I plan to benchmark it in a number of Apps in the near future, and also compare XP32 to XP64.

I'd love to benchmark my system but have no idea how. Can you point me in the right direction?

ALSO: I understand that the best configuration for storage is to have Windows and CS3 installed on the System Drive and to use the RAID 0 for footage storage and creating the rendered files, yes? Is it also better to have the project file saved on the RAID or is that insignificant?

And the Media Cache Database? Where should that be? It defaults to My Documents\Adobe\Common...

The way you have is it to my understanding the best. Adobe has a page on this, but it depends how many drives you have. IIRC, you have the system drive and then everything else is all together in RAID 0, right?

Here's how I'm planning on setting up my new beast:

Drive 0 -- System drive with XP, CS3, Cineform, etc. Nothing not video-related.

Drive 1 + 2 (2 x 1TB in RAID 0) -- All captured Video

Drive 3 + 4 (2 x 1TB in RAID 0) -- All other assets and media cache

Drive 5 (Single 1 TB drive) -- render and preview files

This way reading and writing are mostly on different physical drives at any one time, and we'd never be trying to pull both video and audio from the same drive simultaneously. I think.

Here's the Adobe link:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/3.0/help.html?content=WS6FD6C7B1-11DF-45c4-9703-4288DDE57377.html

These days it is almost always better to aggregate the performance available from your drives into a single array. This is better for file management and flexibility, and will almost always provide higher performance as well. (Given a good controller) It also is easier to add security, getting Raid5 with one more drive.

Mike,

I thought that my plan above would get me the best of both worlds, as no controller would ever know what the actual files were and by putting audio and video on physically separate arrays, we'd never have to worry about a bottleneck if the system tried to retrieve them simultaneously from the same place. But if I read you right this isn't really an issue and I'm just over-thinking this? What if we did one system drive, 4 1TB drives in RAID5 for all assets, and one render destination drive? Would that make more sense and not sacrifice speed?

Also, a while back you referred to multipliers perhaps being a factor, that is, you have to use 667MHz RAM with a 1333 FSB (confirmed by the manual), and the CPU speed might be better if the multiplier is more even? For example, a 2.66GHz CPU might be more efficient than a 2.83 or 3.0 with a 1333 FSB? Or is this a non-issue?

I'm placing my order soon and the 5430 chip is looking like a lot of bang for the buck, if not the fastest CPU, and at 2.66 GHz is exactly a 2:1 ratio to the FSB.

Thought I'd ask a question.

I have two computers at home, the one specified above (the 8 core Xeon) and I also have a Q6600.

To compare them it's obvious which would be the better machine:

2 x Quad Core X5450 3.00GHz
4GB RAM
2 x 7800 (one GT & one GTX) GPU

vs
Quad Core 6600 2.4GHz
2GB RAM
1 x 8600GT

I have started running both PCs simultaneously to test the speed difference in particular tasks.

CS3 loads within about 2 seconds on the 8 core, and takes about 4 on the 6600. Importing clips on the 8 core is faster, everything is pretty much. Things just happen faster. Rendering is slightly faster.

However, I thought I'd test to see where the extra money went on this super computer when it came to Magic Bullet Looks. I put a short clip (365 frames) into Magic Bullet Looks to test.

I created the exact same project on both PCs at the same time and placed the same clip in it and applied the same filters in Magic Bullet Looks. On the 8 core, it was instantly more sluggish, even just clicking on the look preset took a second or so for it to apply to the preview, whereas on the 6600 it happened instantly.

Then I clicked OK and finally pressed return to start the render.

$100 if you guess which one finished first and $1,000 if you guess the margain!

The Q6600 took 1:03 (one minute, three seconds) to finish.

It took the server, with twice the cores and twice the ram an extra 2 minutes!!!! 3:03 (three minutes, three seconds) exactly.

The computer which is supposed to be amazing was almost three times slower than the humble 6600. How the heck can this be?

Magic Bullet uses the GPU, right? And surely the 7800 is faster than the 8600, right? Everything about the 8 core PC is better and faster... except using Magic Bullet and rendering its effects...

How can this be?

I've attached the spreadsheet of my tests, including the time taken to complete renders as well as the average CPU performance.

