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Need help building a true hardcore video editing machine - processor choice

T

tongboy

Supreme [H]ardness
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Mar 20, 2000
Messages
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My boss at work is tired of my spending time waiting for renders to complete and they have money coming out of there ears for the project becuase people like the results so much.

i'm looking at building basically the best video editing machine money can buy. the problem i'm having is finding info on processors as far as what works well with premiere pro. I see both sides of the intel/amd fanboy stuff but no real good results either way.

i'm leaning towards a sledgehammer solution and just building up as I can get my hands on a copy of xp64 and with that I would think the performance would outweigh anything intel has to offer right now even up to there XE cpu's

i'm looking for opinions/personal results on what works better for NLE or just in general on that type of app

we are a pc shop so no mac fanboys, sorry :p
 
How about dual processors? Premier Pro supports SMP. If money is no object, I would go with either dual Opterons or dual Xeon's with 2mb cache.
 
Originally posted by saturnine2
How about dual processors? Premier Pro supports SMP. If money is no object, I would go with either dual Opterons or dual Xeon's with 2mb cache.
Click to expand...

Hell yea. That would most likely be your best solution.
 
If you want the best i would go for dual Xeons w/ Hyper Threading. Video Editing and Rendering is done best on processors with Hyper Threading.

Here are the Xeons Newegg currently has:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...frcode=0&propertycode=&propertycodevalue=4192

Nocono based Xeons will start showing up some time 2nd quarter this year and it will be a very strong competitor as it will also have 64-bit extensions.

Intel even has a 3.0Ghz Xeon out now that has 4MB of L3 cache but i would suspect its out of your price range.

I would get dual Xeons for a video editing machine or wait and get the new Nocono's with 64-bit extensions in the next few months.
 
Why dual? If I was given a blank check I'd get a quad Opteron or Xeon.

With leanings toward the opteron for when the 64 bit Premiere comes out.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
If you want the best i would go for dual Xeons w/ Hyper Threading. Video Editing and Rendering is done best on processors with Hyper Threading.

Here are the Xeons Newegg currently has:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...frcode=0&propertycode=&propertycodevalue=4192

Nocono based Xeons will start showing up some time 2nd quarter this year and it will be a very strong competitor as it will also have 64-bit extensions.

Intel even has a 3.0Ghz Xeon out now that has 4MB of L3 cache but i would suspect its out of your price range.

I would get dual Xeons for a video editing machine or wait and get the new Nocono's with 64-bit extensions in the next few months.
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Not necessarily. It depends on what codec and encoding program you are using. If encoding to AVI using a program such as DVD2AVI or Gordian Knot (which uses VirtualDub for the actual encoding process), then you will get MUCH faster encodes with Opterons.

BTW, you sound like an Intel advertisement.
 
I reccomend opterons. makes sense.

As far as xeons down the road that have 64 bit extensions...Its all paper until its released.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
If you want the best i would go for dual Xeons w/ Hyper Threading. Video Editing and Rendering is done best on processors with Hyper Threading.

Here are the Xeons Newegg currently has:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...frcode=0&propertycode=&propertycodevalue=4192

Nocono based Xeons will start showing up some time 2nd quarter this year and it will be a very strong competitor as it will also have 64-bit extensions.

Intel even has a 3.0Ghz Xeon out now that has 4MB of L3 cache but i would suspect its out of your price range.

I would get dual Xeons for a video editing machine or wait and get the new Nocono's with 64-bit extensions in the next few months.
Click to expand...

i'm not really digging the lacking 533 FSB on those. I don't know why they had to chop so much off to do MP solutions but it hurts. from what i've seen on very few editing sites people recommend a single p4 over dual xeon boxes merely for mostly the money/return on money benefit. I'm not really hampered by that limit though.

i'm trying to find a timeline on a 64bit capable premiere. I know they have to run something like a rendering app capable of 64bit for the sun side of premiere for the higher end stuff but they may be custom tailored.

those 3.2 gig xeons are damn pricey! I didn't expect to see anything compare to the fx-53's but it looks like intel is actually holding the high price crown :eek:
 
Originally posted by Egekrusher
Not necessarily. It depends on what codec and encoding program you are using. If encoding to AVI using a program such as DVD2AVI or Gordian Knot (which uses VirtualDub for the actual encoding process), then you will get MUCH faster encodes with Opterons.
Click to expand...

