I know, but I did hope to keep it specific to my workflow. I appreciate the help, don't get me wrong - it's helped me figure out heaps about what's a good computer.

I think I'll end up with a single Quad Core (don't know whether Xeon or not).

You said that a single Quad Core would be sufficient but would it run nicely or would it limp at times under the pressure of Magic Bullet and 1920x1080 footage.

Depends on what you are doing with Magic Bullet. The original MB will never be realtime, but that was for converting NTSC to 24p. If you mean CCR work with looks or colorista, that will primarily be a function of the graphics card I believe. A Geforce 8800 will be the best option, I reccommend a GT (Unless you need fullscreen video overlay support)

I will have Looks (provided I can install the program without ruining my codecs) and use that.

As for needing the full screen video overlay, CS3 can force the full screen video preview regardless of the nVidia settings. When I installed the drivers for my 8600 GT they removed the full screen overlay function from the nVidia control panel but CS3 can still do it without a hitch.

Interesting, not everyone has the same experience with the GeForce8 series. I believe it is confirmed not to work with Prospect full screen overlay in Premiere, but you are indicating that it can still work in desktop mode. I will have to check more, now that I got my 8800GTX back.

I don't know if we mean the same thing though. When using CS3 (with no Prospect though) I ignore the full screen overlay in the nVidia overlay (which can't be turned on anyway) and adjust the Playback Settings in CS3's preview monitor to set it to "Playback on External Monitor" or whatever it's called. And You can choose which monitor and it works flawlessly.

See if either of these two links help at all:

http://www.videoguys.com/DIY5updateNAB07.html

http://www.guygraphics.com/GGSUBCAT-...28NLEs%29.html

Thanks for that! I'm still struggling to understand which motherboard fits which processor.

Also, I read today that if you have a motherboard with two separate processors you must have two copies of windows - one for each processor. Is that correct?

Not as far as I know.

Heavens no - but you do need a sufficiently recent version of Windows to make the best use of multiple processors and multi-core processors. Windows XP Pro should be sufficient.

Just found what appears to be this motherboard here though it doesn't have the "plus" at the end, which I cannot find anywhere in this country.

Anyway, on the website it says that this motherboard will only support 2 x quad xeons to a maximum speed of 2.66GHz.

Is this true? I cannot find ANY reliable sources or sites that can direct me with any confidence to the correct answers to these sorts of questions. I cannot for the life of me decide which of the 3GHz Xeons or Core2Quads is the best nor can I figure out which Motherboard suits which!

It's ridiculous!

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!