EDIT: RE the tests, the only other thing that confused me was that the size of the AVI that HD Link created from the MP4 was different on both computers. Just over a MB larger on the 6600. Anyone know why? I definitely had the exact same conversion settings.

EDIT Vol. 2: I am also getting a large amount of "An error caused Premiere Pro to close" or whatever messages on the dual xeon machine - almost every time I use it! Could it be possible that I just need to re-install it?

This is all very sobering.

Have you installed these?:

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Adobe_Premiere_Pro_Update_for_Intel_SSE4.1

This is all very sobering.

Have you installed these?:

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Adobe_Premiere_Pro_Update_for_Intel_SSE4.1

No, I had no idea that site even existed. I'll do it now but it looks like it only improves specific things so I don't know if it will improve Magic Bullet...

Do people think it could be a graphics card issue?

I was wondering the same thing. Also, how are your HDDs set up on your old PC?

I'd read elsewhere that dual quads were in some cases slower than older solo quads. Perhaps those plug-ins and the impending release of SP3 will improve the situation.

I was wondering the same thing. Also, how are your HDDs set up on your old PC?

I'd read elsewhere that dual quads were in some cases slower than older solo quads. Perhaps those plug-ins and the impending release of SP3 will improve the situation.

Hope so. The dual quads are DEFINITELY faster than the single quad in everything other than Magic Bullet. I have no concerns about it other than that. In all other tasks it flies.

But the crashing issue... you don't suppose the guy I referred to earlier, who posted on NewEgg that Premiere "doesn't work" on the 5450, could be right?

This one is easy, and you even said the answer without realizing it. The 7800 GPUs are much faster than the 8600 GPU. I have mentioned that before. The 8600 is definitely not a performance chip, and the 7800 is. That is why magic bullet is so much slower.

The 8 denotes the generation, but the 6 denotes that it is a mid performance card in that generation. The 7800 is a high performance card of the previous generation. As a rule of thumb for Nvidia, it usually takes two generations for a new mid level card to beat an older high end card, or for a new low end card to beat an older mid level card. (An 8400 should not be expected to beat a 7600, but might be faster that a 6600, and your 8600 might beat a 6800.)

Hey Mike--

Any thoughts about John's problem with Premiere crashing, and about the multiplier issue you raised a while back that I mentioned a few posts ago?

Any opinions would be most appreciated. I've got my system on hold until we sort this out...

Not sure on the Premiere crashes, many variables, many possible reasons. For the multiplier, use a 2.66 or 3.0Ghz CPU for 1333mhz FSB, or 2.8, 3.0, or 3.2Ghz for 1600mhz FSB. The bus is "quad pumped" so the true FSB frequency is 1/4 that. (333mhz or 400mhz respectively) Make sure that speed divides evenly into your clock speed, and preferably your RAM speed. (667 or 800 respectively)

That's what I needed to know. Thanks, Mike... looks like I'm going with a 5430 (2.66) or 50 (3.0), not 40 (2.83)...

This one is easy, and you even said the answer without realizing it. The 7800 GPUs are much faster than the 8600 GPU. I have mentioned that before. The 8600 is definitely not a performance chip, and the 7800 is. That is why magic bullet is so much slower.

The 8 denotes the generation, but the 6 denotes that it is a mid performance card in that generation. The 7800 is a high performance card of the previous generation. As a rule of thumb for Nvidia, it usually takes two generations for a new mid level card to beat an older high end card, or for a new low end card to beat an older mid level card. (An 8400 should not be expected to beat a 7600, but might be faster that a 6600, and your 8600 might beat a 6800.)

I see what you're saying here but I think you've got it backwards.

You're saying Magic Bullet would work better with the 7800 than the 8600. That's what I expected.

But the 7800s are in the 5450 machine and the 8600 is in the 6600.

Yet I'm still getting slower Magic Bullet performance from the 5450 with 7800s than I am from the 6600 and the 8600. So basically, the 8600 is doing a better job than the 7800s.

Let me tell you my story about these 7800s though just in case there may be a detail in here that could be related to the cause:

As my way of maintaining full screen video preview in a Cineform project, I specifically didn't want an 8 series card. Already owning an ASUS 7800GT, I bought an XFX 7800GTX on eBay and these two GPUs ended up in my new system (the dual xeon system).

