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-   -   Money is no object editing PC (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-linear-editing-pc/107204-money-no-object-editing-pc.html)

John Hewat December 16th, 2007 01:37 PM

Well I'm glad that it's not just me whose computer stuffs up regularly. Although mine destroys itself on a daily basis. Multiple times daily...

I've never created a "ghost image" before. Is that kind of like a system restore point?

I should probably do that the day I get it to make sure every single thing that I do to it can be undone...

Mike McCarthy December 16th, 2007 01:57 PM

Yes, that is usually the idea. Ghost is a program that allows you to backup your entire partition or drive to a single file on another drive. I usually store all of my ghost images on an external firewire drive. There are other programs, but Ghost is the primary player, and the only one I have gotten to work flawlessly. The difficult thing is that you can't run ghost while files on the drive are in use, and therefore can't be booted into windows. I have a CD created specifically for the purpose, that allows me to boot from the CD, and run ghost and a few other utilities on the hard drive. It took forever to get the process smoothed out, but now I have been using my BootCDs at least once a week for the last 3 or 4 years. (I maintain about 10 workstations though, not just one.)

John Hewat December 17th, 2007 07:00 AM

Ok! It's pretty much the same as Travis' PC. I'm planning on ordering by the week's end. I've decided to skip the whole dual boot/hot swapping options and just stick with an editing-only machine. This is it:

Motherboard: Supermicro X7DWA-N
Processors: 2 x 45nm Intel Xeon X5450 Quad Core 3.00GHz
Memory: 4GB Patriot RAM 667MHz
System Drive: WD Raptor, 74GB SATA, 16mb cache 10,000rpm
RAID o: 4 x Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint 500GB, 16mb cache
Video Cards: 2 x ASUS 7800GT 256MB
Optical: DVD-DL Burner SATA
Case: Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 chasis
Power: Antec TPQ-1000
Op. Sys.: Windows XP Pro

Final Questions:

1. Do each of these components work in a 64bit machine?
2. Do I want fully buffered ram or unbuffered ram? I hate ram, I don't understand it at all. Why not 800MHz?
3. We're failry confident that CS3 works ok in XP Pro 64bit but what about Prospect HD and what about Magic Bullet?

Phillip Smith December 17th, 2007 10:21 AM

Watching with interest
 
I have been watching this thread with quit a bit of interest as I am also considering a major upgrade to my system. Here is the hardware I am looking at for those that are interested.

Supermicro X7DAL-E+ motherboard.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...X/X7DAL-E+.cfm

I am looking at this motherboard for a couple reasons.
1) It is an ATX motherboard, so I can use the CoolMaster CM690 case, 850w power supply, and 160gig WD Raptor I already own.
2) It has a pci-e x16 slot. So I can use my the nvidia 8800 graphics card I already own.
3) It supports the X5400 series processors, upto 1333MHz.

Either (2) X5450's or (2) X5460's which are finally starting to become available.
http://www.itispl.com.au/products/sh....php?prec=4204
http://pcau.com/l4/CPU1343.htm

Another product to consider for making backups is Acronis TrueImage.
It supports live backups, including boot partitions, from within windows.
So, you don't have to boot into another program to do the backups.
It supports 64 bit, backup to network drives, scheduling, etc.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...cts/trueimage/

Mike McCarthy December 17th, 2007 12:06 PM

You have to have fully buffered RAM.

The hardware should be 64bit compatible. See the Cineform forum for peoples recent experiences in upgrading to XP64, seems mostly positive. No idea on MB.

John Hewat December 17th, 2007 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy (Post 794132)
You have to have fully buffered RAM.

Also, do I want the actively or passively cooled CPUs?? What's the difference?

Mike McCarthy December 17th, 2007 06:09 PM

Active coolers have a dedicated fan on the heatsink. Unless you have a case that is specifically designed to cool the CPUs with the case fans, you probably want the actively cooled varient.

John Hewat December 18th, 2007 12:03 AM

Ram
 
Last question (ever I hope!):

The RAM he's spec'd for me is:

Patriot PSD24G667EFBK Signature DDR2 4GB (2 x 2GB) CL5 PC2-5300 (667MHz) ECC Fully Buffered DIMM

Is it good? In fact is it great?

Should I ask him to put in 4 x 1GB sticks instead of 2 2GB sticks?

The part that concerns me is that it is only 667MHz.

Now on the Supermicro web site it says that 800MHz memory is for 1600MHz FSB CPUs only, which the X5450 isn't - it's only 1333MHz.

