Video Editing Computer

[LotusAM]

I'm building a completely new computer for my girlfriend who wants to do some video editing right now just for hobby but possibly for a future career (if she likes it enough). She has a Canon XL2 for a camcorder which records in DV format. She would be using mostly Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, and/or Adobe After Effects. She wouldn't mind spending about $3-4k for the computer but not too much higher. She would not be interested in a Mac.

Common components I was thinking about:

• ATI X800 XT PCIe OR NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra or GT PCIe
• WD Raptor 74 GB Hard Drive (OS and software drive)
• 2 x Seagate SATA 200 or 250 GB Hard Drive in RAID 0 (D drive for video files and/or storage)
• OCZ or Enermax PSU
• Lian-Li case

These are the systems that I was thinking about:

1. Dual Xeon 2.8 - 3.4 GHz 800 FSB Stepping E0
   Supermicro X6DA8-G2 OR Asus NCT-DA
   2 GB or more Corsair PC2-3200 DDR2
2. AMD FX-55
   Asus A8N Premium or SLI (if they ever release them)
   2 GB or more OCZ PC-3200 EB DDR

Now for the questions:

1. Is a video capture card needed for video editing for purely DV video input via Firewire or can a good Matrox card be added later for professional use? Are any of the good capture cards on a faster interface than PCI for a workstation motherboard?
2. Does video editing depend much on the video card or is it more CPU intensive? If it depends more on the video card, wouldn't a SLI configuration help more than another 600 MHz for the CPU?
3. Would more than 2 GB of RAM be recommended or should 2 GB be a good start (I'd be using 1 GB modules)?
4. Would 4 sticks of 512 MB be better on memory than 2 sticks of 1 GB?

So wouldn't a dual xeon or opteron system be more beneficial than a single FX-55 system even if FX-55 is far better on a CPU by CPU comparison (2.8 Xeon or 244 Opteron vs FX-55)?

Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Please don't turn this into an AMD versus Intel battle. I've read every review that I can get my hands on and they are around the same in performance for my concerns.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mrvile]

I can't answer the first two, but 2gb sticks should be a good start. Also, I would get 2 sticks of 1gb ram.

 

[gsellis]

Since it is Premiere, I would go for a fast Intel single. Get the nVidia as Premiere looks for OpenGL performance. If you can swing it, the new 3.8e with 1 or 2GB of mem. Get the 250s as .5T is just starting to get good for such projects. The video card is not a big thing with Premiere, but I might consider a 6600 instead of the 6800 as the video cards encode/decode appear to be a better generation if PP can take advantage of it.

Since output from the XL2 is DV, you just need Firewire. Premiere is CPU intensive and hardly hits the GPU. If you want 2GB, in theory, 4 512s are faster.

Don't forget DVD. A Pioneer 108 or NEC 3500A would be your best bet.

 

[Mrvile]

Originally posted by: gsellis
If you want 2GB, in theory, 4 512s are faster.

Oh?

 

[beatle]

Take a look at this comparison before making a purchase. It looks like AMD has a healthy lead in Premiere.

I'd cut corners on the video card to get a faster CPU. As gsellis mentioned, the GPU is not used in editing/encoding.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: LotusAM
I'm building a completely new computer for my girlfriend who wants to do some video editing right now just for hobby but possibly for a future career (if she likes it enough). She has a Canon XL2 for a camcorder which records in DV format. She would be using mostly Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, and/or Adobe After Effects. She wouldn't mind spending about $3-4k for the computer but not too much higher. She would not be interested in a Mac.

Common components I was thinking about:

• ATI X800 XT PCIe OR NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra or GT PCIe

• 
  
  Unless you want to do some high-end gaming on the side, buying one of these for a video editing rig is insanity. If you also want to run 3D design programs like 3DSMax or Maya, a workstation-class OpenGL card (a Quadro or FireGL) would be a better choice.
  
  

  [*]WD Raptor 74 GB Hard Drive (OS and software drive)

  
  Overkill if this is just for a hobby. I mean, it's helpful, but certainly not necessary. It'll make bootup faster, and it makes your swapfile a little bit less painfully slow, but you'll spend most of your time waiting on the storage drives when loading/saving big files.
  
  

  [*]2 x Seagate SATA 200 or 250 GB Hard Drive in RAID 0 (D drive for video files and/or storage)

  
  Consider even more storage if you intend to do this seriously, and/or setting up a 3- or 4-disk RAID5 for redundancy. You'll probably also want a DVD burner.
  
