Motherboard Recomendation

[Gary Bettan]

Originally Posted by Daniel Runyon

If youre going to get a new board, I would whole heartedly recommend the ASUS P5AD2-E Premium.

RIGHT ON THE MONEY! This is the go to single processor motherboard for NLE. We used it in our DIY2 article http://www.videoguys.com/DIY2.html and since then it just keeps winning awards and delivering outstanding performance!

For those gettign a dual processor system - DO NOT USE A MOTHERBOARD WITH THE 6300 SOUTHBRIDGE

The southbridge is the chipset that controls the main I/O of the motherboard – this includes the hard disk controllers (IDE & SATA), USB, FireWire, on board audio and on board RAID controllers. Unfortunately most of the current dual processor motherboards that include PCIe also use the weak 6300 southbridge. The 6300 southbridge was designed as a low cost solution, not a top performance solution. As a result with Video editing (especially HDV or HD footage) you can easily flood the southbridge and the resulting bottlenecks can result in sluggish performance, dropped frames, jittery playback or worst of all – system crashes. Despite all our best tweaks and tricks, we had to face the facts – the 6300 southbridge was a problem and we could not find a way around it. For this reason we do not recommend any motherboards with the 6300 southbridge for video editing. The Intel ICH6R or ICH5R are much better choice and able to handle all the throughput required for HDV & HD editing.

Gary

[Christopher Lefchik]

Steve,

The roundup you linked to is mainly concerned with the dual-core chips, in which the AMD does lead. However, these are more than his budget allows for. Still, when you look at the single-core chips on the Divx MPEG and WMV encoding tests, the Pentium 4 6xx still comes out ahead of the AMD 64. These are the ones he is mainly concerned with. What would be more relevant is a comparison of those single core chips on a MainConcept encoding test, as he is building the computer for Premiere Pro/Vegas. Such a test has already been linked to previously in this thread. The Pentium 4 wins it hands down.

Chad,

The AMD 64 "San Diego" is the same as the "Venice", except with a larger Level 2 cache. The following benchmarks compared the Venice core with the Pentium 4 6xx series on a MainConcept encoding test: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...venice_10.html. The Pentium 4 is definitely faster. I don't know how much difference the added L2 cache would make on such a test.

[Steve Rogers]

Originally Posted by Glenn Chan

I don't think you need to go for a 64bit CPU because we don't even know if it's useful, and it may take some time for the bugs to settle out and to wait for 64-bit drivers. By that time you could just upgrade?

HUH?!?!?!

First lets deal with take time for bugs to settle out.... Just how long do you think that takes?? 64 bit has been available now for like 3 years. They had been rigorously tested for almost 2 years prior to that.

They ae quite stable and reliable. No "bugs" to work out as you put it. Overlooking the fact that they were absolutely production ready when they were first released, they have done nothing but improve since then.

As for usefulness, they have already proven to be EXTREMELY useful. they run 32 bit apps flawlessly and faster than on non 32 bit CPU's. There is more than a little evidence to show that The greater memory bandwidth, HyperTransport bus and integrated memory controller provide an extreme boost in performance.

XP64 isn't any less stable than the 32 bit XP, and drivers are there for most of the basics.

The new dual cores show an enormous boost in performance over 32 bit CPU's and even dual CPU systems.

[Glenn Chan]

First lets deal with take time for bugs to settle out.... Just how long do you think that takes?? 64 bit has been available now for like 3 years. They had been rigorously tested for almost 2 years prior to that.

By that I mean bugs in software (i.e. 64-bit windows, new drivers). New stuff typically has bugs... although in this case it may not?

[Glenn Chan]

RIGHT ON THE MONEY! This is the go to single processor motherboard for NLE. We used it in our DIY2 article http://www.videoguys.com/DIY2.html and since then it just keeps winning awards and delivering outstanding performance!