Well yea there are certain areas of encodeing that will be better on dual opterons. But OVERALL the dual Xeons would be better for media and video encodeing.

BTW, you sound like an Intel advertisement.
Click to expand...

Um yea ok. Anyone that recommends the Opteron instead of the Xeon sounds like an AMD advertisement :rolleyes:.

As far as xeons down the road that have 64 bit extensions...Its all paper until its released.
Click to expand...

So is Windows XP 64-bit for x86-64 and IA-32e processors until there is an actual full release instead of a beta. You buy a processor for a paper launched OS.

All processor announcements from Intel or AMD ither one are paper launches up till the day of their release.

EDIT:

those 3.2 gig xeons are damn pricey! I didn't expect to see anything compare to the fx-53's but it looks like intel is actually holding the high price crown
Click to expand...

3.2Ghz Xeon's are $901 retail and the Opteron 248's are $949 retail.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-428&depa=1
 
If your really serious about video editing, you need to get away from PCs. I hate to say it but Apple is industry standard when it comes to video. Final Cut Pro (apple only app) makes Premeire look stupid. Apple's PowerMac G5 dual 2.0Ghz, would be my choice, it handles video extremly well. Even the PowerMac G4 would be a great choice as well. Its true. Macs are good for somethings and digital video is one of those things.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
Well yea there are certain areas of encodeing that will be better on dual opterons. But OVERALL the dual Xeons would be better for media and video encodeing.



Um yea ok. Anyone that recommends the Opteron instead of the Xeon sounds like an AMD advertisement :rolleyes:.



So is Windows XP 64-bit for x86-64 and IA-32e processors until there is an actual full release instead of a beta. You buy a processor for a paper launched OS.

All processor announcements from Intel or AMD ither one are paper launches up till the day of their release.
Click to expand...



Oh no. The opteron ALREADY gives you comparable performance. If you buy a 32 bit xeon, at the end of the day its 32 bit. However over the next year many programs will at least have a 64 bit port.

The differance here is that we know programs are moving to 64 bit, what we dont know is what how well intels 64 bit chip wll be implemented. People were saying the same thing about the itanic.
 
Originally posted by Wixard
Oh no. The opteron ALREADY gives you comparable performance. If you buy a 32 bit xeon, at the end of the day its 32 bit. However over the next year many programs will at least have a 64 bit port.

The differance here is that we know programs are moving to 64 bit, what we dont know is what how well intels 64 bit chip wll be implemented. People were saying the same thing about the itanic.
Click to expand...

Well like i said, if your worried about 64-bit then i would wait till the 64-bit Xeons are released here in the next couple of months or so and see how they perform.

As far as how well it gets implemented i'm sure the extensions will work exactly the same as the x86-64 extensions unless Intel does a few optimizations here and there for it. They are near identical in every way. And they are just extensions onto the current 32-bit extensions so there isn't alot to it. Intel did the 16-bit extensions and the 32-bit extensions and the entire x86 architecture so i'm sure the IA-32e w/ 64-bit extensions will perform as well as any other 64-bit processor as far as the 64-bit extension part goes.

The Itanium is a totally different story. It emulates 32-bit instead of 64-bit extensions just being added into the existing architecture. The Itanium does what its suppost to for high level businesses that have the money to afford them. Problem is they are too expensive for smaller businesses and so most turn to Xeons or Opterons.
 
What type of video editing? DV, SD, or HD?

Going SD or HD, Intel's the only real choice for hardware compatibilty and stability (don't rag on me, I'm an AMD man). We sell to Hollywood, BTW, so I have a bit of experience in this.

www.boxxtech.com
 
Originally posted by pistola
If your really serious about video editing, you need to get away from PCs. I hate to say it but Apple is industry standard when it comes to video. Final Cut Pro (apple only app) makes Premeire look stupid. Apple's PowerMac G5 dual 2.0Ghz, would be my choice, it handles video extremly well. Even the PowerMac G4 would be a great choice as well. Its true. Macs are good for somethings and digital video is one of those things.
Click to expand...