  

  [*]OCZ or Enermax PSU
  [*]Lian-Li case

Either of those, or Antec, Fortron, Seasonic, ThermalTake, etc. would be fine. Cases are more of a personal preference (although I do like Lian-Li).

These are the systems that I was thinking about:

1. Dual Xeon 2.8 - 3.4 GHz 800 FSB Stepping E0
   Supermicro X6DA8-G2 OR Asus NCT-DA
   2 GB or more Corsair PC2-3200 DDR2
2. AMD FX-55
   Asus A8N Premium or SLI (if they ever release them)
   2 GB or more OCZ PC-3200 EB DDR

Whether or not you want a dual-processor system would depend largely on whether your editing software supports it. If it doesn't, a fast uniprocessor would be better. Also, if you don't want to OC, the regular Athlon64s are about half the price of the FX line, and perform almost identically (the FXs only edge is that they're multiplier unlocked, and they have the 1MB cache from the Opteron server CPUs, but frankly they're all really fast once you get up to 3500+ or so).

Now for the questions:

1. Is a video capture card needed for video editing for purely DV video input via Firewire or can a good Matrox card be added later for professional use? Are any of the good capture cards on a faster interface than PCI for a workstation motherboard?

1. 
   
   DV is captured via Firewire and has nothing to do with a video capture card (which you would use for capturing analog video). PCI has plenty of bandwidth for analog capture, if you need that as well. Matrox video cards are supposed to have good 2D output, but if you're using DVI onto a digital LCD it should be the same on any card.
   
   

   [*]Does video editing depend much on the video card or is it more CPU intensive? If it depends more on the video card, wouldn't a SLI configuration help more than another 600 MHz for the CPU?

   
   Barring a few newer editing programs (which can use DirectX9 video cards for some special effects operations in real time), your video card does absolutely nothing while doing video encoding or editing. NV40 cards may have some amount of hardware encoding acceleration at some point (MPEG2 encoding supposedly works now but nothing supports it yet). If this ever starts working and gets support, I don't know if SLI would make it faster. I wouldn't bank on it, especially given how much this solution would cost. I mean, heck, for the cost of a 6800U today, you could build at least one spare headless system to sit there and encode video 24/7.
   
   

   [*]Would more than 2 GB of RAM be recommended or should 2 GB be a good start (I'd be using 1 GB modules)?

   
   Considering that most programs cannot access more than 2GB of memory under Windows (3GB, at least sometimes, with some registry hacks), probably not. With a 64-bit OS and 64-bit editing/encoding software, it might become more useful.
   
   

   [*]Would 4 sticks of 512 MB be better on memory than 2 sticks of 1 GB?

Not really. Many motherboards will only run at DDR333 with 4 sticks of RAM, and then you can't upgrade later if it becomes desirable.

So wouldn't a dual xeon or opteron system be more beneficial than a single FX-55 system even if FX-55 is far better on a CPU by CPU comparison (2.8 Xeon or 244 Opteron vs FX-55)?

If your software is multithreaded, yes, the dual system would probably be faster. That's pretty obvious. If the software isn't multithreaded, then no -- it'll only run on one CPU at a time (although you could, be encoding in the background on one CPU while using the other to run an editing program at full speed).

 

[Falloutboy]

my recomendation would be unless your going to game on this sytem don't bother with that high end of a card because it won't help in video editing. a good solid AGP dual head Matrox card is all you need for video editing. also I would most likely go with a athlon 64 3400 and use the money you saved over the FX55 to get your self a good editing card. if your going the premier route a matrox X100 is the best way to go thier, if your going to go the Avid route get a MOJO. The editing card will help your performance in the program your using much more the the extra pseed the FX will offer.

go with 1.5GB-2GB of ram. just get a 80gb SATA for the boot/software drive anythine else is overkill since this won't be used for anything that needs the speed. then get a pair of 250gb Sata drives for storage.

but honestly I know you said no mac but the best bang for buck right now in video editing is a Powermac G5 matched up with Final CUt Pro. its so easy to use and very power even without an editing card.