I made sure than the technician did not update the gpu driver to the current ones because the current drivers for the 7 series are identical to the 8 series drivers and as such, disable full screen video.

When I installed Magic Bullet, it told me there was an Open GL error with the GPU. It still installed, but it blue screen of deathed and my computer would reset about half the time that I edited the look in Magic Bullet.

So I started trouble shooting. I had had success on my previous PC with Magic Bullet and the ASUS 7800GT so I thought it could be the XFX 7800GTX that was presenting the trouble.

I removed the 7800GTX and tried again. This time I did not get the Open GL error, and I thought that the problem might be solved. However, after enough testing, Magic Bullet did restart my computer.

So, as a last resort, I finally decided to update the drivers from the nVidia website. After I did that, Magic Bullet worked just fine. So I have a functioning Magic Bullet at the cost of full screen video in Cineform (which is very annoying).

However, Magic Bullet is not going anywhere near as fast as it is on my 6600 with the 8600GT.

So I'm confused. Is this a GPU issue?


Also, the HDD on my 6600 is just a single 250GB drive. System and footage are all on the one drive.

Hi Mike ( McCarthy )

I called a computer store this week, and the salesman told me
that the memory on a motherboard for Xeon chips, is different than regular motherboards. Is this true ? , if so I'm guessing I would be looking at higher RAM prices for 4 gigs I would buy.

I'm looking at this board, which somebody in the know suggested:
he motherboard somebody suggested to me is this one:
http://supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5400/X7DWA-N.cfm

MODEL: X7DWA-N

One thing I have wondered, - will buying a dual cpu chip system cut the time by 1/2 in rendering out movies in Premiere Pro for example ?

Also, - having 2 Xeon chips ( I'm thinking of going Quad Core ) - will there be an advantage in other areas of computer work, or would it only be seen when the computer is rendering video ?

Thanks for any ideas Mike.

Dave.

Yes, dual Xeon workstation MBs require Buffered DIMMs which are more expensive. You performance won't always double with twice the number of cores, unless your software is well threaded, but you will see performance gains regardless. It is a situation of decreasing marginal returns, with two cores almost doubling performance, 4 cores being a noticable but less dramatic change, and 8 cores will not see any visible increases with cetain software. Other software like 3D rendering will be almost exactly 8 times faster with 8 cores. it depends on the application. 4 cores is currently probably the most efficient setup for people on a limited budget.

I have that motherboard as well, and you've provided your own answer: the page you linked to says:

Up to 64GB DDR2 800* / 667 / 533
SDRAM Fully Buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM)

That's the kind of memory you need. To my knowledge it's not much more expensive than any other kind. At least not in relation to the price of the system.

Don't count on blazing improvements improvements in rendering times, depending on your software. I have two Xeon 5430s in my system, and while they benchmark at roughly fifteen times the speed of my old system, rendering times are only improved slightly, even with a fast RAID array that blows my old disks out of the water. When I render only three of the eight cores seem to be doing anything at all, and the average CPU usage is only around 16%. This is likely due to Premiere not really being optimized for multiple cores, from what I've read.

Just my 2 cents...

Thanks for the info, both of you.

I guess I really have to wonder if I need the extra expense of a dual cpu Xeon machine.

Perhaps you can give me some insight on what I may really need.

I am not a professional. The max I do is 1 hour HDV tapes.

Right now, I'm using a 3.2 Ghz maching, Intel, with old HT technology on it.
I have 2 gigs of memory in there. The computer is about 3 years old.

Things are slow on it. 1 hour of HDV footage ( about 12 gigs) took me just over 22 hours to render awhile back in Premiere Pro. NO special effects, just a single tiny graphic overlay ( logo ) exported to .wmv file format at 720p. Nothing special.

My original thoughts were to buy a new computer with a 2.40 or 2.66 Intel Quad Core chip, with 4 gigs of memory.

I'm still thinking that this is the cheapest bang for the buck.

- Will I see a really big increase in speed ?, I would assume so, but I have never seen any specs, or personal experience listed in terms of rendering speed increases etc.

Dave.

It's hard to say exactly, but my "old" PC was similar to yours, maybe a little older but similar specs. On that PC, using Premiere with Cineform (first the included license with 1.5.1 and later Aspect HD with CS3) I was getting render times about 10x real time -- that is, a 15 min piece took about 2 1/2 hours to render.