I used to follow motherboard benchmarks, but really they all perform the same. The only reason some perform faster are:
A- They are slightly overclocked. (or in the case of MSI, dynamically overclocked by 10%)
You can do this yourself and bump performance that way.
Also, manufacturers typically send slightly overclocked motherboards (i.e. FSB=202mhz instead of 200mhz, 1% faster) while production models typically aren't like that. In the case of MSI, dynamic overclocking is diabled. Which is a good thing, because overclocking increases risk of instability.
B- The other tweak is that some boards lower memory timings in RAM. This is like overclocking, except for RAM. Again, you can just do this yourself and these performance-enhancing features are typically disabled on production models.
For video rendering, RAM timings don't matter at all. For video encoding it may matter a few percent.

Bottom line is, certain boards do better in benchmarks because they are slightly overclocked. Which doesn't count. If you compare different chipsets though, some chipsets are definitely faster than others. Typically this difference is neglible, and you are more concerned about stability or lack of bugs (which is the reason to avoid certain Via chipsets).

Sub-components of a motherboard may be faster. i.e. RAID controllers. However, that stuff isn't a big deal as they typically aren't a bottleneck. You just want to watch out for buggy sub-components, like RAID controllers that cause data corruption.

[Steve Rogers]

Originally Posted by Glenn Chan

By that I mean bugs in software (i.e. 64-bit windows, new drivers). New stuff typically has bugs... although in this case it may not?

well I won't vouch for other systems, nForce4 based boards using the nVidia unified drivers have no problems at all. nVidia has firewire, USB, lan, SATA, SATAII etc. all built into their southbridge, and the drivers are perfectly stable with it. There isn't any noticeable issues.

I won't swear you'll have good luck with VIA, or Intel based boards since they haven't had the development lead that nVidia had.

That said, there are also a number of thrid party drivers for various addons like Promise raid controllers, some SCSI controllers etc. What is out there is getting the thumbs up from users.

3D vendors are scrambling to get 64 bit ports out. LW is out there with their Beta/should have been released by now version, XSI and Maya are likewise rushing to 64 bit.

Considering the advantages of 64 bit address space to the content creation market, it's only logical that AVID, and others will hop on board as well.

And even still, you do not need a 64 bit OS to run on. Win32 works just fine and is what I am running Avid on. To hear ILM tell it, Opterons are a gift from god when it comes to editing and HD work.

[Pat Sherman]

Originally Posted by Patrick King

Pat,

I've got the same Mobo with a 3.0 P4 and also find it to be very stable. You mentioned you bumped up the RAM from one to two gigs. Did you notice a considerable increase in performance or a marginal increase in performance?

Actually I removed my other GIG.. When I was using 2 GB I always got ERROR COMPILING MOVIE..bah.. I tried all sticks in different configs.. If I use all 4 slots I got that error all the time..

[Chad Solo]

Thank's all for the post's it has been a good read and I'm learning allot from all of you. If I go the Pentuim way and I need the new DDR 2 memory I don't need the expensive stuff do I? I went to Crucial and put in the ASUS P5AD2 Premium Motherboard I'm looking at and the first recomendation was this expensive Ram thats called Ballistix 240-pin DIMM DDR2 PC2-5300 it's 100.00 for 512 stick but then I went to the next page and they had this one 1 Gig DDR2 PC2-4200 • CL=4 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR2-533 • 1.8V • 128Meg x 64 for 129.00 and the kit with 2 512 for 139.00 those or more my prices. Going with the cheaper memory am I hurting myself is there a really big difference? I'm planning on getting 2 Gig's of memory and if I went with what Crucial recomends then I would be paying around 400.00 for just the memory. And the last question on the PCI Express video card I see a few for around a 100.00 would that be ok I don't need to spend allot for gaming because I will use my old Box for that and that has a nice video card in it. Thank's again all for taking the time out to help me I really appreciate it and hope everyone has a great Holiday weekend.

