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Need help with pc build for video work

I

Italiano86

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 26, 2008
Messages
252
Hey guys. So my friend would like me to build him a new computer for video rendering and encoding using adobe elements 9 or sony vegas. I tried adobe on my new 2500k with 8gb memory and my cpu barely went above 50% with memory at 3.65 which I was shocked to see, since I expected the cpu to max out to render the video faster. I am thinking the hdd write speed is bottlenecking the whole system.

I'm thinking about getting him a 2600k with 8gb of vengeance memory with a 1tb wd black drive. Thinking of a GTX460 for possible gaming or maybe helping with faster video work, if this even possible.

I thought about getting him an intel x25m for doing his work on but I have been reading this is a bad idea because of limited writes the drive can do in it's lifespan. Any thoughts?

Also, elements 9 felt like crap on my computer, the menu was just laggy, but only sometimes, like when viewing the graphs in the bottom and such, and scrolling up and down in the effects menus, I am thinking this is just adobe, but not sure.

Would like to know what you guys think regarding the required hardware, and what can be done to cut down on the time it takes to render and complete a video for uploading later.

Not sure if this is the best section for my inquiry, apologize if not.
 
Actually, I think you'll get a better response in General Hardware, so the thread has been moved there. Check out the sticky at the top of the forum and answer the questions listed there so you get the best advice. :)
 
What other programs are running when Elements is running? I found that some apps cause significant lag when running, such as Firefox (I still use it. Dont worry) Also, get the x25 (2 preferably in RAID 0.) This should help quite a bit. Do not worry about the limited writes as you will be upgrading before it happens :)

Annoyance
 
I was running firefox in the background, but that was about it. He is probably going to get the 40gb intel drive for the os and installations and will get a 300gb raptor for the secondary drive which files will be saved to. He will also get a 1tb drive for extra storage.

From what I have been reading, our processors wont even be pegged past 50% usage with this program since the hdd's will bottleneck the program rendering the files to the hdd, which is the weakest link these days it seems.
 
Although a faster CPU is helpful with Premiere Elements 9, that program does not use more than 3GB or so of RAM. This is because unlike Premiere Pro CS5 (which requires a 64-bit CPU and operating system just to even run at all), Premiere Elements 9 is strictly 32-bit to maintain compatibility with retail versions of Windows XP. Thus, you don't really need more than 4GB for that system.
 
Is there another program out there that can better use a more advanced system with more memory and use more cpu power? Or will most rendering programs still be limited by the hdd write speed?

Price is not too big of an issue for software, he is returning his mac to build the pc and will have money leftover.
 
Video encoding does not always take advantage of multiple cores too well, especially if you use any sort of filtering.

People make this huge deal about number of cores and stuff, but the FACT is that IPC and clock speed are far more important. Multiple cores are an alternate way to gain performance in SOME applications because you can't just increase IPC and clock speed to whatever level you want to (as Pentium 4 showed).

I may be able to suggest alternate methods for what he does if you can tell me EXACTLY what he uses those programs for.
 
Basically taking raw video from a camcorder and cutting out segments, adding in effects, audio, etc, then rendering it into flv or other formats to upload onto youtube. He is also going to be making music videos for some local rappers in the area, so as he gets better he will be doing some advanced stuff.

Sounds like overclocking the i7 would be worth it, even if it doesn't utilize the chip 100%.
 
Overclocking the i7 is going to be the easiest way. Else you're going to need to get a different CPU that has better single-threaded performance (meaning the IPC and clockspeed together have to be better than that of the i7).

I am actually looking to sell my i7 970 Gulftown system in favor of going Sandy Bridge for the same reason. The video work I do does not multithread well so even though my CPU is more powerful than the current SB products, I want SB instead for my particular uses.
 
I'd get a larger SSD. 40 GB for OS and some development tools is very limited, even after applying any file/storage adjustments. 80 GB or higher would be better.
 
I would suggest getting Premiere Pro CS5 and stick with an Nvidia based video card.
 
I just did a couple of quick tests with some of my old Hi8 footage captured with my old Matrox RT2000 system, using Premiere Pro CS5 and exporting it as Youtube SD and just straight exporting the video uses about 50-70% CPU.

I slapped on a couple of effects, and it exported using up to 98% of the CPU averaging probably 85% over the export. Also, the machine plays the footage back on the timeline in realtime with the effects so it didn't have to render to play smoothly.
premiere-test.jpg
 
Unrelated but, Zepher, why would you put a 10-bolt diff in that Firebird? They're awful. You should have at least gone 12-bolt. Everyone with those cars that wants to go even better to a Ford 9" or Dana 60. Hit some wheel hop and you can break a 10-bolt with a stock engine. (My previous car was a 99 Z28, but I sold it for my current 09 G8 GT.)
 
mainly cost, don't have $2-3K to drop on a rear. I went with the 10bolt LS1 since they are cheap, I run 4th gen wheels so no need for spacers in the rear, and my car had drums so I was able to upgrade to LS1 rear brakes pretty cheaply. I don't really drag race and the car doesn't have much power, 195 RWHP and 273 RWTQ.
 
How much of your vid card does Premiere Pro CS5 use? That is alot more usage than my 2500k, but I guess that program is just better coded for multi core cpu's. I was going to play bad company 2 while I rendered since cpu usage was so low but it gave me a video error, lol.

