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New Work Station For 3D Editing

post #1 of 12
11/27/11 at 3:17am
Thread Starter 
Management (wife) gave me authority to get a new computer primarily for video editing, the majority of which will be 3D.

I have a TD10 and am editing with Premiere Pro 5.0 (with a planned upgrade to 5.5), PD10 and SVP 11

I want to stay ahead of the game for a few years and am OK with spending a few extra $$$ for cutting edge components.

From my research these are the prime components I am looking at:

Intel i7 3960x 3.3 GH or
Intel i7 3960x 4.5 GH (water cooled)

EVGA X79 Classified (the name, not status!) MOBO

16G DDR3 @1600 GH Ram

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 video card

3 Hard Drives (all NON Raid) for System, Video, Export

Windows 7 64 Bit Pro Version

1000 or 1200 W Power Supply

Dual layer Blu Ray burner

I do not plan to use the new computer for gaming!

Am I setting my sights too high or will this system keep me ahead of any new tehnology for the next few years?

Intel plans to implement their Thunderbolt technology next year (maybe). From what I have read, Thunderbolt capable drives will probably be expensive and IMO, not worth waiting for.

I know some of you have recently bought new systems and James sounds like a computer building guru.

Any comments / suggestions would be gratefully read with interest.

Many thanks,

Marty Rahn
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post #2 of 12
11/27/11 at 5:48am
Just built my new system for 3D editing and have an asus sabertooth X58 MoBo. Has 24Gb ram capacity but I'm at 12 now. Can go to the i7-990x but I'm at i7-950 now. I would like to switch to a GT580x graphics card but using a radeon HD6850 now. Current drives are all 2Tb 7200RPM. C drive, E drive for video work drive is a pair Raid0, and G drive is a single 2Tb I store music library and other stock work in progress projects here.

When prices come down I will upgrade the CPU as stated to the max and jump to the GT580 graphics card. Maybe max the ram to 24Gb.

Performance of current system is it will play single 3D timeline with cuts at full Vegas HD quality but when I hit a dissolve or other second timeline of video it slows to a crawl. Renders at about 7:1 for most of my very complex projects, 4 :1 for simple projects.
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post #3 of 12
11/27/11 at 9:39pm
You might want to look at Intel's next processor down (3930k). If you buy the high end processor, you're paying an awful lot for it and it's going to be eclipsed fairly quickly. Overclock the little brother with liquid cooling and you'll get comparable performance anyway. You really can't stay ahead of the game for "a few years." It's usually just a few months. I'd spend the extra cash on a SATA III solid state drive (SSD) or two. If you use regular hard drives, RAID a couple together to get the speed you're going to want for 3D video editing.
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post #4 of 12
11/28/11 at 4:08am
Do you guys work in Hollywood, or are you just working on your own content?
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post #5 of 12
11/28/11 at 5:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tory40 View Post

Do you guys work in Hollywood, or are you just working on your own content?

I work in Jackson, NJ as a hobbyist who likes to be on the cutting edge. However as Joe Clark said, the cutting edge dulls pretty quickly!
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post #6 of 12
11/28/11 at 5:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph Clark View Post

You might want to look at Intel's next processor down (3930k). If you buy the high end processor, you're paying an awful lot for it and it's going to be eclipsed fairly quickly. Overclock the little brother with liquid cooling and you'll get comparable performance anyway. You really can't stay ahead of the game for "a few years." It's usually just a few months. I'd spend the extra cash on a SATA III solid state drive (SSD) or two. If you use regular hard drives, RAID a couple together to get the speed you're going to want for 3D video editing.

Joe:

Many thanks for the help

I should have relied on my own experience. In the past, as soon as I ordered a new workstation, I read of a new CPU. You can't stay ahead for long. Months is more realistic than "years"!

Your advice makes good sense. I am going to price the 3930K processor.

Is a solid state drive similar to the cards found in cameras? I have read about them but have no experience.

If I go with Raid, presumably Raid 1 with redundancy is the best way to protect my work from failure of one of the drives, but is Raid 1 as fast as Raid 0?

If I decide on Raid 0, I will just back up regularly. The cost of external hard drive storage has dropped substantially recently.

Back to the drawing board, especially regarding SSD drives.

Many thanks again.

Marty Rahn
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post #7 of 12
11/28/11 at 7:51am
Marty- Most pros have work drives, or scratch drives, as in scratch paper, to do the basic editing. Projects are built on these drives designed for speed and as big as you can afford. Then in the same machine, have a large slower drive for archiving the project. When the archive drive gets full, it is pulled, put on the shelf and a new archive drive is put in it's place. I have over 35 hard drives in storage now with close to 2500 TV shows I did over the years. Those were all edited in Vegas so I could pull any one of them and begin to edit or add content. In my faster machines I have a C drive for software installs and OS, 2 drives in Raid 0 for speed and the archive drive to dump the project. In a mission critical project that goes on for weeks, I usually copy out the project folder to the archive drive as a security backup but continue to edit on the scratch drives. Obviously, when the project is done, I dump that folder to the archive drive.

