Capable PC

[Ryan Koss]

So, I was going to buy an HP 380t for working with HD footage on CS5, but users on the forum have convinced myself and others that this may not be a great choice.

Here is a link to the HP 380t - HP Pavilion Elite HPE-380t series | HP Official Store

I would get it with:
1tb hard drive
2 gb ati graphics card
intel i7 quad core

It seems like a perfect computer at a great price for editing, but with one flaw - it only has one hard drive.

Could I add a hard drive, making it a great choice for editing on?

I am not looking to build my own as I am moving off to college. I am looking for a pc with this kind of power in the $1,300 and under range.

Also, would it be better to go with the 2GB ATi graphics card or the 1GB ATi graphics card with 2 hdmi, which is more expensive?

[John Stakes]

Ryan,
there is nothing wrong with that system. Gurus in general tend to stay away from HP but they are not the worst out there. I hear good things about Dell. But what does college have to do with not building your own? It will be much cheaper.

Anyhow, you can easily add a hard drive to the system. One thing you may want to check is the graphics card. I would recommend getting a 128-bit (I'm not sure what they are offering, but the last 5450 I saw was only 64-bit). Other than that, just be sure it has the connections to support what you need to do.

JS

[Ryan Koss]

Thanks for the response. I just want to make sure that i will be able to run Premiere CS5 without a problem.

Do you have any recommendations for another hard drive? I think it would be worth it so that not everyting is going through one.

I will look at Dell, but I have had much better experience with HP.

As far as not building one goes, I do not have the knowledge nor the time to make one. I like that HP offeres a 2 year warranty as well.

[John Stakes]

It's common to keep your OS on the main drive and everything else on a separate drive. I've had great experience with the "Western Digital Caviar Black," you might like the 5 year warranty. This - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=488.

JS

[Ryan Koss]

Looks cool. Is this something that I could use externally through a fire wire or something?

[Craig Coston]

Ryan,

If you want to add a hard drive, I would just look at adding a 1TB or 2TB drive that is 7200 RPM and has a SATAII connection. You should be able to find a variety relatively cheap on Newegg.com .

As far as the video card, CS5 will not be hardware accelerated (Mercury Playback Engine) on an ATI card. Upgrade that system to the Nvidia GTX 260. You'll find it the most important upgrade you can do on that system.

Dell's quality has gone downhill the past year or so. That may just be my opinion, but I've been a BIG Dell supporter over the years and have watched them go from using solid, reliable components that made their computers better than the rest to a company that just cares about the bottom line. That means getting someone in Tech support from India as well. I have no problem with that and don't mean to demean anyone, but it seems to me that the level of support often is left wanting. It's not just a Dell thing, it's across the industry.

Here's another HP option from Newegg that would get the job done. Whoever did the wiring inside needs to be fired though. I would definitely NOT overclock something stuffed in a case like that with cables shoved everywhere.

Newegg.com - HP Pavilion Elite E9180F(NP267AA#ABA) Intel Core i7 920(2.66GHz) 9GB DDR3 1TB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

[Ryan Koss]

Thanks a lot for all of your help, Craig.

That HP model seems to be an older model, but I'll definitely upgrade to the nvidia graphics card!

I can also customize the hard drive so that I can have either -

1TB RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA HDDs)

or

3TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s - two 1.5TB hard drives

So, if I do this while ordering, I wont have a need for an external hard drive. It seems that if i do one of these upgrades it will solve my problems and I will be set?

[Randall Leong]

I would not recommend just a single RAID 0 array for everything (this is exactly what the HP's RAID 0 option is) with no other drive to supplement it. This is because if anything, editing using such a configuration would be even slower than using a single drive. RAID 0 basically stripes the two hard drives so that Windows detects the entire array as a single 1TB drive volume (with two 500GB hard drives). Unfortunately, while a RAID 0 array is fast at either read or write, it is extremely sluggish at doing both simultaneously (this is what you would encounter during video editing and encoding/transcoding).

[Ryan Koss]

Alright, would you then suggest I get 3TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s - two 1.5TB hard drives?