This seems a bit strange and "old" to be going in such a new system. Is this likely to cause a bottleneck?

Am I getting the best RAM I can get?

This Kingston RAM here is still only 667MHz but is pretty much twice the price and is "Dual Rank". What's that mean?

Mike McCarthy December 18th, 2007 12:30 AM

You should try to get 4 1GB sticks, as the chipset supports quad channel Ram. May not have a dramatic effect on performance, but it is a free speed boost. You want RAM to be syncronized with the FSB, so I would pick 667 over 800 in your case, even if the 800 was cheaper. I went out of my way to buy a 2.4Ghz P4 back in the day, because it would be better synced to the 800Mhz FSB (3 to 1), even though the 2.6Ghz was the same price. I just bought a 4core 2.66 Ghz Woodcrest system, with a 1333mhz FSB, so that is a 2:1 ratio. That is why I chose that speed. My Ram is quad channel 667 (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) feeding dual independent processor busses at 1333mhz apiece, (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) which connect to four total cores running at 2.66Ghz. Sound smooth and efficient efficient? I think so.

John Hewat December 18th, 2007 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy (Post 794533)
You should try to get 4 1GB sticks, as the chipset supports quad channel Ram. May not have a dramatic effect on performance, but it is a free speed boost. You want RAM to be syncronized with the FSB, so I would pick 667 over 800 in your case, even if the 800 was cheaper. I went out of my way to buy a 2.4Ghz P4 back in the day, because it would be better synced to the 800Mhz FSB (3 to 1), even though the 2.6Ghz was the same price. I just bought a 4core 2.66 Ghz Woodcrest system, with a 1333mhz FSB, so that is a 2:1 ratio. That is why I chose that speed. My Ram is quad channel 667 (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) feeding dual independent processor busses at 1333mhz apiece, (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) which connect to four total cores running at 2.66Ghz. Sound smooth and efficient efficient? I think so.

Sounds super smooth! But how do I know if I've ordered "Quad Channel" RAM?Is the RAM he's suggested fine? Or is the twice as expensive Kingston RAM better?

Mike McCarthy December 18th, 2007 11:51 AM

You can buy "Quad channel" Ram in the unbuffered world, but I have never seen that option for workstation type sticks. I bought two identical Dual Channel packs, and they seem to work fine. This is in the last 24hours, so I have not confirmed that I have true quad channel operation.

I have always bought the cheapest RAM I could find with a given set of specifications. Not totally clear on the advantages of more expensive stuff, besides warranty. I check the timings to ensure they are the same, and I am not ready to spend tons of money to lower them.

John Hewat December 19th, 2007 12:55 AM

Well I finally ordered it!

Two things:

1. He convinced me to stick with 32 bit XP Pro for stability's sake.
2. He told me that, also for the sake of stability, 2 x 2GB RAM sticks was better than 4 x 1GB. He said it was a much more stable setup.

Why would opinions differ on that isue? Isn't there just one way that is considered best?

Anyway, I ended up getting 2 x 2GB sticks. Hopefully it's not performance inhibiting...

Mike McCarthy December 19th, 2007 01:18 AM

Strange, both are not bad moves, but those are the wrong reasons.

32bit Windows should be expected to be less reliable or stable, but more COMPATIBLE with hardware and software.

There are no advantages I am aware of, for limiting RAM to two sticks on a workstation, but one could arguethat it helps lower the latency timings on a dual channel consumer gaming board, for better overclocking. Eith way, it is not the end of the world.

In the future you can buy 2 more 2GB sticks and install 64bit Windows to use it, when the time comes.

John Hewat December 19th, 2007 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy (Post 795121)
In the future you can buy 2 more 2GB sticks and install 64bit Windows to use it, when the time comes.

That's what I thought too.

Well, one month and fourteen days after I started this thread, the system's finally been ordered, and now they just have to wait for the parts to arrive from the U.S.A. which could take about 2 - 3 weeks they said, given Christmas, and I should have the system by late January.

I'll post my thoughts about it when it arrives (and no doubt some more questions) and let you know how it's going.

Thank you so much Harm for putting me on the right track & Travis for providing what ultimately became almost exactly what I'm getting. And to Mike for answering every single one of my questions every day! I owe you so much for what you've taught me, and your generous help is a testament to how wonderful this online community can be.

I thank you.

-- John.