Solid state drives are nice but entirely too small for my liking. I will revisit them when they have a 750Gb for decent money. It seems to me that I need a 750Gb C drive to handle all my installed software, OS and temp files. I could get by with a 500 but feel safer with a 750. I think these 250Gb SSD are OK for typical business machines but for work stations to do video editing they are entirely too small. And, too expensive to be stacking them up as Raid1 for capacity.
The only trouble today with the disk drives is the temporary shortage. If they don't rebuild the plants, then I suspect they will be ramping up production in the SSD's and soon those will be bigger and cheaper.

CPU's do have a steep diminishing return. I can get by with what I'm using now but soon, what I really want will come down in price. I don't need to be on the cutting edge, just fast enough so I'm not sitting here waiting on a something to happen while the CPU meter is at 100%.
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post #8 of 12
11/28/11 at 8:56am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Landis View Post

Marty- Most pros have work drives, or scratch drives, as in scratch paper, to do the basic editing. Projects are built on these drives designed for speed and as big as you can afford. Then in the same machine, have a large slower drive for archiving the project. When the archive drive gets full, it is pulled, put on the shelf and a new archive drive is put in it's place. I have over 35 hard drives in storage now with close to 2500 TV shows I did over the years. Those were all edited in Vegas so I could pull any one of them and begin to edit or add content. In my faster machines I have a C drive for software installs and OS, 2 drives in Raid 0 for speed and the archive drive to dump the project. In a mission critical project that goes on for weeks, I usually copy out the project folder to the archive drive as a security backup but continue to edit on the scratch drives. Obviously, when the project is done, I dump that folder to the archive drive.

Solid state drives are nice but entirely too small for my liking. I will revisit them when they have a 750Gb for decent money. It seems to me that I need a 750Gb C drive to handle all my installed software, OS and temp files. I could get by with a 500 but feel safer with a 750. I think these 250Gb SSD are OK for typical business machines but for work stations to do video editing they are entirely too small. And, too expensive to be stacking them up as Raid1 for capacity.
The only trouble today with the disk drives is the temporary shortage. If they don't rebuild the plants, then I suspect they will be ramping up production in the SSD's and soon those will be bigger and cheaper.

CPU's do have a steep diminishing return. I can get by with what I'm using now but soon, what I really want will come down in price. I don't need to be on the cutting edge, just fast enough so I'm not sitting here waiting on a something to happen while the CPU meter is at 100%.

Don:

I have been doing some more research this morning, based upon what you and Joe suggested.

I am going to take a step down and consider the 3930 processor, which is several hundred dollars cheaper than the 3960 which will soon be replaced by another top dog, the 3980 which I just read about.

The price of solid state drives per storage capacity is enormous plus the capacity is quite small compared to what is available in other formats.

For the last 10 years or so, my workstations are configured with a C: for the operating system and other software, D: for video clips and others such as special effect software and E: for export from the video editing programs I use. As D: or E: drive fills up, I save them on external hard drives. I just bought a 3TB drive for not more than $100. It is amazing how the prices have fallen for these drives, That is what makes the new solid state drives so unattractive to me at this time.

My practice is not much different than yours except the much greater demand you have for storage than I do.

The Raid 0 option may work for speed purposes, as long as the drive is backed up regularly. With two drives each for D: and E:, the risk of drive failure is doubled. Regular backups with a RAID 0 are a must. I was planning on ordering the new system right after the holidays, so I have some time to plan and do research.

The planning is almost as much fun as getting the new system.

Regards,

Marty Rahn
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post #9 of 12
11/28/11 at 9:14am
Marty- I only started using Raid 0 a couple years ago when I started editing HD. Most of my Pro work for Cable TV was in SD format and a single drive was fast enough. So, for the past 3 years editing with Raid) on a triple drive, I have not had one failure. That system is still in operation although not really fast enough processor for 3D video.

The new i7-950 is just barely fast enough and only has 2 7200RPM 2Tb raid0 drives but it works. The case is big enough to experiment so I may stick in a cheaper SSD 60Gb as a scratch drive just to test next year.

