Capable PC

[Lars Siden]

Motherboard:

ASUS P6X58D-E, X58, Socket-1366

CPU:

Intel i7 930 ( 2.8 ghz original, mine at 4.0 )

CPU Cooler:

Corsair H50 watercooling system(for novices)

PSU:

Corsair HX 750W PSU

Memory DDR3 12gb:

Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz 12GB CL9

Graphics:

Gainward GeForce GTX 480 1536MB PhysX (with a Thermalright Spitfire cooler for a more quiet operation)

Case:

Coolermaster HAF 932

My Disk setup:

1x Intel G2 160gb SSD for OS and some apps
1x Intel G2 80gb SSD for Apps
1x Vertex SSD for temps & scratch

2x1TB Sata2 HDD for storage & content

Add any DVD and/or BluRay device that you need

// Lasse

[Ryan Koss]

Thanks a lot! With that setup, CS5 should run well?

[Lars Siden]

Extremly well :-)

I don't think you can get a much better setup without paying twice as much

// Lasse

[Jay West]

<<Recommendations>>

Lars has spec-ed an excellent machine. It may be beyond your budget. Another recipe that many of us have used comes from one of the DVinfo sponsors, Videoguys. Here's a link to their recipe with components:

Videoguys Blog - Videoguys' DIY7.7: Intel Core i7 with Vista 64 AND Now Windows 7

Videoguys does not assemble the things, does not sell kits. and, except for Blu-Ray burners and and Quadro display cards, does not sell the components. A lot of folks use Newegg as a source for components which would be convenient for you. However, with you being in San Jose, you might (or might not) find similar or better deals by wandering through the equipment stores in your town.

Three things to consider with the Videoguys specs.

(a) Their recommended system CPU is an I7/920. But the newer I7/930 CPUs seem to be less expensive and also seem to run a bit cooler than the I7/920. I'd say: get the I7/930.

(b) If you get an ASUS motherboard, ASUS has a utility program (run from the BIOS) called AI Tweaker which basically lets the motherboard automatically control overclocking. Basically, the software monitors heat and other such parameters and gives you some overclocking while reining it in if things get too hot. This allows for somewhat higher performance without having to master the details that overclocking might otherwise entail.

(c) The Videoguys' recipe includes nVidia Quadro display cards (which Adobe also recommends). You do not necessarily need a Quadro card for what you want to do. The much higher price of the Quadro cards reflects some extra features (such as special software-hardware acceleration of encoding) and a much better telephone support team. These things are important to some folks who use this stuff to earn their living. While I use this stuff to earn my living, I've also been very content to use a GTX 260. Lars has recommended one of the nVidia based cards that are replacing or have replaced the GTX2xx series. Looks like a good choice.

Lars's system uses SSD's (solid state drives.) These are much more expensive than regular hard drives. I really want some but haven't yet found the budget for them. They certainly can make your life with CS5 better but: (a) you can add them later when budget allows and workflow requires; and (b) you still get good performance from SATA drives which are much less expensive right now.

Also, I think Randal Leong started a thread on computer cases for editing machines, and you should look at that when deciding on the case to buy.

The recommendations we have been giving you are for the computer "box." They have not included some things you will definitely need unless you already have a keyboard, mouse and monitor sitting around. You will need a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, and a decent size monitor. DVinfo has a whole forum on monitors. (It may be educational for you or it might just be too much information so that you just go over to Costco and buy whatever 24" monitor(s) they have on sale.)

Finally, in budgeting for your system, do not forget to a battery-back up/UPS unit. (Our local Costco has Trip-Lite units on sale for $99 so think about that in setting your budget.)

[Ryan Koss]

Alright, thanks for all of your help! I am currently adding everything to my cart on newegg and was wondering which nvidia gtx 260 you recommend -

Newegg.com - PNY VCGGTX260CXPB GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

or the overclocked

Newegg.com - MSI N260GTX Twin Frozr OC GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card



Also

This is what I have so far - I know I need a case and a hard drive, but is there anything else? As far as the hard drives go, I'm somewhat confused. Does anyone have a cost effective option (ie no ssd's)?


MSI N260GTX Twin Frozr OC GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active ...

ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930

CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50-1 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler

CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model

This brings the total to almost $1,300, which is what I want to spend. However, I still don't have the hard drive added.

Any recommendations of how to cut the cost would be greatly appreciated.

[Harm Millaard]

You only need a case (Lian LI PC-A77F for example) and a bigger PSU (850 W +) and the largest number of Samsung F3's you can afford for storage and a Velociraptor for the boot disk.

[Lars Siden]

Harm,

Personally I'd take a Coolermaster case over a Lian Li everyday of the week ;-)

Velociraptor or SSD? The raptor is almost as expensive, it is loud and gets really hot... a SSD is PURE power ( and there are several 80gb SSD for about 150 USD )

isn't 1gb the minimun gfx-memory recommended for running CUDA with Prem Pro?

// Lasse

[Ryan Koss]

Right now I am trying to bring the price down - anyone have any suggestions as to how?

[Lars Siden]

hmm, what to do to get the price down:

1. Go for HDD only, hit the sweet spot of 750gb/1tb drives. Get at least 2 and run them in strip(raid 0) - or better get 4 and run 2 stripe sets with 2 drives each

2. Use the original CPU cooler (intel) - will do if you don't plan to overclock

3. You can use a smaller PSU if you aren't overclocking + getting a less power hungry gfx card. This will be a good candidate: Fractal Design Newton R2 650W

4. Last resort, go for 6gb DDR3 memory for now, add more when you have more money

// Lasse

[Ryan Koss]

Does that mean I won't need the hydro cooling if I don't plan on overclocking?

[Lars Siden]

Ryan,

The Intel stock cooler will be just fine if you don't overclock

// Lasse

[Jay West]

Ryan --

1. If you don't overclock (other than using the ASUS AI tweaker on auto), you can use the stock fan that comes with the I7. But, I'd suggest getting a small tube of Arctic Silver thermal compound. (It's inexpensive and is carried by everybody from NewEgg to RadioShack.). Spread a thin layer over top of the CPU before snapping the cooling fan into place. Gives you better dispersion of heat off the CPU through the fan.

2. Remember that you want at least two hard drives, one for the system/OSs/prgrams and one for the media files. Videoguys recommended Hitachi 1tb SATA 7200rpm Deskstars and Harm MIllaard recommended 1 tb 7200 rpm Samsung F3s. NewEgg carries both of them and both are (I think) about $75 apiece. Sometimes they sell "bare" drives for less, which means that you need to buy the connecting cables separately. Sometimes the ASUS motherboards come with SATA cables -- check the NewEgg product page for the mobo and see what is included in the mobo box.

3. You also will need a DVD burner or Blu-Ray burner. You will need this to be able to install the operating system and software besides later burning DVDs when you edit projects. (The first thing you do when you've got everything up assembled is put a Windows 7 disk in the drive and use it to format your disks and then install an operating system.)

[Steve Kalle]

Lars, its nice to see a fellow SSD user/advocate. I also have several Intel X25 80GB (3 total in 3 PCs). I totally agree that it doesn't make any sense to get a Velociraptor now that the price of Intel SSDs have fallen so much (and will drop even more within the next 2 months once the 25nm-SSDs start shipping).

However, I totally disagree with you :p about Lian Li and Coolermaster. I have a giant Lian Li case that will last me forever. It was $300, holds 12 3.5" HDDs, has 9 5.25" bays and can hold 2 PSU's. Oh yeah, its extremely quiet too.

Ryan, a good and inexpensive way to get near Velociraptor performance is by getting a 500GB drive and 'Short Stroking' - this works by using only the first 80GB of the drive where it is the fastest. Google 'Short Stroking' and you will find several benchmarks. I recommend Seagate or Hitachi because I know for certain that both companies provide free software to set the drive to a smaller size. According to the short stroking reviewers, its not good enough just to create an 80GB partition - you must use the software to change the size. Don't worry, you can easily go back in and reset the drive to its full capacity (I have done so with SeaTools - Seagate's free software).

For the GTX 260, get the PNY that has 216 cores. I have the PNY in my home PC and it comes with a lifetime warranty.