I do somewhat agree with pistola on this one.

I used a G4 tower for playing around and that was so smooth.
At the time, early 2000, there was absolutely nothing that could compare on the PC side of it.

I think PC's have caught up quite a bit though.

It would be nice to have a G5, but I would still probably get a pimped out PC workstation.
 
I'd love to see you do 10-bit uncompressed, real time 2K editing on a Mac...you can't even get enough drives in there to do that.

We render 3-4 times faster than a Mac in Premiere Pro in HD. Also, as to the comparison, Final Cut Pro is great, and there are a few features that are better than Premier Pro (remember, Pro is the key here), but Adobe's audio is arguably better, and there's a whole suite of tightly integrated software that you just don't have with Final Cut, such as Audition and After Affects...being able to right click on a time line and open in After Affects really is great.

BTW, if you're looking at HD, you can't touch this anywhere else:

http://www.boxxtech.com/asp/cf_step3_p.asp?ModelInstanceID=335&QuoteID=457021&Key=309262016

Over 300MB/s of sustained HDD bandwidth.
 
Guess what, all adobe products are native to Mac. Ever look at the help tutorials or books written for adobe products, you'll find that most of the screens shots are from a Mac, with the excpetion of Premeire becase they don't make it for Mac any more. After Effects runs best on a Mac, right click? thats what control click is for mac users. And besides you can use whatever mouse you want. I do. Let me just say, that:

NBC
CBS
ABC
Pixar
Fox
Fox News
MTV

Uses Macs to editing and composite video. Trust me the list goes on. Like I said Industry Standard. The use what works best. And im not talking about little iMacs Im talking flagship PowerMac. And OSX is sooooo much more stable than Windows could ever be.
 
Originally posted by Morley
What type of video editing? DV, SD, or HD?

Going SD or HD, Intel's the only real choice for hardware compatibilty and stability (don't rag on me, I'm an AMD man). We sell to Hollywood, BTW, so I have a bit of experience in this.

www.boxxtech.com
Click to expand...
mostly DV but a bit of SD. no plans for any HD as of now.

Originally posted by Morley
BTW, if you're looking at HD, you can't touch this anywhere else:

http://www.boxxtech.com/asp/cf_step3_p.asp?ModelInstanceID=335&QuoteID=457021&Key=309262016

Over 300MB/s of sustained HDD bandwidth.
Click to expand...

for 30 grand I'd hope it would beat the shit out of everything.

our main problem is just waiting for things to get put together. we certainly aren't using much of premieres capabilities but i'm finishing a simple 15minute video that is just time lapse over a few months and rendering time total on it has been over 4 days. the boss wants a box that I can do it on a few hours on instead of a few days. because there are about 10 more time lapse projects that are getting going now and more are starting because they've seen how well this one is coming out and it works great for a recruitment tool. the needs will change and the boss would rather spend the money now then the time later to do it right.

discuss macs all you want. I know they have a place in high end editing. I'm not sitting at the machine all day doing editing. I'm worried about rendering time and the boss has money to throw at me so i'm not going to complain. we are a PC shop of over 300 users and I don't want to deal with a mac just for video editing. just like I don't need any in/out cards for real time rendering or anything crazy like that
 
My Summary:

Dual Xeons @ 3.2 Ghz or wait for the expected 3.6 Ghz 64-bit Dual Xeons

Adobe Premier Bundle is the best spent money in the book, unless you want to go to Video Toaster 3

Load it up with as much RAM as possible...(sorry, I know it's a duh, but I need to mention it)

Either a Nvidia Quadro or an ATI FireGL for the video card



Also, Macs do extremely well at video editing, as hs been mentioned before. G5's @ 2.0 Ghz with Max Hard Drive space and Max Memory...That is the bomb...
 
You know, this is the first time I've seen someone that might seriously consider one of these.

One 4xR16000A[1] Tezro [2] maxed out on storage subsystems, running Discreet's Smoke would probably be more than fast enough. They brag about 10bit-uncompressed editing.

