Getting PC ready for HD

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Paul Digges

Or if I should upgrade the graphics card to a true workstation card and get a CUDA powered Quadro, card such as this guy:
Newegg.com - PNY VCQFX580-PCIE-PB Quadro FX 580 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Workstation Video Card - Workstation Graphics / Video Cards

Although you ended up picking the system that I suggested, I will reiterate that the graphics card that you linked to is actually not one of the better ones. In fact, it is a significant step down in performance from your current GeForce 8800GTS because the Quadro FX580 actually uses the same GPU as the consumer GeForce 9400GT and 9500GT graphics cards. You see, although the Quadro FX580 is technically "CUDA-powered", it is no more so than your current card (which, by the way, also supports CUDA through software emulation like the Quadro FX580 and all other NVIDIA graphics cards using a G80 series or later GPU). And as I noted in another thread, the Adobe CS5's Mercury Playback Engine will work only with an extremely high-end consumer GeForce GTX2xx series graphics card or a version of the most recent Quadro FX line with hardware-based CUDA acceleration.

And don't even think about getting a GeForce GTX250: That card is not a true GTX2xx series card - but instead uses the exact same G92 GPU as the original 8800GT, the 8800GTS 512MB, the 9800GT and the 9800GTX. If you do, it would only be a sideways-step in performance from your current card.

By the way, from what I've read CS5 requires at least 12GB of RAM just to even run at all (although the exact minimum is not yet confirmed by Adobe). If the 12GB figure were correct, then with your chosen system the only way that you'll be even able to run CS5 would be to buy four 4GB modules for that system (this means a matched quad-module pack totalling 16GB). The system that you originally would have chosen would not have been able to run CS5 at all due to its maximum supported memory capacity of 8GB.

[Pete Bauer]

I agree with Randall that spending money now on a video card in anticipation of CS5 is not worthwhile. I'd wait on that.

Other than some blogging about graphics cards and the video demo, CS5 system requirements are not publically known, of course, but posts in the Adobe fora from people who appear to be well connected to development indicate requirements will be somewhat scaleable. In one of Harm's threads over there, a fellow talks about not even needing all 8GB his Mac laptop has for what he is doing (whatever that is). But of course it is intuitively obvious that the processing required for multiple layers of 4K footage with multiple effects would take a serious system.

A lot we don't know; there is no such thing as too FAST a computer but there is such a thing as a too SLOW computer. This is why I don't advocate buying/building a middle-of-the-road system now in anticipation of doing smooth HD editing over the next couple of years. I'm doubtful about the 12GB RAM as an official minimum requirement but as time goes by, new software almost always drives the need for faster systems. Time will tell.

[Paul Digges]

Randall and Pete, more very solid advice. I've got the processor on the way and just waiting for the next check to order the ram, I think at this point I'll be set for doing my basic stuff.

I totally see what you are saying about the graphics cards, so I think I mentioned that I'll just save up for one of the top tier Quadro's and purchase that later down the road. This will hold true for CS5 as well if that ends up being the case of needing the 12 gigs. I'm pretty confident CS4 will do me right for the time being however.

It's also good to hear that the 1156 is a sound choice. And I can't really see myself needing a hexacore at all unless fortune smiles upon me and I find myself the owner of a RED one. A guy can dream though right?

[Randall Leong]

Paul,

Socket 1156 is a sound choice although Socket 1366 would have been even better for this purpose. Then again, a lot of people might not be able to afford the proper platform for HD video editing for the foreseeable future (for example, the components needed for optimal HD editing performance in a forthcoming version of Adobe Premiere, CS5, would have cost well over $1,000). In that case, then I understand your getting merely the "best" platform that you can get with a sufficient amount of RAM for your somewhat limited budget.

And as I stated earlier, given your $650-ish budget, going with a 1366 platform upgrade would have left you with zero RAM (had you gone with the Asus motherboard that so many enthusiasts use) or only 3 to 6 GB of RAM (had you gone with one of the least expensive motherboard offerings for that socket). A P6T Deluxe v2 plus an i7-920 and 12GB (2GB x 6) of RAM would have cost you about $900 total.

[Ron Cooper]

Randall, - re components costing over $1000 for optimal editing performance, I am not interested in Raid, but would spend up to $1500 if necessary to get reliable AVCHD timeline editing in Vegas Pro 9 - socket 1366/i7-920 etc. I am interested in using Sata 3 but you don't seem to be in favour of these yet.

I use internal consumer drives mounted in removable caddies for my video files and I was going to have them all Sata 3 drives incl. the C drive in my next build which is to be probably the next 2 weeks.

What would you suggest ? (Not interested Macs.)

Tanks, (St. P. Day !)
RonC.

[Randall Leong]

Ron,

The only reason why I am not yet in favor of SATA III is that the only current core-logic chipset which natively supports SATA III is the AMD 890 series chipset for AMD processors. And the fastest current AMD processor performs no better than an older Intel Core 2 Quad for video editing.

