New rig for video capture / editing

mikecLA

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 20, 2011
Messages
101
Currently running a Q6600 on a P5E3 Deluxe board, 8G Ram, IntelX25 boot drive, 2 DeskStar7200 750gig in Raid0 for video capture, and QNAP TS-809 external NAS to keep all the important stuff.

Mainly looking to speed up video rendering and avoid dropped frames when capturing.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
No gaming at all. Will be used mainly for video editing --Adobe CS5 -- Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and capturing raw 4:2:2 video from a hi-def camera to black magic intensity card (requires high HD write speeds).

I also run Air Video Server in the background to stream videos to my IPAD.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
2-4K, but would like to keep it on the lower side.

3) Where do you live?
California, US

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, MOBO, SSD for OS & Apps (I could use my IntelX25, but it's only 80Gig and write speeds are 70mB/sec -- was thinking of going from scratch with something quicker like one of the crucial drives), and either more SSD's or traditional drives for a Raid array, Case (would like something with solid sides -- I don't want light from fans, etc... coming out of the case, and quiet), 24 or 32G Ram

I was looking at doing this last November and leaning toward either Xeon or I7 980X. Now that Sandy Bridge 2600K is out, I'm wondering if I can get acceptable performance out of it (I am aware that the gaming reviews put the OC 2600K on par with a 980X, but not sure about After Effects and Premiere Pro). Was weary of plunking down 1K for a processor plus MOBO knowing new stuff was around the corner.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Coolermaster RS-850 Power Supply
PNY GTX 470 Video Card
I have 2 Hitachi Desktar 7200 750GB drives (purchased 7/2007) I'm using in a current RAID0 array. Not sure if they are worth reusing or replacing with newer drives.

The RAID0 array is mainly for directly capturing video off the camera and intermediate work. All of my important stuff is copied over to a QNAP TS-809 NAS and kept there.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not sure, but it seems easy enough with the SB -- I do not want to get into exotic cooling though. Will overclocking it help video rendering or just games?

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
23" HP2207 and Samsung 40"TV I am using as a capture monitor via the HDMI out on the blackmagic card. No real need to upgrade now.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
It depends -- If current versions of SB will do the trick then now. If not, and LGA2011 offers substantial benefits over 980X or current Xeons then wait for that, if it looks like I have to go the 980X or Xeon route anyway, then now or within a few weeks.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
USB3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, onboard RAID. I need a Raid0 configuration and a separate RAID 5 array from the same board would be cool, but not a deal breaker.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, Win7 Pro 64bit

One other consideration -- I have a dual LAN connection on my board now and not sure if I would miss it if the "upgraded" board only has 1 connection. This helps performance with connection to the NAS.

And one other question: If I re-use my Intel SSD, can I stick it in a new box without having to reinstall windows and all my apps? If so, I may want to use it just to save on those headaches alone.
 
If you absolutely need more than 16GB of RAM. then wait for the socket 2011 Sandy Bridge CPUs to come out. The vast majority of current socket 1155 motherboards only support up to 16GB of RAM or have only 4 RAM slots.

The Core i7 2600K does provide acceptable performance compared to the 980X at stock speeds. Yes the 980X is faster than the Core i7 2600K in video rendering but not fast enough to justify an extra $700 for it. Not to mention that an OC'd i7 2600K would perform on par if not better than the 980X. So the 980X is not an option unless you can get it for $300.

Reuse those Hitachi drives as storage or something. There are significantly faster drives now:
$60 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Since you live in California, try to buy as many of your parts as possible from Amazon.com since Amazon does not charge tax to CA residents.

As for reusing the SSD, Windows 7 is fairly robust when it comes to out and out complete hardware changes but there's always that small possibility that things can go wrong.
 
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If my existing SSD will work with a new MOBO/CPU without having to reinstall anything, then I may just go the path of upgrading those two components in my existing system and build a dedicated editing workstation after LGA2011 comes out.

For now, I would be okay with the 8G RAM I already have and the rest of the components. For ~$600 I can go from a Q6600 to the 2600K which will be well worth it for a years worth of service. I don't see any reason to go 980X right now.

What would be a good MOBO choice for an atx case? I need onboard RAID, USB 3 would be a bonus, a slot for my GTX 470 and 1 PCI x1 slot for the blackmagic card. Is it correct to assume that whatever board I get will work with my existing memory (4 2G sticks of dual channel non-ecc DDR3 1600mhz)?
 
What would be a good MOBO choice for an atx case? I need onboard RAID, USB 3 would be a bonus, a slot for my GTX 470 and 1 PCI x1 slot for the blackmagic card.

$155 - Asus P8P87 Intel P67 ATX Motherboard
$185 - Asus P8P87 Pro Intel P67 ATX Motherboard

Is it correct to assume that whatever board I get will work with my existing memory (4 2G sticks of dual channel non-ecc DDR3 1600mhz)?
No. You have to see if that RAM is rated higher than 1.65V or not. If it is, can't be used with any Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 CPU for the long-term.
 
Technically, the Socket 1155 CPUs support up to 32GB of RAM. However, 8GB sticks of RAM - if they are available - currently cost nearly $200 a piece compared to the under $100 pricing of most dual-channel 8GB kits with the same specs.

Also, whether to go with an LGA 1155/P67 platform or an older LGA 1366/X58 platform depends on whether or not you want to add a discrete hardware RAID controller (such as those higher-end cards from the likes of Areca) for more complex RAID arrays that use a parity RAID. The two Asus P67 motherboards have significant issues with discrete hardware RAID controllers: If the RAID card is plugged into a PCIe x4 slot, and any card at all whatsoever is plugged into a PCIe x1 slot, the x4 slot will drop all the way down to x1 bandwidth. RAID performance (and therefore disk performance) will suffer substantially under this circumstance.

The P8P67 Pro has a second x16 slot that runs in x8 mode (bifurcated from the main x16 slot). However, putting a discrete hardware RAID card into the x8 slot would force the main x16 slot to drop down to x8 mode. And although the slowdown to x8 affects gaming performance only slightly, the CS5's GPU-accelerated performance will suffer significantly: Instead of under 10 seconds in full x16 mode for a given video clip, it would now take nearly 20 seconds to export/render that same clip when the slot is dropped from x16 down to x8. RAID performance would be at its full potential, however, in this situation.

And though the onboard Intel RAID controller (motherboard-based) can do RAID 5, I'd advise against it with that controller: Being software-based, it uses the CPU heavily. In other words, the onboard RAID is only good for RAID 0/1/10 without imposing a significant performance hit.
 
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