[Jay West]

A quick scan through that link you provided indicates that you may be able to get this machine with a GTX 260 nVidia video card. Assuming this option is a normal GTX260 and not some special weird thing made only for HP, it should run the Mercury Playback Engine under CS5. (I'm using a GTX 260 in my system.) This is a good thing for your plans.

Factor in the cost of a good UPS unit. A surge protector alone is not enough.

The power supply is small. Basically, you won't want to add much stuff to the inside of this computer (except maybe some fans to help cool the thing). If you later want to add drives besides those in the box, you should look at external drives.

For the hard drives, get the two separate drives rather than the RAID 0 set-up. The Raid 0 set-up makes the Raid your system drive as well as your media drive and you want to avoid that. If nothing else, it really slows down your system for video editing as Randall says. The extra space on your system drive is not a wate. For one thing, drive and program responsiveness slows way down as the drives fill up. A large portion of empty space will make the system seem a lot snappier. Also, the extra space means you have a place to park files like your Adobe Encore DVD projects. Writing those files that way is much less taxing than working with everything on the same drive.

Finally, it did not look like HP offers a Blu-Ray burner as an option. When I scanned the options, it looked as though you only could get a Blu-ray player, not a burner. You might consider getting lesser HP optical drive with a plan to replace it with Blu-ray burner/reader like the Pioneer BD205 when funds permit..

[Ryan Koss]

Yeah, Ill be getting the nvidia 260 as well as the 3gb (2x1.5GB sata hard drives)

So with these specs, along with 9GB RAM and an intel i7 930 quad core processor, I'll be all set?

[Lars Siden]

Ryan, I don't want to be a lemon - I've had 2 HP machines none of them survived for long when I did serious work on them ( NLE + coding - I'm a computer developer ). My main points against HP are

1. They often use their own or re-branded motherboards that are stripped down to support exactly what the specification says

2. The cooling solution in the provided case, will it be able to coop with the extended heat from running NLE for a whole day? The i7 930 gets seriously hot when loaded to 100% with hyperthreading enabled ( in the 85-90 C range )

Is it really so much cheaper to buy a HP compared to a custom built PC? It doesn't have to be custom built for NLE, a serious gaming machine with a Nvidia Fermi(CUDA) card will be as good(or better)

Just my 2 cents...

Good luck!

// Lasse

ps. And yes, I build all my machines myself these days, cheaper + I choose all components ds.

[Jay West]

[So with these specs, along with 9GB RAM and an intel i7 930 quad core processor, I'll be all set?[/QUOTE]

All set? Does that mean, "will it work?" or does it mean "will I be happy with the machine?"

What you've got is more capable than some of the laptops that some folks are happily using to edit CS5 video. So, can you use the HP for editing with PPro? Sure, and for a bunch of other things, as well.

But many folks who start using PPro find that their needs/wants increase as they do more work with the program. If that happens, you will find your options for increasing capacity with the HP box are very limited. If you start working with bigger projects --- the kind of situations that Lars described --- you are likely to run into cooling issues with this kind of box. It may result in serious slowdowns, it may result in crashes, or just general weirdness, or you may just cook your machine. When that happens, you either spend a lot more money to buy a more capacious pre-built machine or you wind up going the self--assembled route we've recommended that you start with.

Or maybe, when at school, you will be mostly working in a campus editing lab with more capable set-ups?

So, how "set" you are and for how long isn't something we can answer for you.

[David Knarr]

Ryan

The system you are looking at will work fine for CS5. One thing, CS5 can run the Mercury Playback Engine in hardware mode with an NVidia card. At GT240, GTS250 or GTX260 with 1 gig would be a good choice and will keep you in your budget.

To unlock Premiere CS5 to use one of the NVidia cards mentioned above check out this article:
Adobe Premiere CS5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Hack Mod Tip Unlock

Just add a second hard drive and you are set.

[Ryan Koss]

Alrght, I am not a professional editor - I just love film and enjoy editing when I have footage. I think for that, I will be fine with the HP.

However, I may have someone to help me make a PC as well. Does anyone have a link to a complete list of components and parts that I will need to create this beast?

I would hate to configure this myself because I am not the most knowledgeable when it comes to compatibility with motherboards,video cards, etc.

Thanks