 

[LotusAM]

I doubt anyone is still subscribing to this topic but this is the system that I ended up with:

• Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz
• Supermicro X6DAT-G (SLI capable)
• 2 GB Kingston PC-2700 ECC RAM
• 2 x 74 GB Western Digital Raptor (RAID 0)
• 2 x 300 GB Seagate SATA 7200.8
• MSI 6600 GT (wanted the 6800 GT but couldn't find it cheap enough)
• NEC 3520A DVD-RW drive
• Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
• Enermax 660W EG851AX-VH Power Supply
• Lian-li PC-73SL case

All for around $3k.

Ok, thanks for the help.

 

[stevty2889]

Very nice system, good choices.

 

[imported_waldo]

Nice system!

 

[SirAllen]

Very nice. Are you (or she actually) happy with it? I too am looking to make a new video editing machine (with gaming as a secondary function) and keep going around in circles on the whole multi/single processor issue.

 

[tiap]

SirAllen
LotusAM ended up with a pretty nice machine. Cpu power is what encoding is all about. The more power the faster. A lot of storage is advantageous.
As far as capturing anaolog video or transferring digital video, a p3 900 is adaquate. You don't want to drop frames. Vid card and sound card don't enter into it much.
If you want to game with the same machine, go for the gaming card, just for that.
I use the ati aiw cards since you then have the analog video capabilities as well as dv, plus adequate gaming too at a decent price.

 

[LotusAM]

Originally posted by: SirAllen
Very nice. Are you (or she actually) happy with it? I too am looking to make a new video editing machine (with gaming as a secondary function) and keep going around in circles on the whole multi/single processor issue.

I just finished installing everything yesterday so I haven't really had a chance to play with it too much. I'll keep you posted with how everything goes.

As far as the multi/single processor issue, from what I've read, a multiprocessor system does very little for gaming but can do wonders for video editing. Also, it all depends on what software you're using for editing. Supposedly, Adobe Premiere does really well on Intel processors and multiprocessor systems. I really don't know much about any other software because she's primarily going to be using Premiere. Honestly, if I had another 4 months to wait for a new computer, I would have gone with Opterons on a new Tyan or Abit motherboard that has 2 16x PCIe slots. This has great potential for upgrades when AMD comes out with their dual cores (4 physical CPU cores, nice!) and supposedly all that it will take is a bios update for the Opteron boards.

In summary, an average dual processor system (Xeon 3.2 or Opteron 244) really isn't much more expensive than a top notch single processor system (Athlon 64 FX55 or 4000+). If video editing is your main purpose, go with dual processors. If gaming is your main purpose, go with a single (Athlon 64) processor. For either system, I would recommend PCI Express instead of AGP for future upgrades and better gaming.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you want more info. I could go on and on.

 

[gsellis]

Like I said, I do not think Premiere really benefits from a dual CPU system, BUT... the advantage of such is that you can do multiple tasks while a CPU intensive operation is going on. With the dual, you might be able to print labels/covers/discs, burn ISOs to disc, etc., while encoding in Premiere. You probably would not be able to do that with a single CPU system. So, even though Premiere may not take advantage of it, the system, as built, may have another degree of freedom that a single may not have had. Works for me.

 

[LotusAM]

Originally posted by: gsellis
Like I said, I do not think Premiere really benefits from a dual CPU system

I don't think Premiere 6.5 or previous versions did but I think Premiere Pro has been optimized for hyperthreading and/or dual processors. Check out this PDF (bottom of page 2) talking about hyperthreading:

"Adobe Premiere Pro takes advantage of Intel Pentium 4's hyperthreading technology. That is, if Adobed Premiere Pro detects you have a hyperthreading CPU, it will divide its processing into multiple streams to work faster and more efficiently. The corollary to this is that it also takes advantage of PCs with multiple processors (both non-hyperthreading and hyperthreading)...Theoretically...Adobe Premiere can use up to 16 threads!"
http://www.adobe.com/education/pdf/dvguide/DV_module_5.pdf

Hopefully this is true. I'll let you know what results I get.

 

[Terumo]

For videoediting that setup would be a waste. Waste because her rig wouldn't need most of the hardware.

Unless she's branching into 3D modelling or rendering, she doesn't need dual processors. The exception would be is if she's working on proofs that are like 200+mbs compressed. Now that a dual processor may come in handy.

If she does any large scale illustration, get a rig that can stuff as much memory in it as possible. A server motherboard with 8gigs would be wonderful (goto the Hubble image site and download one of their compressed TIFF/JPEG files of 200mb, and see how much memory it can eat [over 2gigs] ). That way she could work at print resolution quality.

