Video Editing, Photography, and Encoding Build

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iowahokies

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May 17, 2009
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I presently have a P4-2.8 that is many years old. It is time to pass it down to my boys (8 and 6) and upgrade.


1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc Video Editing (Vegas), Digital Photography (likely will upgrade to CS4 after the computer build), Proshow Producer (digital photography slide show program), Encoding (both for video editing and transcoding), Personal Finance (Moneydance), Office, and Internet. I don't do any gaming with this PC at all.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? $2000 - tax and shipping are included - spending less won't hurt my feelings
3) Where do you live? US
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
  • CPU - Intel i7-920 - $280
  • CPU cooler - Scythe MUGEN-2 with Zalman STG1 thermal compound - $37
  • Ram - ocz platinum 6x2Gb (12 GB) - $172
  • Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P – for the better TI firewire controller - $260
  • POWERCOLOR AX4850 1GBD3-PPH Radeon HD 4850 1GB - picked due to low noise & GPU support for CS4 - Must have good support for two monitors - $145
  • Case – Antec P182 - $145
  • Power Supply – Corsair HX-620 - $150
  • OS & Application HD – OCZ Vertex 60GB - $219
  • (3) WD Caviar Black 1TB for applications, scratch, video editing workspace - $100 each
  • TV Tuner Card - Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800 - $100
  • Additional Fans for cooling and silence - Scythe SY1225SL12M 120mm "Slipstream" Case Fan 1200 RPM ($9); Scythe S-FLEX SFF21D 120mm Case Fan 800 RPM ($14); Scythe GentleTyphoon D1225C12B3AP-13 120mm Case Fan ($18)
  • For Vertex - ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-1B 2.5" to 3.5" SSD & SATA Hard Drive Converter - $20
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
  • Keyboard
  • Mouse
  • (2) DVD-Writers
  • (2) 24" Dell 2408WFP monitors
6) Will you be overclocking? Will give it a try but stability is more important than eaking a few more mhz
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? I have (2) 24” Dell 2408WFP monitors – they have DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort options
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Either end of May or beginning of June
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc. Leaning heavily towards GIgabyte motherboards due to TI firewire controller - better than Asus VIA firewire from what I have read. I am currently using RAID in my present PC. Crossfire or SLI is not needed.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? I plan to use Window 7 RC 64-bit until it is officially released. At that time, I will buy a license.

I do not need this to be super silent, but I would like a rather silent PC which is why I picked some of the choices above. I have struggled selecting the video card especially since I do not do any gaming whatsoever (only Wii with my boys). CS4 supports this particular video for GPU acceleration.

I am obviously not going for the best price/performance build here - especially since I am splurging on a SSD. I do not upgrade often, so I am investing in higher end components. I am not set on anything but the i7. If you have recommendations, I would love to hear them.

Thank you in advance.
iowahokies
 
1) I highly highly recommend getting the Antec P183, the latest version of the P180 cases. It's actually $7 cheaper than the P182 once you factor in shipping:
$160 - Antec P183 ATX Case

Here's a review of it if you want to know more:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=314&Itemid=61

2) Also, you might want to check out some RAMDisk software once they enable support for Windows 7. Here's why:
Joe Average said:
In other words, as I said, the cost of the devices + the cost of populating them becomes absolutely ridiculous. Grab two Velociraptors and have fun... or even a handful of SSD drives and RAID 'em together. The overall price-to-performance ratio will blow these iRAM devices clear off the planet surface...

Sad, really, because I've been a proponent of actual RAMdisks for decades now. Hell, I used to boot my Amiga 500 off a RAMdisk, so I've seen pretty much every attempt at making such devices as the iRAM that have appeared, and they all suck, period. They just can't do the job adequately and keep the price-to-performance ratio anywhere near a reasonable level.

I built a RAID 0 box for a small image studio 2 weeks ago, a new startup here in Vegas that is making waves. They wanted a "demo" workstation to see what's possible for processing as they don't want to create a massive server-type situation in the office, but 3-4 workstations that are equal in performance and then just using simple file sharing as required. Very simple setup in terms of the network, but the workstation I built used 2 300GB Velociraptors (tried to sell 'em on SSD but the amount of data they're dealing with wouldn't be practical - again, a price-to-performance and ROI issue).

The hard part was getting them to spring for 16GB of RAM because of the cost, but a few weeks ago I saw that sale for 4 4GB sticks of RAM for about $450 and made a few phone calls and snagged a similar deal.

I set up Photoshop CS3 for 'em (their legit retail copy) on Vista Business x64. They started messing around with it, loading some rather large TIFF files in excess of 150MB a pop, several at a time, performing some basic scripted actions on 'em, blurs, filters, etc. Using the Velociraptors in RAID 0 meant very snappy and consistent performance, as well as having 16GB of RAM too. Also, it's a Q6600 based machine running rock solid at 3 GHz.

They were very pleased with the performance at that point, but I had a surprise for 'em. ;)

I asked if I could have 20 mins 'alone' with the workstation to "rewire it" as Tim Allen might say. That consisted of grabbing a trial version of SuperSpeed Software's RamDisk Plus 9 and installing it, doing the simple configuration, and then creating a 10GB RAMdisk and told Photoshop "Ok, you want a scratch disk? Here, try this on for size."

After I did some tests of my own using the same scripts they'd done earlier, boy... I tell ya. You haven't lived till you see 225MB TIFF files literally snap onscreen in the blink of an eye, multiple huge TIFFs with resolutions like 5000x5000 and even higher. That's what's possible with RAMdisks, because even Velociraptors in RAID 0 pumping out something like 280MB/s sustained pales to the close to 5GB a second in bandwidth of that RAMdisk.

