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Video Editing/Rendering upgrade

S

Sungaisu

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 18, 2009
Messages
416
So I've noticed there is another thread up talking about Video Editing, but it was more of a ground up, when I'm looking to just upgrade what I currently have. This is a system I've put together over the last year or so and I feel I need to upgrade.

Main reason is to lower Render times for 720p videos, or converting fraps video's to another format.

My Current build:

Motherboard: Gigabyte 785GX

CPU: Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz quad
Cooled with a Corsair H50 (Just ordered a H70, will be here Thursday)​

Ram: 8gb DDR2 Corsair 6400 XMS2 (4 x 2gb)

Video Card: ATI HD5770 1GB

HDDs: (OS) 300gb VelociRaptor
(Storage) 2x 1TB Western Digital Green Drives

PSU: Corsair 400W

Monitor: Asus ML238H 23" LED 1920x1080

As you can probably tell, a lot of this stuff was bought a while ago and a lot of it is deactivated or discontinued. But I'm very happy with it gaming wise. My problem is, I put out 4-5 videos a week between my personal business and Machinima. I have to spend a lot of time working out a schedule for videos and setting aside about 5-8 hours just to put out a 30 minute video (Recording, editing, rendering, and upload) The render times is what kills me the most, 30 minutes will take an hour and a half to 2 hours. A 45 minute video would be over 2 hours easily.

Format I'm rendering is 1280x720, 90% of the time it's Fraps footage, which hates 64bit systems (Or maybe it was just Sony Vegas, I can't remember) so I have to convert fraps footage before I bring it into Sony Vegas just to make it workable.

TLDR -
What this boils down to is that I want to upgrade my processor to a hexacore, but I don't know much about them. Would it be worth it to help render times? Or should I upgrade something else? I had my eyes on the AMD ones because they're cheaper and I've never had problems with AMD. But I just recently found out that Intel has an i7 hexacore out now. Which one is better?

Also, would it be worth it for me to upgrade to DDR3? It's cheap enough for me to want to upgrade, but I would need a new Mobo too (I would anyways if I go Intel). Also will my PSU still handle everything just fine? It's a champ and has been powering through all the parts I have now just fine.

Budget is Sub $500, including tax and shipping. I live in California, so taxes are gonna be a bitch.

Any help is appreciated and I can provide more info if needed.

==========================================

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Mainly video rendering, it's power enough for gaming for my current tastes.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$500, Taxes & Shipping included.

3) Where do you live?
California.

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.
I want to upgrade to a 6-Core at least, Motherboard too since I'd like to move up to DDR3 (DDR2 is starting to make me depressed)

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Parts listed up top, will be keeping everything except the 3 items listed in the last question. But I will get new parts if need be.

6) Will you be overclocking?
I would like to, but I only assume my 400w can handle so much, if the 400w will last me with stock speeds but nothing more I'll be fine until I have enough for a new one.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
23", puts out 1920x1080. Also a 32" TV, but that never goes above 1280x720.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the month.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
I would like SATA 6GB/s for future proofing. USB 3.0 seems to tag along with all 6Gb/s boards so, I'll be happy with that too. This is -not- necessary though.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 64bit.
 
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You don't really need the H70; you can add a second fan onto the H50 by buying four 1.5" long machine screws. (Corsair's own user forum even has the details on what to buy.) If you can, cancel the order.

With your $500 budget, your best approach is to buy an AMD X6 processor (hex-core), a cheap Socket AM3 board, and four 4GB sticks of DDR3 RAM. Buy the parts from Amazon instead of NewEgg.

You may also be having problems with your video card. The HD 5770 struggles a bit with modern games at a 1920x1080 resolution.
 
Have you considered having a cheap box that will only do your rendering? Even if it's slower than your gaming machine, you can devote 100% of its time to encoding/rendering.
 
Only reason I got the H70 was because a buddy of mine needed something better than the stock fan on his quad, so I sold him mine and upgraded in the process.

And I haven't ran into real problems yet with my HD5770, it does only put out like 30fps or so on ultra high in some games though. It could use an upgrade but I'll wait on that since I'm more interested in upgrading the processor first.

@Tonytnnt, I've considered that, but it's not so much that I -have- to game while I'm rendering, I have my 360 for entertainment while rendering. I just want to lower the time it takes so I don't have to waste such a big part of my day.
 
Your cheapest option would be to buy a X6 processor which should give you a sizable speed boost.

The Intel quad cores, especially the 1155 processors really do well in Vegas though...but you'd have to get a new mobo and DDR3 RAM.

I'd stay away from the Intel hexacore processors because the CPU alone wouldn't fit within your budget.

I'm still stuck using Vegas 8 and CS3, but here's a Vegas 10 benchmark for you: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1501/15/

Also, when you're rendering are you using your SSD as the source drive? If not, give that a try. The WD Green drives aren't fast enough to feed your CPU.
 
patric - The OP is using a 300GB Velociraptor, not an SSD, as his primary drive.

Sungaisu - While I agree with patric that an AMD hex-core would help, I still believe that more RAM wouldn't hurt. (I'm leaving the video card alone, for now.) But given the higher price of DDR2 RAM versus DDR3 RAM, it may be cheaper to also throw in a cheap Socket AM3 board to handle that RAM.
 