Check if Microcenter is near you because they have the i7 930 for only $199, and they will match newegg's prices. Another place to check out is TigerDirect.com because I don't think they are in CA so you won't have to pay CA's huge sales tax.

I wouldn't worry about the Thermal Paste because the Intel cooler already has it pre-applied. For a novice, its a pain to apply the correct amount of paste and evenly.

If you haven't done so already, immediately sign up for newegg's newsletter because they email coupons every week and only those registered can use these coupons. I recently saw a coupon for the Seagate 7200.12 1TB drive for $60 and the Hitachi 2TB drive for $119. They usually limit the coupons to 1 drive or 5 drives so be aware.

One more tip: the 'Home Premium' version of Windows 7 limits the ram to 16GB whereas the 'Pro' and Ultimate are around 128GB.

On a side note: I am not trying to change your mind here but I need to clarify an important difference between 'gaming' graphics cards and 'workstation' cards such as the Quadro. The gaming cards are designed for games (duh) and new drivers are released all the time. They aren't tested for maximum compatibility with professional software. They are tested to provide the best performance with games. One major difference I have noticed since moving to a Quadro in my work PC is no damn BSODs due to the nvidia geforce driver, which I was experiencing in 2 different PCs with different Geforce cards and Win 7 in both. Over half the time, I was using either 'XP Mode' or VMWare Workstation - a professional application. Since using the Quadro, I have not seen a single BSOD. Furthermore, PNY, who sells the Quadro, will create a custom driver for your system if needed (and you have one of their Quadro's).

[Lars Siden]

Steve,

:-) OT: It is amazing how users from all around the world can get together in quality forums like this, helping each other.

My main reason for the Coolermaster is that it is one of the few cases that are "certified by Nvidia" - cooling a Geforce 480 is tough business!

You hade some excellent advice for Bryan, I hope that he will get himself a good machine!

I was tempted to buy a Quadro card, but since my Wife want me to have LESS computers, this is a combo-box for Gaming, DAW, NLE and coding (my main profession is MS Developer/Systems Architect)

// Lasse

[Jay West]

Ryan:

Consider the Quadro cards if you will using your machine to run graphics-intensive professional applications other than what is in CS5. But, your plan is to use the machine at school to run CS5, some office productivity apps (word processing etc), and maybe a game or two, right? My opinion is that, with that plan and your budget, a GTX card should be fine.

I've been running a PNY GTX260 for a year with with CS4 and now CS5. I use the machine only for video and audio editing, Photoshop and related tasks. I've connected a scanner (for importing photos and OCR of program handouts for cast lists and members of wedding parties, etc.), and a printer (for printing DVDs and photos), I run a dual monitor setup with an MXO2 Mini and and a Sony TV for external editing. I have Open Office for when I need it. I run WinPatrol and Norton 360 (came with the motherboard), and a couple of the mobo apps. Never had a BSOD (blue screen of death crash).

On updates: As Steve notes, gamer cards get frequent updates and the engineers don't always pay attention to (or even seem to care about) anything but games. My suggestion is to turn off automatic updating of video drivers and software and only update after you've checked forums like this for reports of problems with your applications. If there are problems and everything is working, hold off on the update. That said, the only problem I've had with updating my PNY GTX260 came when I installed Avid MC5 and the software reported that it wanted an earlier version of the nVidia drivers before it would install. No such problems now that I've updated after installation. (I've got both MC5 and CS5 because I've been editing video for a while and I accumulated relatively inexpensive upgrade rights. This won't be an immediate problem for you.)

Regarding the sales tax: Tiger Direct collects sales taxes for shipments to some states but not others, and California seems to be one of the others for whom TD does not collect the tax. The advantage of NewEgg or a local vendor is, despite the sales tax, they have good return policies in case you get a dead component and they will be close to hand. In the past, Tiger Direct has had some issues on that side of the business. I haven't bought anything from them recently, so I'd suggest checking up on this.

On thermal paste: I did not know that the I7/930 kit comes with thermal compound already applied. When I got my I7/920 last year, I didn't see anything in the instructions nor on the cooler surfaces or the CPU, so I ran down to our local Radio Shack to buy a tube of Arctic Silver. If the I7/930 already has thermal compound, save yourself the $3.