Chad

[Christopher Lefchik]

Don't spend extra on the RAM with the lower latency, such as Crucial's Ballistix. It's a waste of money, which I wish I'd known before I built my computer.

See these articles for more details:
Fast RAM Provides Low Value
Does RAM Latency Matter?

The $100 graphics cards should be okay for your purposes.

[Chad Solo]

Thank's Chris for the heads up. It makes me feel better that I don't have to spend that extra money. Should I get 2 sticks of 512 and 1 stick of 1 Gig or just buy 2 - 1 gig stick's? I'm gathering everything I'm getting and going to post what it is so I'm making sure I'm getting all the right stuff. You guys have been so helpful I really appreciate it.

Thank's
Chad

[Christopher Lefchik]

Usually you want pairs of matched sticks of RAM so that they run in dual channel mode for increased throughput. I'm not sure how two sticks of 512 MB and one stick of 1 GB would run - hopefully someone else who has had experience with a similar configuration can chime in. Regardless, two sticks of 1 GB would give you more room for upgrading RAM in the future.

[Glenn Chan]

Rule of thumb for dual channel platforms is to get pairs of the exact same model/capacity memory. Those are the top performing combinations. On the 865 chipset, you lose 9% in performance (compared to pairs of the same RAM) if you run with a single stick of RAM (single channel, one of the slowest RAM configurations you can run).
I suspect 4X512MB is a few percent faster than 2X512MB, but I have no means of testing that.
In any case, not a big difference if you don't run pairs of the same RAM, but when it's "free" you might as well do it.
Kind of more info: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...id=37831<br />

I'd get 2X512MB or 4X512MB (2GB may be overkill, but it really depends). I don't think you can really go wrong with 1GB.

[Chad Solo]

This is the setup I'm thinking on getting.

intel Pentium 4 640 Prescott 800MHz FSB 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 EM64T Processor 3.2

ASUS P5AD2-E Premium Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 925XE ATX Intel Motherboard


THERMALTAKE Silent PurePower TT-420AD(DUAL FAN) 420W Power Supply


CHAINTECH Geforce 6600 256MB 128-bit DDR PCI-Express x16 Video Card

DDR2 PC2-4200 • CL=4 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR2-533 • 1.8V • 64Meg x 64 1 gig to start off with


Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ ST3160827AS 160GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM



The two things I might change is the Motherboard and the CPU. On the CPU I'm wondering if I should get the 3.0 instead of the 3.2 I wonder if there is a big diffrence bettween the two. And last the Motherboard. I know it's a very good motherboard but I'm wondering If I should go with a cheaper version. This Motherboard is like 230.00 I never spent that much on a motherboard and I see there is a few out there that has the 775 socket thats around 120.00. It would save me allot but again I want the best at least what I can afford. I'm not much of a overclocker actually I have never done it but if I can get the 3.0 chip to run just as fast as the 3.2 I just might go that way. Thank's again all for the input.

Chad

[Glenn Chan]

Processor: You can guestimate speed by dividing the clock speeds along the same processor line. So the 3.0ghz is about 6% slower.

Motherboard: I'd probably get a cheaper board. The more expensive boards just add more features, like more hard drive controllers and things like that. You may want a IEEE1394 port.

Power supply: Some people recommend Sparkle and Fortron power supplies for good price/performance.

Video card: If you want good gaming performance, that would be a good card (and it may also have dual DVI?). For certain compositing programs that take advantage of openGL acceleration (read the program's recommended specs; combustion is one example), a workstation card would be faster because they are not crippled at openGL.

[Brandon Greenlee]

Plus this motherboard allows you to do a very easy 10% overclock as mentioned earlier. Since I wouldn't know where to start if this board didn't do it for me I consider the extra money worth the extra speed it brings me. I think this would be the main reason to spend the extra money on this board.

If you are comfortable overclocking on your own or the extra 10% speed isn't worth the extra $150 then look at some cheaper alternatives.