Harm Millaard December 19th, 2007 07:25 AM

John,

Forgive me if I have lost track of what mobo you have finally decided upon, but if it is the Supermicro X7 one, you MUST use 4 slots for RAM, so 4x1GB and not 2x2GB. The minimum requirements for that type of mobo are FOUR sticks. DDR2-667 ECC FBDIMM is more readily available then the 800 version and quite sufficient for a 1333 FSB.

John Hewat December 19th, 2007 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard (Post 795204)
John,

Forgive me if I have lost track of what mobo you have finally decided upon, but if it is the Supermicro X7 one, you MUST use 4 slots for RAM, so 4x1GB and not 2x2GB. The minimum requirements for that type of mobo are FOUR sticks. DDR2-667 ECC FBDIMM is more readily available then the 800 version and quite sufficient for a 1333 FSB.

Yikes - it is, it's the X7DWA-N.

And the sales guy was determined to be putting in 2 x 2GB sticks.

As a layman, I can't explain to him why to use 4 x 1GB sticks.

Is there a section on the Supermicro page about this board here that describes it? The only mentions of System Memory don't seem to mention it, but then I have no real understanding of what any of it means...

Quote:

System Memory

Memory Capacity Eight 240-pin DIMM sockets
Supports up to 64 GB 800* / 667 / 533MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory
Dual branch memory bus
Memory must be populated in pairs
Memory Sparing supported

Memory Type 800* / 667 / 533MHz FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) ECC DDR2 SDRAM 72-bit, 240-pin gold-plated DIMMs

DIMM Sizes 512 MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB , 8GB**

Memory Voltage 1.8 V or 1.5 V

Error Detection Corrects single-bit errors
Detects double-bit errors (using ECC memory)
Supports Intel® x4 and x8 Single Device Data Correction (SDDC)
Could you explain it as best you can and I'll relay it to him tomorrow?

Thank you so much!

Phillip Smith December 19th, 2007 01:22 PM

According to the motherboard manual located here
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/mo...0/MNL-0945.pdf
on page 2-6 you can install as few as 2 dimms. But, they have to be in different banks.

Mike McCarthy December 19th, 2007 02:16 PM

I doubt that 4 sticks actually REQUIRED. I haven't heard of any requirements like that since RD-RAM, and before that, it was 30pin SIMMs that required 4 sticks. But as I said before, 4 identical sticks will result in optimal performance.

Harm Millaard December 19th, 2007 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phillip Smith (Post 795409)
According to the motherboard manual located here
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/mo...0/MNL-0945.pdf
on page 2-6 you can install as few as 2 dimms. But, they have to be in different banks.

I stand corrected. You are correct in that you could make out with two sticks. Nevertheless, using 4 sticks is more efficient and probably costs you less money.

John Hewat December 19th, 2007 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard (Post 795506)
I stand corrected. You are correct in that you could make out with two sticks. Nevertheless, using 4 sticks is more efficient and probably costs you less money.

It is cheaper! But the guy building it says it is not possible... I simply don't know why...

John Hewat December 19th, 2007 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phillip Smith (Post 795409)
According to the motherboard manual located here
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/mo...0/MNL-0945.pdf
on page 2-6 you can install as few as 2 dimms. But, they have to be in different banks.

Could you explain to me what this means? About the different banks?

Phillip Smith December 20th, 2007 08:02 AM

This is a pretty good explaination of interleaved memory I found on the net. Just replace block with bank.

Interleaving

Interleaving is an advanced technique used by high-end motherboards/chipsets to improve memory performance. Memory interleaving increases bandwidth by allowing simultaneous access to more than one chunk of memory. This improves performance because the processor can transfer more information to/from memory in the same amount of time, and helps alleviate the processor-memory bottleneck that is a major limiting factor in overall performance.

Interleaving works by dividing the system memory into multiple blocks. The most common numbers are two or four, called two-way or four-way interleaving, respectively. Each block of memory is accessed using different sets of control lines, which are merged together on the memory bus. When a read or write is begun to one block, a read or write to other blocks can be overlapped with the first one. The more blocks, the more that overlapping can be done. As an analogy, consider eating a plate of food with a fork. Two-way interleaving would mean dividing the food onto two plates and eating with both hands, using two forks. (Four-way interleaving would require two more hands. :^) ) Remember that here the processor is doing the "eating" and it is much faster than the forks (memory) "feeding" it (unlike a person, whose hands are generally faster.)

In order to get the best performance from this type of memory system, consecutive memory addresses are spread over the different blocks of memory. In other words, if you have 4 blocks of interleaved memory, the system doesn't fill the first block, and then the second and so on. It uses all 4 blocks, spreading the memory around so that the interleaving can be exploited.