I'm just an interested hobbyist, btw :D


[1] MIPS R16000A processor, 700 or 800 MHz. Plenty fast.
[2] Rackmount, probably, the standalone is only available single- or dual-CPU
 
Originally posted by pistola


NBC
CBS
ABC
Pixar
Fox
Fox News
MTV
Click to expand...

We sell HD products to each and every one of those (and their affiliates). Lord of the Rings, DareDevil, The Matrix, all those and more were using our machines (by one house or another along the pipeline).

The discussion was Final Cut Pro vs. Adobe, btw, not who's exclusive on Adobe or not.

And you still don't understand...10-bit, uncompressed, 2K editing is a BITCH, and you can't get a 10 drive RAID array for over 300MB/s in a G5, sorry...
 
What about going with a render farm of relatively cheap boxes? Need more power, just add more boxes to the farm. I believe you should be able to get faster rendering per $ with a farm vs. a single box.
 
Every current benchmark shows the Current G5 line getting pasted by PCs. Even Apple centric Magazines are painting a dismal picture. Pixar recently ditched their Macs for Opterons. And Pixar is run by Steve Jobs. Doesn't exactly instill confidence.


I didn't even think about Boxx, but I have heard nothing but good things about them.
 
Originally posted by Wondernerd
Every current benchmark shows the Current G5 line getting pasted by PCs. Even Apple centric Magazines are painting a dismal picture. Pixar recently ditched their Macs for Opterons. And Pixar is run by Steve Jobs. Doesn't exactly instill confidence.


I didn't even think about Boxx, but I have heard nothing but good things about them.
Click to expand...

Didn't pixar very recently buy a shipload of G5s?
(There's a it-will-happen story at http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040311/101/eoahr.html , which is repeated assorted other places.)

I'm not saying that they'll use them for video editing, though. Probably 3d modelling or something like it.
(I stand by Tezro+Smoke sounding like the best alternative, btw. It's sold as a solution capable of something sounding very much like what you're trying to do.)
 
Originally posted by Morley

And you still don't understand...10-bit, uncompressed, 2K editing is a BITCH, and you can't get a 10 drive RAID array for over 300MB/s in a G5, sorry...
Click to expand...

I understand perfectly, why would I want to jam 10 drives into a workstation anyway? Thats why they have the Xserve RAID w/ Fibre channel at 400/MBps. 3.5TB. I'm not retarded. But this guy isn't looking to edit "Lord of the Rings" he's doing 15 minute videos... a G5 would be a good suggestion for him. 15 minutes of RAW DV is only something like 5 gigs or so. He could easly get up to 250gigs in a G5 which would be plenty for him.
 
Originally posted by pistola
Oh and the Xserve is a 14 drive RAID array.
Click to expand...

And only does 1080i HD and only with the 3 or 3.5TB versions. We do it down to 512GB RAID.

It's a 3u external solution, a tightly integrated single box solution is cheaper.

Also, where's the Bluefish 444 card?? Oops, can't get that for Apple. =)

The XServe isn't even qualified (tested) at 2K, only 1080i.
 
Originally posted by alext5
You could buy a cluster of PowerMac G5 for that price along with Xserve Raid. Go MAC! :D
Click to expand...

Ahhh, i do believe he said it was a PC shop only, and he specifically said NO MACS
 
Originally posted by Morley
Also, where's the Bluefish 444 card?? Oops, can't get that for Apple. =)
Click to expand...

Well Bluefish isn't the only HD/SD uncompressed capture card in the land. AJA video makes the card Kona which does uncompressed 10-bit HD / SD for Final Cut Pro. So now why is Mac not capable? Just because its not a "PC" doesn't mean its not able to do the same things better or worse.
 
It's not that the mac isn't capable, but if he is already in a PC only shop, servers and software is already setup to work with a PC.

Maybe they have no one in house to support a mac.
 
Originally posted by mobiux
It's not that the mac isn't capable, but if he is already in a PC only shop, servers and software is already setup to work with a PC.

Maybe they have no one in house to support a mac.
Click to expand...

Yea that got lost in the tread somewhere, got off topic. But I just like a good debate.

