Please build me a workstation

[bozilla]

Hi,

I need to refresh my work computer (read, get a new one) and need to build state of the art and super fast machine that will allow me to slice through Adobe Photoshop, Premier Pro, After Effects, Macromedia Flash, 3d Studio Max smooth as butter. I'm just sick at tired of hiccups and lags when I work. I'm not too satisfied with my machine currently (I guess it's also a bit old now).

I would like to ask you, if you have time to build it for me online and give your complete list. I know quite a bit about computers as well and I will be building it myself, but I'm just out of ideas.

This is fully working machine so there's no need for super duper gaming cards. Games will not be played on this machine but 3d work will be done on ocassion.

If I select to buy the machine you suggested, I will reward you financially. Not a lot, but just to thank you for your time and advice.

Oh, the budget for the machine is $5500. The machine needs to be reliable data wise, because I always have very important client data. So RAID 1 or RAID 5 would be a good thing. Looks is not that important, but I wouldn't exactly mind a nice case and not some chinese crappy overloaded design.

I don't need monitors, keyboards or mice. Also OS recommendation is much appreciated to run this smooth.


Thanks.

 

[GrammatonJP]

If you want to wait till conroe comes out to see how it handles premiere.. I"m using a x2 3800 with lots of ram, it runs fine.. better than my old dual xeon 3.2s. But I would want to see how much better it can get.. before I upgrade.

Premiere setup.. I dont know about othe other programs you use..
I use 2 4gb IRAM for os and swap.. Its kinda not necessary but hey, i had a budget like yours so, why not...

2 - 4 GB System RAM

I have 6 sata drive in raid 1 mode serving as video and audio preview scratch and conformed audio scratch. Each drive handles a different scratch disk so they dont wait for each other.

I have 14 15k scsi in raid 10 mode serving as captured video and capture audio, raw footage take up a lot of room.. This hangs off a LSI 320-2E pcie adapter.

my mobo is a8nsli.. used the 2nd 16x slot for the lsi card.

I'm only using a 6200TC video card, only cost 25 bucks..

I dont know how much storage you need but usually i import 3-4 hours of video to edit..

If conroe doesn't prove itself.. I would probably upgrade my 3800 to the highest x2.

What i'm looking for next -
8GB ram using 2gb x4 or 4gb memory (on desktop -probably never haha)
Win XP 64 bit support
Better pcie 4x sata adapter, I think my 6 sata are bottle neck in term of pci speed

 

[bozilla]

What about Opterons or Woodcrests?

 

[1N0V471V]

Conroe won't be available until July, so if you want a machine NOW, get a dual dual-core Opteron setup..

 

[GrammatonJP]

July is right around the corner..

You can use this for reference.. only for adobe premiere.. I dont know what the rest of the software you use needs..
http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHDSpecSheet0601.pdf

Edit: If you need it today, opteron for adobe is great..

 

[bozilla]

Well this machine is not going to handle primarily video. It's more for web development, graphics, Flash..but having to do a lot of special effects for web sites, I use a lot of those video editing apps and 3d.

Anyone else with recommendations?

I'm wondering if new Woodcrest Xeons will be a lot faster then the new Opteron 290s? When is Woodcrest with 4mb L2 cache and 3.0Ghz coming out? Anyone?

 

[EffeX]

How the hell can you not be satisfied with 2 Xeons at 3.6ghz??????

 

[pkme2]

You will either need a FireGL or Quadro PCI-e Video card for that Graphic Workstation.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/qfx_uhe.html
http://www.ati.com/products/fireglv7350/index.html

An X2 4400+ or 4800+ is fine, but an X2 Opteron may work too.
http://www.jncs.com/php/sys/index.php?id=tyan-2895-ws

Or going duo Xeons is beyond expectations. That's your choice

 

[twitchee2]

If you have to build right now, get 2 of these on a tyan mobo, get 8gb of ram and spend whats left of storage.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103573

But if you wait too see how conroe plays out, I would high sugest that. << thats the best option IMO

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Nvidia kicks ATI's ass as a workstation solution.

Not to mention that protest from some graphic designers...

Can't win em all ;-)

 

[halfadder]

Unless you're doing hollywood-scale special effects in HD or editing 25 MPixel digital photos, you don't really need a $5500 computer any more.

Dual Core CPU
1 GB or more RAM
X1600 or better graphics

Boom, there you have a fire breathing rig that'll stomp all over last year's $5000 workstations.

If you want to play Oblivion at full resolution, then shoot for a pair of GFX cards in SLI or Crossfire.

As for strorage, might I suggest an external drive or external RAID? Maybe eSATA or Firewire? That way you could keep one copy on the computer and one copy on the external drive. If you need to move the data to another computer, just unplug the external box and plug it into the other machine.

I personally love external storage. Say you have two 750 GB drives in an external Firewire 800 enclosure. That's 1.5 TB. If it takes you 10 seconds to unplug the box from your main computer and plug it into another computer, that's 150 GB/sec!

 

[pkme2]

If you want to go ASUS:
http://www.jncs.com/php/sys/index.php?id=as-k8ndl

Here's a start.

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: bozilla
I need to refresh my work computer (read, get a new one) and need to build state of the art and super fast machine that will allow me to slice through Adobe Photoshop, Premier Pro, After Effects, Macromedia Flash, 3d Studio Max smooth as butter. I'm just sick at tired of hiccups and lags when I work. I'm not too satisfied with my machine currently (I guess it's also a bit old now).

What kind of photoshopping do you do? I tend to use Illustrator for web graphics and input for Dreamweaver and Flash Pro If you do professional work on 10MP+ I'm guessing you'll be using professional aftermarket plugins, so you'll want OpenGL2 because most have GPU offloaded acceleration support.

Do you need ASIO support for Premier? How many of these programs are going to be concurrent? Are you going to have 3DS rendering or is the output being exported to something like RenderMan?

Do you already a good UPS/Line conditioner? Take a look at my rig if you want an idea of what you'd probably have chosen 6 months to a year ago. This is a difficult bill to fill given theres a CPU generation around the corner that may change the tides with emminently useful things, like AM2's Pacifica, and Conroe promising 11 IPC.