Will going with Premiere Pro CS5 take advantage of the advanced hardware and do jobs more quickly as a result? If the 3d card can be used as a benefit using opengl then I may want to get him a better card than the 460.
 
My video card wasn't used at all since I have an ATI card. Using an Nvidia card, Premiere can offload the rendering of certain effects and filters to the GPU for accelerated rendering and smooth realtime playback on the timeline. Works great with Canon DSLR Footage.
I used to have a GTX285 in my system but a friend is making a documentary with a Canon 7D and Premiere Pro CS5 and I told him that using a GTX285 would allow him to play the clips with effects (color correction is one effect he uses a lot) on the timeline smoothly in realtime with no rendering.
I wanted to try Eyefinity so he bought me the 5850 and I gave him my GTX285.

When I got the card installed in his machine (it was a really tight fit too, had to buy a PCI-e SATA card since the GTX285 covered 4 of the mobo's 6 SATA ports) and tested everything, we were able to have the 1080P/24FPS Canon 7D footage on the timeline with 3 effects layers on it playing in realtime, we should have put more effects on to see where it would lag, but after putting 3 on there he was very satisfied.
Oh, when we turned off the Mercury Playback Engine (this is the Premiere feature that uses the GPU) and put one simple color correction on the clip, it would immediately start to stutter.
His system is a Q9550 with 8GB Ram and Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
 
Zepher said:
My video card wasn't used at all since I have an ATI card. Using an Nvidia card, Premiere can offload the rendering of certain effects and filters to the GPU for accelerated rendering and smooth realtime playback on the timeline. Works great with Canon DSLR Footage.
I used to have a GTX285 in my system but a friend is making a documentary with a Canon 7D and Premiere Pro CS5 and I told him that using a GTX285 would allow him to play the clips with effects (color correction is one effect he uses a lot) on the timeline smoothly in realtime with no rendering.
I wanted to try Eyefinity so he bought me the 5850 and I gave him my GTX285.

When I got the card installed in his machine (it was a really tight fit too, had to buy a PCI-e SATA card since the GTX285 covered 4 of the mobo's 6 SATA ports) and tested everything, we were able to have the 1080P/24FPS Canon 7D footage on the timeline with 3 effects layers on it playing in realtime, we should have put more effects on to see where it would lag, but after putting 3 on there he was very satisfied.
Oh, when we turned off the Mercury Playback Engine (this is the Premiere feature that uses the GPU) and put one simple color correction on the clip, it would immediately start to stutter.
His system is a Q9550 with 8GB Ram and Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
Click to expand...

Wow dude, if this is the case then I need to get cs5 it sounds like, I can't stand how elements 9 feels laggy using the timeline, and even playing back the video it feels like I'm using a pentium 4.
 
This is exactly what I use my rig for. I would also suggest getting CS5 Premiere Pro. Buy all the ram you can afford as it will use it up and have separate drives for scratch, render and the OS. That will make a huge difference. Or just use a large RAID array. Disk usage is the biggest bottleneck that I have found so far. I can't speak for Sandybridge benefits but I am very happy with my i7 930 @ 3.9ghz.
 
Rogue_Apprentice said:
This is exactly what I use my rig for. I would also suggest getting CS5 Premiere Pro. Buy all the ram you can afford as it will use it up and have separate drives for scratch, render and the OS. That will make a huge difference. Or just use a large RAID array. Disk usage is the biggest bottleneck that I have found so far. I can't speak for Sandybridge benefits but I am very happy with my i7 930 @ 3.9ghz.
Click to expand...

What types of projects do you work on?
 
Oh, another program that isn't very expensive and is full featured is Canopus Edius Neo 3, available from Grass Valley.
you can buy it from B&H Photo for around $225 or so.

you can download a 30 day trial to test it out and see if you like it, just have to register on the site first.
I own the first version (won it at a raffle at a videographers convention) and it works just as good as premiere pro.

I downloaded Edius 6 ( the more expensive version, which is available on the site as well) to test out the other night and it was very good too, but I prefer Premiere since I have been using it for almost 12 years now.

here is what Edius 6 looks like with some footage I have from Vegas,
edius-layout3.jpg

this is my triple screen setup with the left screen as a program monitor.

And here my Premiere Pro CS5 setup with 3 screens,
editor-2010.jpg


If you can, get 1 or 2 more screens for your editor, makes life much easier.
 
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Italiano86 said:
I can't stand how elements 9 feels laggy using the timeline, and even playing back the video it feels like I'm using a pentium 4.
Click to expand...

This is a problem that's shared with all of the other $100-ish consumer video editing programs: The program(s) had to be restricted to 32-bit for compatibility with 32-bit Windows OSes - and then, it needs much more physical RAM than it can use. As a result, it requires a huge pagefile - and then, the hard drive(s) containing that pagefile are often too slow.
 
Slightly off-topic...
@Zepher -- I have the same Dell Netbook, and it looks like you did the Hack-intosh installation on it. If so, would you mind sharing any details during that install -- setup, hurdles encountered, etc.?


Edit: Nevermind... Just saw a thread post by Danny Bui stating that no dedicated Hackintosh discussions allowed, and my questions may be too close to breaking that rule.
 
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