Anyway- keep your eyes peeled for the deals. I bought this new rig as a base system that was a demo at CompUSA and was at 50% off so since it had the MoBo and case, PS, memory, and CPU I was looking at, I bought it on impulse. Saved about $800 by getting this package deal as a starter. The graphics card isn't what I had planned on but this one is adequate for now.
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post #10 of 12
12/2/11 at 2:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Videoguy68 View Post

Management (wife) gave me authority to get a new computer primarily for video editing, the majority of which will be 3D.

I have a TD10 and am editing with Premiere Pro 5.0 (with a planned upgrade to 5.5), PD10 and SVP 11

I want to stay ahead of the game for a few years and am OK with spending a few extra $$$ for cutting edge components.

From my research these are the prime components I am looking at:

Intel i7 3960x 3.3 GH or
Intel i7 3960x 4.5 GH (water cooled)

EVGA X79 Classified (the name, not status!) MOBO

16G DDR3 @1600 GH Ram

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 video card

3 Hard Drives (all NON Raid) for System, Video, Export

Windows 7 64 Bit Pro Version

1000 or 1200 W Power Supply

Dual layer Blu Ray burner

I do not plan to use the new computer for gaming!

Am I setting my sights too high or will this system keep me ahead of any new tehnology for the next few years?

Intel plans to implement their Thunderbolt technology next year (maybe). From what I have read, Thunderbolt capable drives will probably be expensive and IMO, not worth waiting for.

I know some of you have recently bought new systems and James sounds like a computer building guru.

Any comments / suggestions would be gratefully read with interest.

Many thanks,

Marty Rahn

Hey Marty, I wasn't going to reply because I "promised" my wife I wouldn't build another machine this Christmas... Hmm, maybe I should buy her a ring first.

I'm not a video guy but learning that part, bought the tandy 1000 when it came out and been building from scratch over the past couple years, and for me the building part, which can take a month doing the research keeps my mind busy. And play some vid games.

Good comments above, can't keep up. Built a box 1.5 years ago with a 980x and 3Xgtx 480's, then the 580's came out and built a 990X. I'm pondering which nephew is going to get my 980 now.

Anyway, it's budget driven of course but ya, 3930K is fast enough, especially if you put a Corsair watercooler on it. Yes, I would overclock.

I'm going to preface all of what I say below is that I have not done thorough research on X79 and my comments are based X58 boards/975X, 980X, 990X practical experience.

MB- After building 2 boxes with Asus, I built one with an EVGA X58 SLI3. I ended up giving that away and have built 3 more with Asus. The last two have been Rampage III Extreme's due to VERY easy overclocking. My EVGA OC was all manual and it drove me nuts. Yes, do the OC in the bios, but the ASUS Rampage does it for you in the bios, instead of software OC.

I see the EVGA X59 is still using Marvel controllers for Sata 3. I wouldn't go there. Just looked at the EVGA MB forum and they're still dinking with Marvel drivers.

I see the new Rampage IV Extreme is now using ASMedia for the Sata 3, worth looking at. Go to the ASUS forum for that board and ask a couple questions. Looking at the MB forums before you buy the components for your board will save you lots of boxes of tissue wiping tears! Me, I'm start to drool over the Asus now.

RAM - you're about right, but ask the experts in the MB forums and read the MB manual. No need for super high speed memory, the higher you OC your processor, the slower you want your RAM, in general.

EVGA Vid card, excellent choice of brand. I don't know about single 580 or dual 590 difference. Since I use the machines for different purposes, including 3 monitor surround (single display), I had to go 3 x 580's. There have been issues with people trying to go surround with 2 X 590's and scaling. I say excellent regarding EVGA is due to warrantee and step up option. Step up is after you buy your card and you want a better one, you can trade it in within 90days (or so).

HD's - lots of options. I have an SSD for the OS, and an SSD to burn/render vid to. Then I have 1 drive for import and 1 drive for export (move desired vids from ssd to export drive). Now with that setup there is a problem, no redundancy. (I have servers to solve that) Therefore, recommend, SSD for OS, SSD for temp/burn/render, 2 drives for RAID 1 import, and 2 drives for RAID 1 export. Raid with the MB Intel or ASMedia, I don't recommend Raid with Marvel or Windows Software "Mirror".

Win 7-64 bit Pro , no need for Ultimate.

Look at Corsair for Power. Personally, I use SilverStone 1500W and know I'll never have to replace it. Just get lots of power so you can add something like a big card later and not worry about having to rip apart your box to put in a power supply. Always do your research and look at the db on the noise.

A cool place to look to make your own box is "mountain mods".

If you want a quiet box, look at Noctua fans.

Hope this helps a bit, no expert, but some more stuff to think about.
Best regards,
Dan
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post #11 of 12
12/2/11 at 6:03am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by djamesb View Post

Hey Marty, I wasn't going to reply because I "promised" my wife I wouldn't build another machine this Christmas... Hmm, maybe I should buy her a ring first.

