Not sure of video editing needs

[Ron_Jeremy 0]

My roommate uses Adobe Premiere & Vegas Video to do his work. The source files come from a Hitachi DVD camcorder (not sure of exact model). His current rig is a Compaq laptop with the following specs: 2.4GHz/533, 1024 RAM, 60 GB disk. It's "struggling" to do the work.

 

Anyway, his employer offered to pay for a desktop dedicated to his video editing work, & he can spend around $US3500. Reliability is paramount. He is by no means "computer savvy", & has stressed to me that "...it just has to work & cause me no problems...".

 

In my head I put together something along the lines of this (it's just a non-specific foundation to consider):

 

>Dual Xeon mobo (there are a few models I like from Supermicro & IWill)

>2 x 2.66/533 Xeons

>2 x 1GB RAM (would follow mobo manuf recommended)

>Proper case & power supply

>Good performing hard disks (36GB 10KIV or Raptor as Windows disk, & a couple of larger ATA disks for storage)

>DVD burner

>Audigy2

>Middle of the road type video card

 

The above hardware totals less than $US2900. Am I on the right track here, or have I gone overboard? Would a single 3GHz P4 setup be enough?

[jwl812 0]

I just built a Video Box myself. I opted for a 3000+ Athlon XP and Nvidia Nforce 2 Ultra MSI Motherboard (support for 400mhz bus) with 1gb of ram and a pair of 80gb Maxtor HDDs. It is very smooth and quick, but crunching video is a daunting task for any PC. I went with the Athlon because it has been a workhorse for me in the past and the cost to performance ratio is excellent. Total cost about $1500 for many bells and whistles.

[sapiens74 0]

Stay away from AMD

 

 

THe Dual Xeon is nice, I have one, and I would buy as much ram as possible.

 

I would consider getting a Dell, the reason I say this is the warranty, and I got mine for under 700, althouhgh only 1 Xeon.

 

You can add the second CPU, and ram yourself.

 

That way you get a warranty, a nice case, and great support. Probably save you some money too.

[jwl812 0]

Stay away from AMD?

 

I love it when people give such crude unsubstantiated advice without backing it up.

 

Face it, AMD has been kicking Intel's backside ever since they were the first to reach 1Ghz.

 

In many, many benchmarks the AMD Athlon has been very close to and in some cases ahead of Intel's best and with as much as a 400+ Mhz handicap.

 

How about providing some constuctive advice and some evidence to back-up your claim to "STAY AWAY FROM AMD".

 

I have had great luck with AMD as I'm sure many have.

[Ron_Jeremy 0]

C'mon people, I need some advice here, not a brand-x vs brand-y flame war

[SHS 0]

Ron_Jeremy.

There min Key to this depend on type stuff he doing.

The main things System Memory, Disk space and CPU Speed when work DV and AVI Video format.

3GHz

1GB ram

2 120GB Harddisk

Any Video card will do 16MB or higher how about dual-monitor are good way to go.

 

jwl812 the problem with AMD is run TO DRAN HOT vs Intel the key here is reliability.

 

This is my Video Rig

Win2000 with SP4 and latest everything

SageTV & SageRecoder (PVR and Capture)

Womble MPEG2VCR (MPEG2 Editor)

Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2.1 SE (I'm lazy hehe)

Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 250 (REALtime MPEG2 Encoder)

Intel P4 1600a 478

Intel D845WN Motherboard

3, Micron 128meg SDRAM

SoundBlaster Audigy X-Gamer

Sony DRU-500AX DVD-+R/-+RW CDR/RW

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 80gig

Sigma Designs REALmagic Xcard (REALtime DVD/MPEG2 Decoder)

PNY Geforce 2 MX440

Creative Inspire 5.1 5300

I have record a ton stuff off TV so much I lost track yes I even done some home movie to in fact go get a round to doing my sister carp that she sent me.

[sapiens74 0]

My answer was honest, has nothing to do with AMD

 

But a lack of good reliable dual chipsets. He wants SCSI, pref 320 for video editing, and to be honest AMD doesn't offer very many good solutions for a solid performer, with reliability.

 

THe Xeon class is tailor made for video editing. Dual Chips both with Hyperthreading will made video editing much less of a chore, and the memory bandwidth is much higher on INTEL systems. You have a choice of chipsets from INTEL to Serverworks that both provide good solid chipsets with reliability in mind.

 

Remember this is not a typical workstation, this has to be a real powerhouse, and rock solid stable.

 

My setup is a Dell Poweredge 1600SC with 1 Xeon 1.8GHZ and 640MB ECC Reg Ram, with a Sony DV board, with 3 firewire ports.

 

IT does fine video editing, and I have Dual SCSI 320's with a nice 120GB for storage. IT uses a Serverworks chipset, althought the 7200 series of chipsets from INTEL are great too.

 

Make sure you get a good firewire board, which i assume you are using, I don't think those class of boards come with anything onboard.

 

If you are building yourself instead of going with a Dell, then make sure you have a PS that's a bit on the overkill. Like 550w or so from a good vendor like Fortran, or ANTEC.

[uboofer 0]

I agree with Sapiens74. I would go with the Intel processor and hyper-threading. Hyper-threading will help lessen the amount of time to compile and if he will burn it to a DVD, the rendering time. If I remember correctly on benchmark test the AMD processor usually does better for graphics but do not have anything like Intels hyperthreading to help process information. SCSI would help a great deal also.

 

Adobe products are beasts themselves and if you have the best processor out there, will make any task that much easier. If it work that is purchasing it why not buy the best rig that you can. Time is money.

 

AMD had chipsets that will handle dual processors but are not exactly the greatest on performance. Intel chipsets are usually supported by any M$ product with out adding extra drivers and are usually very stable but the boards are usually a littel more expensive.

[SHS 0]

Ron_Jeremy this maybe good option for him Canopus DV Storm 2 Plus Real-Time DV Editing Solution

Also take look at newegg you everthing you want build the system from ground up in one place shopping.

[duhmez 0]

Dual Xeon is definately the way to go, the chips are really cheap right now for Xeons. I'd go with Intel chipset as well. Remember too splitting up the ram into smaller dimms saves cash too, so instead of 2 1 gig chips, put 4 512 MB chips. you won't get more than 2 GB out of XP pro or win2k either, that's all they support.

[CyberGenX 0]

I you are a casual video maker/editor like me then an AMD rig is great for the money. If you want your video rendered a little quicker then spend the extra $$$$ for any rig with RAID striping and loads of memory.

 

My setup runs Adobe Premiere just great and i didn't have to shell out all the cash for Xeon crap. Waitin for the Athlon 64 desktop to be affordable.

 

MSI nForce 2 Delta MB

GeForce4 Ti 128MB 6Layer PCB Dual Header

SATA RAID stripe mode with

2 X 80GIG SATA 150 7200RPM 8MB Cache drives

1 X 60GIG IDE ATA 133 7200RPM Drive for audio, titles, misc.

1GB of HyperX Matched DDR Dual Channel 400MHz

2500+ OCed to 2.166MHz

4XDVD +RW

Firewire