sony LCD TV via a DVI->HDMI converter.

I tend to do most editing on the two 22s with the 24 as my full screen preview and when doing Magic Bullet for colour I'll use the Sony.

How would this work? Would I have to plug the 8800 into the full screen video preview monitor or into the primary monitor?

The biggest difference between most 'server' motherboards and 'workstation' motherboards is with the graphics. Server boards have integrated graphics, since it is rarely used anyway, and workstation boards have the needed x16 slot(s) for high end graphics cards. Both types usually use the same chipsets and support the same processors. The S5000XVN is Intel's workstation board, but is designed for a single GPU. Supermicro has a bunch in their 5000X series (X7DA...) These have an x16 slot for the primary GPU, and an x4 slot for a secondary GPU. (8600GT in your case) Newer workstation boards will have two full speed GPU slots.

I would recommend connecting the two application interface 22" monitors to your 8600GT in an x4 slot, and the two larger displays to an 8800 varient in the x16 slot. Using your current plan with two x8 slots if fine as well.

For CCR, the GPU actually passes the corrected image BACK to the system, so it doesn't matter which monitor is attached. For example when exporting, the resulting image from the GPU is saved to disk. For best realtime performance, I believe connecting the fullscreen displays to the primary GPU would be ideal.

Is it performance altering? Significantly anyway? The guy told me that in order to find a board that suits dual x16 speed GPU slots I should just build around a single Core2Quad QX9650 3.00GHz processor. He said it's a lot simpler, cheaper, and will suit any purpose.

In fact he said that it will be so fast that he cannot understand why I'd want the Dual Xeons. Is he right? I know Mike that you've said the Xeons are over the top, but Cineform recommends them for Best Performance for Prospect HD. If I just get the single 3.00GHz Core2Quad will I be compromising to an extent that I'll regret it and just wish I'd got the Xeons?

Also, CPU wise, on your HD4PC site you mention that "the new line of [45nm] CPUs are cheaper than the older generation at equivalent speeds. In that case, I'd be a bit silly not to wait for them wouldn't I?

This is pretty much what I do now - I connect the 22s to the 7800 and the 24 & 52 to the 8600. If I got the 8800 I'd just upgrade the monitors like you say.

This goes over my head, but does it mean that the graphics card assists in speeding up the rendering process?

Also, you wrote this in another thread (and something similar in this thread somewhere):

If that's the case, then the 8800GT will not suit my purpose, right? (even though it's Magic Bullet's recommended GPU) At this stage, my 8600GT has no problems using CS3's "Enable Full Screen Preview" or whatever it's called, but it sounds like Prospect throws a spanner in the works with that? So I may need a Quadro after all..?

If so, I'm completely in the dark about them!!