I'm not a video guy but learning that part, bought the tandy 1000 when it came out and been building from scratch over the past couple years, and for me the building part, which can take a month doing the research keeps my mind busy. And play some vid games.

Good comments above, can't keep up. Built a box 1.5 years ago with a 980x and 3Xgtx 480's, then the 580's came out and built a 990X. I'm pondering which nephew is going to get my 980 now.

Anyway, it's budget driven of course but ya, 3930K is fast enough, especially if you put a Corsair watercooler on it. Yes, I would overclock.

I'm going to preface all of what I say below is that I have not done thorough research on X79 and my comments are based X58 boards/975X, 980X, 990X practical experience.

MB- After building 2 boxes with Asus, I built one with an EVGA X58 SLI3. I ended up giving that away and have built 3 more with Asus. The last two have been Rampage III Extreme's due to VERY easy overclocking. My EVGA OC was all manual and it drove me nuts. Yes, do the OC in the bios, but the ASUS Rampage does it for you in the bios, instead of software OC.

I see the EVGA X59 is still using Marvel controllers for Sata 3. I wouldn't go there. Just looked at the EVGA MB forum and they're still dinking with Marvel drivers.

I see the new Rampage IV Extreme is now using ASMedia for the Sata 3, worth looking at. Go to the ASUS forum for that board and ask a couple questions. Looking at the MB forums before you buy the components for your board will save you lots of boxes of tissue wiping tears! Me, I'm start to drool over the Asus now.

RAM - you're about right, but ask the experts in the MB forums and read the MB manual. No need for super high speed memory, the higher you OC your processor, the slower you want your RAM, in general.

EVGA Vid card, excellent choice of brand. I don't know about single 580 or dual 590 difference. Since I use the machines for different purposes, including 3 monitor surround (single display), I had to go 3 x 580's. There have been issues with people trying to go surround with 2 X 590's and scaling. I say excellent regarding EVGA is due to warrantee and step up option. Step up is after you buy your card and you want a better one, you can trade it in within 90days (or so).

HD's - lots of options. I have an SSD for the OS, and an SSD to burn/render vid to. Then I have 1 drive for import and 1 drive for export (move desired vids from ssd to export drive). Now with that setup there is a problem, no redundancy. (I have servers to solve that) Therefore, recommend, SSD for OS, SSD for temp/burn/render, 2 drives for RAID 1 import, and 2 drives for RAID 1 export. Raid with the MB Intel or ASMedia, I don't recommend Raid with Marvel or Windows Software "Mirror".

Win 7-64 bit Pro , no need for Ultimate.

Look at Corsair for Power. Personally, I use SilverStone 1500W and know I'll never have to replace it. Just get lots of power so you can add something like a big card later and not worry about having to rip apart your box to put in a power supply. Always do your research and look at the db on the noise.

A cool place to look to make your own box is "mountain mods".

If you want a quiet box, look at Noctua fans.

Hope this helps a bit, no expert, but some more stuff to think about.
Best regards,
Dan

Dan:

Many thanks for the information which has my head swimming. I am a video guy (sort of-just a hobbyist though) and have never built a computer.

When I digest all the information, I am going to order a new box from either a company in California or from a local shop here in Jackson NJ both of which have built new computers for me previously.

There is lots to think about and fun playing with all the various options. It is like brain candy for me thinking of what I should do.

Your suggestions are reasonably thought out and appreciated.

Marty Rahn
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post #12 of 12
12/2/11 at 7:45am
Marty- I built my first computer in many years and I have to tell you Dan's advice is right on the money. The only thing I might offer is that I found buying the base hardware in a preassembled box might save you some money. CompUSA has this brand called SYX. Unlike HP, Dell, and Sony etc. the hardware in them is all same as you can buy individually. The advantage I found is that there are some really great bargains with doing it this way. I saved nearly $1000 on two computers and got the exact hardware I had planned on buying anyway. Plus the cases are large and spacious to add additional hard drives and cooling. Yesterday, I went there to buy another win 7 64 bit Pro to upgrade my business applications computer and walked out with another sale bargain, same SYX brand. I spent another $200 over the cost of the OS and a hard drive and got the whole new computer with an i3 2120 CPU. It up and running great!. Dan gave me the confidence but after completing the video work station, I found that today, the hardware and OS are much easier. Stuff all fits and plugins are standardized and well marked. MY new business computer is up and running for under $450. Can't beat that. The guy who used to build my computers was a former client for TV advertising but his quote to do my video workstation was $3200. I did everything with CompUSA parts for under $1800 thanks to the savings on the base SYX box.
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