Now on the new PC render times are close to real time for cuts only, about 3x real time with color correction applied, which I understand is very CPU-intensive. But again, my new CPUs are only running at about 16% during rendering.

Other threads have implied that Win XP SP3 will dramatically improve this once it's released.

At the moment, the best bang for the buck, by far, is the Xeon 5410, as calculated by dividing its Passmark CPU benchmark score into its price. This may or may not be a valid calculation, but hey....

A Core2 Quad sounds like it would be a good choice for you. Xeons aren't necessatily required for HDV.

Hi Mike,

Thank you for the information.

Do you think going from an Intel Quad Core 2.4 to a 2.66 is going to get my rendering times down quite a bit ? ( I'm just not sure it's worth the extra $300 or whatever it is for the extra bit of speed in that chip )

Dave.


A Core2 Quad sounds like it would be a good choice for you. Xeons aren't necessatily required for HDV.

Hey guys, I have a question I want to ask about hard drives...

I am planning to eventually build a video editing capable CPU some time in the future but cannot completely budget the entire set up just yet. So, since I need some RAM and a hard drive for the computer I have now I figured I would go ahead and buy what I would need for my video editing computer. But the problem is if wether or not what I buy will be compatable with the mother board I have now. I have a DELL 2350 model, Intel pentium 4 1.80GHz processor.
I'm looking to get a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive and 2G of Corsair RAM.

Your thoughts? experience..?

Terry,

Your system probably has no SATA connectors, so the disk will not be compatible. Investing in RAM for such an old system does not seem attractive. Better get a whole new system.

Ok...Thats what I thought. I've had this thing ever since I got out of highschool 6 years ago haha. Its still kicking though!!

John Hewat,

Did you ever get your system setup and running?
How do you like it?
What was your final configuration and cost?
Any details or notes about building this system that you would like to pass along to hopeful builders? I'm thinking about building a similar rig.
What would have you done differently?

Thanks,

Scott

This thread has my head spinning...

Currently I am n the market for a major upgrade. I just got the camera last fall (XL2) and now need to support it. I have been using Pinnacle Studio on my work laptop (1.5Ghz 480 MB or RAM)

My budget is somewhat limited...
I would like to stay under $3500.00 and upgrade my PC and NLE.

I plan to capture/edit and publish to the web sporting events and others. However, DVD production is as important as the web stuff. Most of the sporting events will be 16:9/60i and later on HD.

I will need to edit,deinterlace,encode for the web etc....

Having said that I am a hobbiest (unless my idea works)...

I need suggestions on a Desktop and NLE. (Considering Adobe or Vegas )

If anyone here can make this process easier on me I would greatly appreciate it.

Well Scott, those are difficult questions to answer.

Did you ever get your system setup and running?
How do you like it?

1. The system is up and running and it moves like a fighter jet. CS3 opens in mere seconds and renders quick as a flash. I have nothing except MS Office, Adobe CS3 (the whole Production Premium package), Cineform and Magic Bullet Looks installed on the computer and it is not networked or Interneted. So nothing much can make it self destruct.

Except anything made by Adobe...

So despite its swiftness and perfection in every area of operation (to which I owe endless thanks to the advice given to me here) the thing has still crashed and frozen occasionally when CS3 decides it doesn't like what I'm asking it to do. Sometimes that's capturing, sometimes it's minimizing a window... I suspect that that's just an Adobe thing that would happen no matter what computer it was running on. In terms of failure rates, this workstation is miles ahead of my previous Dual Core AMD on which PPro would fail on us multiple times per projec, without exception.

Whilst working (on paid jobs) PPro has only failed once and when I re-opened it it recovered the file perfectly. (This was a 2.5 hour SD project and I was using the superb Multi-Camera function at the time with three cameras.)

As for Magic Bullet... I cannot figure it out. It renders slower on this super computer than it does on my cheapo with half the processing cores, half the RAM and a slower graphics card than this machine. So I'm still trying to get to the bottom of that. I just can't figure it out. I'm planning on upgrading the two 7800s in it to dual 8800s, but that's an expense I hadn't anticipated so I've been holding off on it until a job really calls for me to use Magic Bullet extensively.