What matters in 2D is memory/HDD. For print a lot memory/HDD. For 3D ultimate processing power, memory and HDD.

1. As for videocards. If she's building a pro rig, get the pro cards. They're tweaked for the programs. Wildcats or Quantros. Matrox cards used to be a very good bridge card between desktop and workstation. They are still the preferred cards to use in medical offices/labs -- gives excellent resolutions of X-Rays (which is hard to "see" well on computers).

2. A single processor would do for video editing, and in some cases might be faster than a dual solution.

3. If she's doing web work and not doing much else, 2gigs would do fine. If she does large scale illustration, find a motherboard that can hold the most memory possible (32gig option would be nice for mural size work). You don't need fancy memory for 2D work, what counts is how much that can be stuffed into the board. Longhorn will be coming up in a year, with hopefully the 2gig memory barrier removed too.

4. Yes. Not in speed, but to reduce memory errors. Also cheaper to replace a smaller stick if it fries, there's safety in numbers.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: LotusAM

Originally posted by: gsellis
Like I said, I do not think Premiere really benefits from a dual CPU system

I don't think Premiere 6.5 or previous versions did but I think Premiere Pro has been optimized for hyperthreading and/or dual processors. Check out this PDF (bottom of page 2) talking about hyperthreading:

"Adobe Premiere Pro takes advantage of Intel Pentium 4's hyperthreading technology. That is, if Adobed Premiere Pro detects you have a hyperthreading CPU, it will divide its processing into multiple streams to work faster and more efficiently. The corollary to this is that it also takes advantage of PCs with multiple processors (both non-hyperthreading and hyperthreading)...Theoretically...Adobe Premiere can use up to 16 threads!"
http://www.adobe.com/education/pdf/dvguide/DV_module_5.pdf
Hopefully this is true. I'll let you know what results I get.

That's good news then.

 

[servinginecuador]

Originally posted by: LotusAM
Hope this helps. Let me know if you want more info. I could go on and on.

PLEASE, go on and on!! I am about to pull the trigger on a dual Opteron 246 system for doing some serious Adobe After Effects 6.5 and Premiere Pro 1.5 DV editing. My current computer, a P4 2.8GHz based system with 1G of RAM, (4) hard drives in two RAID 0 arrays, a Matrox RT.X100 board, runs SUPER slow using AE 6.5 Pro. I can't get above 3-4 frames/second doing even the most basic of operations, and it shoudl run at the full 29.97 fps. I am looking at getting the Tyan K8WE, dual Opteron 246, nVidia FX Quadro 1400, 2GB of RAM, (4) 300GB Maxtor MaxLine SATA drives, etc.

I keep hearing that a single CPU system will offer near equal performance, but haven't seen much in the way of reviews or testing to say one way or the other. It would be nice to hear about the advantage(s) of running a dual Opteron system (or Xeon for that matter) when it comes to editing large amounts of DV. It is incredibly CPU intensive to do certain effects and such in After Effects 6.5 Pro, and I am assuming that a dual processor system will make short work of these effects.

Is it a waste of money to go this route, or not?? Can anyone point me to a review of a single CPU vs. dual CPU system for doing DV editing and such to see if there is any data supporting one or the other?

 

[rapidzone]

Servingecuador... I am also going to build a DV premiere editor. I've got to have something together by April 1. I have done some comparisons AMD vs. Intel. I prefer AMD, but so far Intel w/ HT is much faster. I did a heads-up compare of an Athlon64 3200 vs. a Pen4 3.4 w/ HT. The Pen4 was more than twice as fast at render and 30% faster encoding to mpeg2.

I would prefer to build a dual Opteron 244 system, but would like to see a real-world comparison vs. a fast single. Email me if you would like to talk more about this. I could use another brain to hash this out with. I know PC/server hardware, but I'm new to video editing. jeremy*temp@rapidzone.com Note: take the * out to email...

 

[daniel1113]

If she is really serious about DV editing, she should have bought a turn-key system that can provide real-time playback of multiple video/audio tracks with various effects, such as a Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme Pro, Avid Digital Nonlinear Accelerator, or a similar product from Pinnacle (it's been a while since I've seen their product line).

It may seem like overkill now, but if she decides to make a profession out of video editing, she will need it.