Just an FYI, you'll get more specific advice if you fill out the sticky.

The Intel hex core is faster, but the newest Intel architecture (Sandy Bridge) has quad cores that often beat hex cores in gaming (but I can't speak for rendering.)

But if you want an AMD hexcore for under $500, you are in luck buddy. Your motherboard will accept up to an 1100T hex core. See the CPU support list on the right hand side of the manufacturer's website. The 1100T is not only faster per core than your processor (2.9GHz vs 3.3Ghz) but it also has a L3 cache which will help a bit. Not to mention the extra 2 cores.

$230 - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo (comes with a $15 promotional gift card.)

You can also get lower priced hex cores (cheapest is $180 with a $10 gift card) but any way you go, you're way under budget.

You might need to upgrade your power supply to support it. It shouldn't cost more than $50 or $60.

$50 (after $15 MIR) - CORSAIR Builder Series CX600

Other users here have a bit more experience with power supply demands though. Your 400W might actually be enough to power the system.

So assuming you go all out, you've spent $280 on a CPU and PSU. Depending on your inclination, you can bank the rest for a rainy day (or future upgrades) or you can get a new graphics card to get those FPS up. Like this:

$215 (after $30 MIR) - XFX HD-695X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6950 1GB (comes with a $10 gift card.)

After mail in rebates, for a CPU, PSU, and GPU, you're at $495 with $25 of Newegg gift cards to spend. If you look around at the right sites you can probably avoid tax. (Like this AMD 1090T for $200 at Amazon. It's 100 MHz slower than the 1100T but shouldn't be too noticeable.
 
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Very helpful posts, and I thank you. That was actually a concern of mine, I don't know much about PSU's, but this 400w is a beast, and has been powering through things pretty well. But I know my current CPU is a much lower watt than the Hex will demand.

I plan to upgrade the HD5770, I just was hoping it wouldn't be that big of a problem. If my PSU can handle the Hex right now - then I'll lean more towards getting a mobo/DDR3 ram next, then PSU, then GPU.

And I'm aware of the Sticky, I just assumed that my current situation didn't really demand all that info. I'll fill it out anyways and post it up in the OP.
 
The sticky just helps because it's a familiar format. It makes it easier to size up the situation.

The 5770 is still a decent card and if you're happy with your graphics performance right now then there's no need to upgrade. Your upgrade path (CPU now, mobo/ram later, then PSU and GPU) sounds good. I'd wait until AM3+ motherboards are out to get the best AMD upgrade path but you should be set for a little while. Let us know what you end up with!

Edit: Just saw your update to the sticky. Guess AM3+ won't be out in time. Another option is to get a motherboard from this list. That way you can keep your upgrade path open. Also, I'm not sure you'll notice a huge difference between DDR2 and DDR3 unless you're doing some very memory bandwidth intense computing. But here's a few options for you:

$150 - ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 (currently out of stock. Also carried by Amazon but they're out of stock too.)

$80 - G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (Memory is really expensive on Amazon. You might be better off paying the sales tax at Newegg.)

AMD Total: $460 for an 1100T, the above motherboard, and above memory. Not including taxes or shipping.

Another alternative (and my recommended one if you want to spend up to $500) is to scrap AMD and go with a quad core Sandy Bridge setup. Use the same memory from above ($80 G.Skill) and get this motherboard and CPU

$329 - Intel Core i7 2600k (this is a quad core CPU with hyper threading which helps Sony Vegas according to some quick Google searches. The k suffix indicates that the chip can be overclocked.)
$225 - Intel Core i5 2500k (this is a quad core CPU but it does not have hyper threading. The k suffix indicates the chip can be overclocked.)

If you buy the above at Newegg you get a free copy of Total War Shogun 2 if you're interested. If you decide you don't want the option of overclocking, you can get a non-k chip for $30 and $15 less respectively. The motherboard chipset is also important if planning on overclocking.

Overclockable:
$165 - MSI P67A-GD55
$130 - BIOSTAR TP67B+

Not overclockable:
$105 - BIOSTAR TH67+
(You can also use one of the overclockable motherboards with a non-k series chip.)

Total: $539 with the 2600k and the Biostar TP67B+. $485 with the 2600 and Biostar TH67+. Both with the 8 GB of G.Skill. Not including taxes or shipping.
 
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Yea, I understand Intel has a pretty good upper hand with rendering. And I'd love to go with the 2600k, it's just so much more expensive compared to AMD. But I guess numbers don't lie, and I guess $330 for something that wouldn't be considered a low end Quad would be nice.

Those numbers are based off of Sony Vegas 10, And I'm still on 9. I wonder if the benefits are the same. I wonder why they didn't use the higher end Hexacore from AMD...
 
The 2600k is very hard to justify from a price standpoint unless you really benefit from hyperthreading. You could save $100 and go with the 2500k (which is what I did, though I mostly play games where there's little benefit from hyperthreading.
 
I do not recommend getting the 1100T or the 1090T as the prices for those CPUs are not justified in comparison to the Intel Core i5 2500K. Even without the HT, the 2500K is still faster as shown in the review that tonytnnt linked to. So if you're gonna get a new mobo, RAM, and CPU, do it right and go Intel. However, if you just want to do a simple drop-in CPU upgrade and don't care about additional RAM, then go with the AMD Phenom II 1055T.
 
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