There will be no Intel chipset which natively supports SATA III until next year. Until then, any Intel processor-based motherboard with SATA III support will continue to use a third-party controller connected to the IOH's or CPU's PCIe 2.0 lanes.

[Craig Coston]

The Asus P6X58D Premium supports SATA III through the Marvell controller, giving (2) SATA III ports. That should be fine if you want to run an OS drive with that spec. If you want to run ALL your drives like that, you'll need a dedicated controller such as the Highpoint RocketRaid 2720. The Highpoint RAID controllers are great for video editors.

Also, don't be scared away from a RAID controller utilizing PCIe 2.0 lanes... you won't hear anyone complaining about their Areca controllers that run through the same technology.

I personally feel your best gain from SATA III will come from your OS drive, especially if you are using a SATA III SSD. I wouldn't worry about spending the money for it on your video drives unless you plan on only using a 2 drive RAID 0 for heavy HD editing. You can easily gain disk read speed by using more drives in your RAID array.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

By the way, from what I've read CS5 requires at least 12GB of RAM just to even run at all (although the exact minimum is not yet confirmed by Adobe). If the 12GB figure were correct, then with your chosen system the only way that you'll be even able to run CS5 would be to buy four 4GB modules for that system (this means a matched quad-module pack totalling 16GB). The system that you originally would have chosen would not have been able to run CS5 at all due to its maximum supported memory capacity of 8GB.

Adobe has relaxed its official minimum requirements for Premiere CS5. I found this out on the day of CS5's introduction (today).

Premiere CS5 (Windows version) requires a minimum of 2GB of RAM to even run at all - but Adobe recommends 4GB or more RAM.

Also, the selected CUDA-accelerated NVIDIA cards are supported for GPU acceleration; otherwise, rendering is performed using the CPU. In other words, something faster than a Core 2 or an AMD processor, as well as 6GB or more RAM, is strongly recommended if one does not have a supported NVIDIA card in the system.

[Alonzo Love]

for sd/hd editing,post production work anyone know about this company (Newtek) Tricaster 850 looks
interesting? Anyone work with their products? are they xeon/i7 core based units?

[Alonzo Love]

those of you building new Editing workstations, you may want to check out
a new motherboard for your work/ home studio! Here's the link:
evga Classifiled SR-2 EVGA.COM
[url=http://www.evga.com/articles/00537/http://www.evga.com/articles/00537/]EVGA |
Enjoy!!!

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

Although you ended up picking the system that I suggested, I will reiterate that the graphics card that you linked to is actually not one of the better ones. In fact, it is a significant step down in performance from your current GeForce 8800GTS because the Quadro FX580 actually uses the same GPU as the consumer GeForce 9400GT and 9500GT graphics cards. You see, although the Quadro FX580 is technically "CUDA-powered", it is no more so than your current card (which, by the way, also supports CUDA through software emulation like the Quadro FX580 and all other NVIDIA graphics cards using a G80 series or later GPU). And as I noted in another thread, the Adobe CS5's Mercury Playback Engine will work only with an extremely high-end consumer GeForce GTX2xx series graphics card or a version of the most recent Quadro FX line with hardware-based CUDA acceleration.

And don't even think about getting a GeForce GTX250: That card is not a true GTX2xx series card - but instead uses the exact same G92 GPU as the original 8800GT, the 8800GTS 512MB, the 9800GT and the 9800GTX. If you do, it would only be a sideways-step in performance from your current card.

Keep in mind that my statement in the first paragraph is what's officially supported by Adobe. There is a software tweak which allows almost any CUDA-powered card with at least 765MB of free (not total) graphics memory to be used with PP CS5's MPE GPU acceleration feature (768MB cards are very marginal because a graphics card set to display 1024x768x32bpp already eats up 3MB of graphics memory). Unfortunately, the Quadro FX 580 cannot use that feature at all because it has only 512MB of total graphics memory. Therefore, it must use the software-only feature of MPE just like any non-CUDA or non-NVIDIA card at present. And even if that FX 580 did have 1GB of RAM, it would not have been able to take any advantage at all whatsoever of MPE's CUDA feature because the GPU itself is relatively weak compared to the relative performance of almost any of the CPUs required to run PP CS5. In fact, the FX 580 has only 32 stream processors (versus 192 or more stream processors in the officially supported GPUs in Adobe's CS5 list), so it would not have performed any better than a vanilla GeForce 9500 GT in GPU-intensive applications. In other words, the FX 580 would have lost out to even a cheap GeForce GT 220 simply because the latter card has 48 stream processors (the FX 580 has only 32, just like the 9500 GT).

And even though the lower-end CUDA-powered cards can technically use the GPU acceleration feature of MPE, don't be surprised if the performance from those cards turns out to actually be slower than if that same system were using the software-only mode. And that can happen if the GPU is a GTS 250 or lower installed in an i7 system. The CUDA mode in MPE really requires an NVIDIA GPU with at least 192 stream processors in order to function optimally.