I edit video on my PC (specs in the sig) and on my powerbook G4 867Mhz w/ 1 Gig of RAM. They both handle there own, no problem. Im not editing HD or anything to that extreme at home.

So anything up to date will work fine. Athlon 64/FX Intel P4/Prescott/EE/Xeon. They all handle video just fine.
 
wow this is a true [h]ard moment. a debate where TWO people had a debate and it didn't end in a complete flame war. i don't remember the last time i saw this happen...brings a tear to my eye!:confused: :D :( :eek:
 
Originally posted by misfitsfiend
wow this is a true [h]ard moment. a debate where TWO people had a debate and it didn't end in a complete flame war. i don't remember the last time i saw this happen...brings a tear to my eye!:confused: :D :( :eek:
Click to expand...


Where all adults, it shouldn't have to end in a flame war, a heathly debate didn't hurt anybody, just don't make it personal. We should all try and do that like me and Morley have done. :D
 
Interestingly, Adobe has begun to endorse PCs rather than Macs.

Anywho...

Pistola, while I like both systems, I admit the difference has shrunk, even to the point with a solid PC system sometimes being superior. I'd say they're equal, without a doubt. I've found the main reason you see Macs used as heavily as they are in so many of those situations is legacy. Why retrain if your hardware works? Additionally most people working in media aren't always that well versed on the computer itself, so switching from a system they view as superior (correctly or not) is not desirable to them.

I deal with this daily, from casual preference to flat out unfounded obsessions, and in fact I have to get people to use both systems and learn how. By the end of a year I hope to have got a least most people respecting both, whether they like them or not. Traditionally in photographic imaging Macs are the most popular, and in scientific a lot of cases it's PCs now, but the students need to be knowledgeable in both.


edit: I almost forgot my suggestion... I would probably suggest Dual Opterons, but listen to Morley.
 
For a single CPU look into the P4c's and for a dual setup buy a Xeon setup. Time is money and the Xeons will complete the video conversions faster.
 
Originally posted by emorphien
Interestingly, Adobe has begun to endorse PCs rather than Macs.

Anywho...

Pistola, while I like both systems, I admit the difference has shrunk, even to the point with a solid PC system sometimes being superior. I'd say they're equal, without a doubt.

edit: I almost forgot my suggestion... I would probably suggest Dual Opterons, but listen to Morley.
Click to expand...

I agree, the hardware is equal. But from being a cross platfrom user, who doesn't have an obsession for either systems, I have to say that the operating systems are far from equal. I have to say that Mac's OSX is much more superior over Windows. I never have issuse with OSX where as I have countless with Windows. I wouldn't have said this 2 years ago when I was on OS9 but OSX is very stable and aside from that is the coolest I've ever used. This all might change when Longhorn and its full 3d interface hits. But until than OSX is on top.
 
Originally posted by tongboy
the problem i'm having is finding info on processors as far as what works well with premiere pro. I see both sides of the intel/amd fanboy stuff but no real good results either way.
Click to expand...

I can tell you from personal experience. IF you're sure the application you will be using is Adobe Premiere Pro then your only logical answer in this case is going to be an Intel P4 or Xeon solution. Adobe highly optimizes Premiere Pro for the P4 core. Even though an Opteron may be a "better / faster " CPU overall, when it comes to Premiere the Pentium core CPU will dance all over an Opteron. I rendered the same movie in Premiere Pro (Bladerunner) using a P4 3.2 gig HT, Dual Athlon 2400+, and Athlon64 3200+. On the Dual Athlon and the Athlon64 it took approx 4.5 hours to render it out of .mpg back to 30fps .avi. On the P4 HT 3.2 gig it took 1.5 hours. Now if that doesn't demonstrate how much core optimization there is there, nothing will.

If your going to use Premiere Pro then your best bet, with money not being a restriction, is probably a high speed Northwood P4 (3.2 or 3.4) or Dual Xeon w/ HT since Adobe can see and utilize multiple CPUs. If you go look on a Box of Adobe's Video Collection (what I own) then you will see the P4 logo emblazened on the side of the box. There's a big reason for that.
 
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