Interleaving is an advanced technique that is not generally supported by most PC motherboards, most likely due to cost. It is most helpful on high-end systems, especially servers, that have to process a great deal of information quickly.

Phillip Smith December 26th, 2007 07:45 AM

X5460's in stock at NewEgg!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...7137&Tpk=x5460

Mike McCarthy December 26th, 2007 01:27 PM

The X5450 is also in stock. In is about 30% cheaper, doesn't use half step multipliers, and should have better sync with the DDR2 667 Ram (9:2 instead of 19:4 clock ratio)

Adam Gold January 11th, 2008 06:43 PM

Interestingly, the one reviewer who posted about this CPU at NewEgg said the following:

"Pros: Works well except with Adobe After Affects and Premiere Pro
"Cons: Does not work with Adobe AF and PPRO, Do not buy this processor until Adobe has fixed their software"

Is this guy all wet or is there a possibility this is true?

John Hewat January 12th, 2008 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Gold (Post 806975)
Interestingly, the one reviewer who posted about this CPU at NewEgg said the following:

"Pros: Works well except with Adobe After Affects and Premiere Pro
"Cons: Does not work with Adobe AF and PPRO, Do not buy this processor until Adobe has fixed their software"

Is this guy all wet or is there a possibility this is true?

If that's true I will find the world's tallest building to leap from.

I'm still waiting on the motherboard to become available in this country so the system isn't built yet. If I have any stupid problems like that I will want to jump off a bridge!

Adam Gold January 12th, 2008 12:29 PM

I'm in sort of the same boat, as I'm trying to put together a very similar system to yours, in part based on this thread.

I assume the reviewer on NewEgg is crazy, just as we have frequent posters here who scream their cams are "defective" because they didn't read the manual and set something wrong.

I posted about this issue at the Adobe boards and no one had heard anything about this, with the consensus being that this was unlikely to be an issue.

I guess we'll both have to wait and see.

But it'd be an expensive mistake if true...

John Hewat January 20th, 2008 10:38 PM

Had an update on the system, which is built, but failed testing!!

Apparently, that motherboard wouldn't support all five HDDs unless they put some of them into RAID. I said "But that's what I wanted - RAID 0 on the 4 x 500GB Samsungs."

They said, "O, ok, well that's what we'll do then. How many drives do you want it to be?"

I said "One two terabyte stripe."

He said "O, really?" as if it were a mistake. I asked if that was a bad idea. He said no but didn't explain why he had sounded surprised.

Is 2TB too big? I thought it was the right idea...

Josh Chesarek January 21st, 2008 11:03 AM

It is not every day you get an order for 2TB :p

Jimmy Moss January 21st, 2008 02:45 PM

2TB RAID 0 is fine as long as you don't use it for storage. Backup to somthing else. If I had $5000 for evertime a RAID 0 failed, I'd have $1,000,000,000. =)

Call up Drive Savers or do a google search and ask them how much it would be to recover data from a failed RAID 0.

Harm Millaard January 21st, 2008 03:39 PM

John,

A 2TB Raid is not exceptional. What is exceptional is putting that storage in a raid0 with 4 disks, thereby quadrupling the chance of failure in comparison to a single disk and losing ALL data on that raid. With the system you have in mind it might be wise to add a 5-th disk and create a Raid5. That gives you added security in case of a disk failure and minimal performance loss in comparison to a raid0 with 4 disks.

I'm currently looking at a 6 TB Raid5 configuration.

Jimmy Moss January 21st, 2008 03:44 PM

RAID 5 would be the way to go. You might need an external enclosure form somthing like that. eSATA mabe.

John Hewat January 21st, 2008 08:35 PM

Do you recommend the RAID 5 for the security of the footage?

I handle all my own back ups of important footage to external HDDs so I don't feel I need to take an extra security step. Am I right?

Also, I forgot to mention that they were having trouble finding the right driver to make the 4 discs run in RAID 0 without re-installing Windows. He said it was just trial and error until they found the right one.

Does that sound right? I don't understand it at all. Can someone explain to me what he may have meant? The trouble was caused by them installing the four 500GB Samsung drives as separate drives rather than as a RAID 0, and now that they are going back to correct that, they are having difficulty.

What does that mean and is it bad?

Adam Gold January 21st, 2008 10:07 PM

I don't know if this is helpful, but I downloaded and read the whole manual for the system I'm putting together now (based on a Supermicro barebones server) and it's very insistent that the RAID config must be set up BEFORE installing the OS.