I told 'em to come back in and rerun their test scripts.

Jaws hit the floor, folks. Well, not quite but figuratively speaking, at least.

They asked what I'd done, I told them I put the scratch disk in RAM where it should be if you have the RAM to make it happen, and they bought 4 licenses of RamDisk Plus 10 mins later, and I got a signed contract to construct 3 more workstations identical to that one top to bottom and also be their "geek" if any issues come up.

It was a very good week... ;)
Click to expand...
 
60GB is kinda small for an OS and App drive.
Why not get a WD 640 Black for the OS and Apps and later switch to SSD when they get a tad cheaper?
 
I agree with Zepher, 60gigs is too small. When you install programs by default it will be installed on the primary drive and not your backup. You can offload files onto your backup drive but, 60gig will be filled up quickly. I know SSD are fast but, useless if you run out of storage space. I would just get the WD 640 gig drive and then later on get an SSD drive when it gets larger in capacity and at more reasonable prices.

Zepher said:
60GB is kinda small for an OS and App drive.
Why not get a WD 640 Black for the OS and Apps and later switch to SSD when they get a tad cheaper?
Click to expand...
 
Danny Bui - Thanks for the feedback. Ironically enough, I was just reading the new P183 review at silentpcreview. It looks like the way to go. I was also planning on using a RAM disk. Even though I plan to use the 64-bit Windows 7 and can access all the memory; I had read similar posts that indicated a RAM disk for my CS4 scratch would be excellent for performance. From what I understand, Dataram RAMDisk Beta is working fine under Windows 7. RAMDISK is why I opted for 12 GB RAM instead of 6 GB.

Zepher - I agree that the 60 gb is on the small size. However, I am presently using a 36gb raptor in my p4-2.8 pc. I need more than 36gb, but I think I comfortably fit Windows 7, Vegas, CS4. I can also install some of my apps to one of the Caviar black drives. My tentative plan for those drives are 1) additional app space, 2) media space (mp3's and digital photos), 3) workspace for digital video editing. I also plan to put my swapfile and other high frequency writes on a Caviar to minmize SSD slowdown. I am not crazy about being on the bleeding edge, but it sounds like the SSD is a real leap in performance and there are good posts on OZ vertex forum to minimize my pain. My thoughts were to buy a larger SSD to replace the 60gb down the road when they come down in price. You make a good point; I will give it some more thought.

I am also reconsidering my power supply. I notice some power supplies are advertised for i7 while the modular Corsair I picked does not (it is a 2006 vintage power supply). Quiet, efficient, and reliable are important for me. I won't be using two video cards.

I appreciate the quick replies!
iowahokies
 
iowahokies said:
I notice some power supplies are advertised for i7 while the modular Corsair I picked does not (it is a 2006 vintage power supply).
Click to expand...

That's just marketing bullshit. The Corsair 620HX is just as good as many PSUs being released in 2009. You need not worry about going with the Corsair 620HX.

Also you might want to give the idea of using two WD 640GB Black drives in RAID 0. Performance should be on par, if not better, than the OCZ Vertex. Just make sure you know about the potential dangers of going with a RAID 0 setup though.
 
Build looks good.

There's a very good deal on the PC Power & Cooling 750W which ends today. It's going for $70 after rebate from ZipZoomFly. However, it's not a modular PSU (if that's what you're looking for).
 
I am reconsidering the OCZ Vertex. I have setup RAID in my present PC, so that doesn't concern me. I realize the risk vs reward with RAID 0. I back up my system drive regularly in the event of issues.

I haven't looked at the recent Raptors (I currently run one of the original 36 gb raptors). I am assuming on price vs performance; it is not worth the incremental cost as compared to the caviar black drives.

Thanks for all the input and advice.

Steve
 
iowahokies said:
I haven't looked at the recent Raptors (I currently run one of the original 36 gb raptors). I am assuming on price vs performance; it is not worth the incremental cost as compared to the caviar black drives.
Click to expand...

I agree.
 
I agree with Danny's rec's.

Two Caviar black/blue 640GB/1TB in RAID0 will outperform a single OCZ Vertex SSD. Two Vertex SSDs in RAID0 will smoke three caviars in RAID0.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1033928895&postcount=183

Click the link in the upper right hand corner to view the full thread of HD Tune scores. There's some VRaptor scores in there, too. VRaptors aren't worth it over Caviars, nor is a single Vertex SSD, IMO. Two Vertex SSDs in RAID0... now thats fast. There's a youtube vid of 24x Samsung 256GB SSDs in RAID0, Google for it... makes you want to buy some SSDs, lol.

HardwareGuru said:
I agree with Zepher, 60gigs is too small. ...
Click to expand...

What in the world are you people installing?!? My OS/Apps drive is only 20GB full. :eek:
 
enginurd said:
What in the world are you people installing?!? My OS/Apps drive is only 20GB full. :eek:
Click to expand...

My Adobe programs folders are 21GB (20GB in x86, 1.25GB in x64).
My system drive is using 55GB with no games, just Vista 64, Office 07, my Adobe Suite, and some other tools.
 
Zepher said:
My Adobe programs folders are 21GB (20GB in x86, 1.25GB in x64).
My system drive is using 55GB with no games, just Vista 64, Office 07, my Adobe Suite, and some other tools.
Click to expand...

Must be the entire Adobe suite. I only have photoshop installed (from that suite), and its not taking up much space at all.
 
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