From the SuperWorkstation 7045A-WT manual:

"After all the hardware has been installed, you must first configure the Intel ESB2 SATA RAID before you install the Windows Operating System and other software drivers." (p.111)

Not sure if this is applicable to your system or not...

EDIT: Just went back and found your system specs and your motherboard is in fact the same specific one referenced in the 7045 manual.

John Hewat January 21st, 2008 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Gold (Post 812084)
EDIT: Just went back and found your system specs and your motherboard is in fact the same specific one referenced in the 7045 manual.

You're right - I went and found it too. It says exactly that

Page 99 of the X7DWA-N manual:

"To configure the SATA RAID functions, you must first use the Intel ESB2 SATA RAID Utility program to configure the RAID Level that you desire before installing the Windows XP/2000/2003 operating system and other software drivers. (The necessary drivers are all included on the Supermicro CD that came packaged with your motherboard.) Note: the current version of the ESB2 SATA RAID Utility can only support Windows XP/2000/2003 Operating Systems."

John Hewat January 23rd, 2008 12:00 AM

EDIT: I had been rambling in this post for hours about my Magic Bullet woes... and I finally cured them. I did have to update my nVidia drivers to the current ones, which unfortunately disable the Full Screen Video option when working in a Cineform Prospect HD project.

I was getting Blue Screen of Death when using Looks, but now it's gone...

John Hewat January 23rd, 2008 09:53 AM

A couple of questions for advice:

1.
First thing I did when I got it was open it up to find the DIMMS installed in the wrong spots. They'd filled 1A, 1B, 2A & 2B instead of spreading them over 1A, 2A, 3A & 4A.

I rang them and they apologized and told me to correct it. So I did.

QUESTION: Have I done the right thing?

In System, it says that I have 2.75GB and After Effects sees 2GB.

2.
At one stage, after the blue screen of death, the computer booted and told me it had found new hardware and needed to restart. I didn't know what to do. I clicked OK and it restart and when it booted, there was now a mysterious "E:" Drive of 465GB (one of the 500GB Samsungs) and the "D:" Drive (what was previously the 2TB RAID 0) is now unformatted!!!!

QUESTION: How is this possible if the 4 x 500GB Samsungs are supposed to be in RAID 0 in the BIOS?? And how the heck do I fix this?

3.
The HD Audio Program keeps telling me that a Jack has been plugged and unplugged, but it isn't! I haven't plugged or unplugged anything!!!! It's extremely annoying!

QUESTION: Could this be a loose wire within the case?

Harm Millaard January 23rd, 2008 12:34 PM

1. Yes. 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A is correct. See page 2-6 in the manual.

2. You may have to boot into the BIOS and set up you raid0 array again. Why this happened I do not know. Be sure that you have the latest drivers available.

3. Check page 2-23 in the manual for the right connections.

Mike McCarthy January 23rd, 2008 01:56 PM

On a totally different note, I figured I would post the configuration I finally purchased here:
XW8400, Dual X5365 Xeons (3.0Ghz), 8GB RAM, Quadro 4600
Disks will be a combination of Raptor OS, 4x500GB Raid5, 2xSAS 15k 300GB Raid0, and possibly a 1TB in the future, if I make my Raid5 external.

Cost me under $5k not counting the 30"LCD I bought a while back, based on a unit from HP's refurbished site.

I plan to benchmark it in a number of Apps in the near future, and also compare XP32 to XP64.

John Hewat January 23rd, 2008 07:57 PM

1 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard (Post 812912)
1. Yes. 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A is correct. See page 2-6 in the manual.

Excellent! Thank you so much for looking it up for me!

Quote:

2. You may have to boot into the BIOS and set up you raid0 array again. Why this happened I do not know. Be sure that you have the latest drivers available.
RAID was disabled in the BIOS. The technician said that one of the Blue Screens of Death could have caused it but didn't say how.

Anyway, I enabled it and changed the controller from Intel to Adaptec, as per the technician's instructions (is this a good move or bad) and the RAID appears to be working fine now.

I've attached a screenshot of the Adaptec Storage Manager in Windows and would love if you could tell me if all of the settings are correct.

ALSO: I understand that the best configuration for storage is to have Windows and CS3 installed on the System Drive and to use the RAID 0 for footage storage and creating the rendered files, yes? Is it also better to have the project file saved on the RAID or is that insignificant?

And the Media Cache Database? Where should that be? It defaults to My Documents\Adobe\Common...


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