I said it moves like a fighter jet - it also sounds a bit like one. I edit in my family room, with people sitting on the couch right next to the computer, so it gets a bit annoying for them. I of course have my headphones on the whole time so I don't get bothered, but if you're editing in a shared room, it could very easily cause annoyance.

What was your final configuration and cost?

It's as follows and in $AU

Motherboard: SuperMicro X7DW-AN -- $955
Processor x2: Intel Xeon 5450 Quad Core 3.0GHz -- $2,320
Memory: 4 x 1GB Kingston FB ECC Module DDR2 667MHz -- $500
HDD (RAID 0): 4 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB, 16MB cache, 7200rpm (these are supposedly silent but the machine is so loud their silence is wasted) -- $656
HDD (System): Western Digital Raptor 74GB, SATA 150, 16MB cache, 10,000rpm -- $190
Graphics 1: Asus 7800GT (I already owned this)
Graphics 2: XFX 7800GTX (I already owned this too)
Optical: Lite-On 20xDVD Burner -- $45
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos -- $289
Power: Antec 1000W True Power Quatro Blah Blah Blah -- $330
Operating Sys: Windows XP Pro 32Bit -- $195
Assembly & Test: $125

TOTAL: $5,605

Add another $900+ for a 24" BenQ monitor, $1000 for two Samsung 22" monitors, the cost of the two 7800 cards, the cost of the Adobe suite, Cineform Prospect HD and you've got a pile of cash longer than your arm.

I don't want to hear anyone say "I saw this for half the price" or "You got ripped off with the whatever" please don't break my heart :)

Any details or notes about building this system that you would like to pass along to hopeful builders?

Running dual video cards sucks. It causes so many pains in the neck with PPro that I hate it. But when things are going smoothly, editing on the two 22" monitors with my preview on the 24" is very, very nice. (Just remember that this doesn't work properly in a Cineform project).

Also, something that either Harm or Mike said to me somewhere in this thread is something like "Don't expect to get it right on the first go."

And I guess they were right. I wanted it to be perfect upon completion but it wasn't. For some strange reason I had to swap the PCI-Express ports that the GPU cards were plugged into. For some reason, that solved some of my "triple-monitor" issues.

I've still got troubles with Magic Bullet being out-performed by a feather-weight computer.

The Realtek HD Audio software is s&%t and keeps popping up to tell me that a jack has been unplugged or plugged in, when I haven't touched the thing.

The firewire port won't see my Z1 (I'd love some advice on this issue - it won't see it with HDV or SD footage on the tape, in PPro or in Windows Movie Maker, though it will see my little Panasonic NV-GS230 which just confuses the heck out of me. If someone could advise me on where to turn first I'd love some help! It's so frustrating having to capture on another PC when I have a perfectly good super-computer sitting right next to it!)

And I have the odd issue with Cineform footage playing up and going a bit weird.

But each of these issues is sort of over-shadowed by the fact that playing back HD footage from my PMW-EX1 happens in a heartbeat without a glitch or hickup and that PPro moves so seamlessly and simple renders are near instantaneous. I feel like I'll conquer the other troubles as they become pressing (Firewire port being priority number one!).

What would have you done differently?

Gone into the photography business instead of the videography business.

This thread has my head spinning...

Currently I am n the market for a major upgrade. I just got the camera last fall (XL2) and now need to support it. I have been using Pinnacle Studio on my work laptop (1.5Ghz 480 MB or RAM)

My budget is somewhat limited...
I would like to stay under $3500.00 and upgrade my PC and NLE.

I plan to capture/edit and publish to the web sporting events and others. However, DVD production is as important as the web stuff. Most of the sporting events will be 16:9/60i and later on HD.

I will need to edit,deinterlace,encode for the web etc....

Having said that I am a hobbiest (unless my idea works)...

I need suggestions on a Desktop and NLE. (Considering Adobe or Vegas )

If anyone here can make this process easier on me I would greatly appreciate it.

anybody care to recommend anything here? ^^^

Both Sony and Adobe have hardware recommendations on the websites for their NLEs. I'd recommend looking at those and going "one better." Adobe in particular has a page called "OpenHD" which shows specific turnkey systems that they've "certified" to work.

Here's a link:

http://www.adobe.com/adobeopenhd/certified_solutions.html

Both Sony and Adobe have hardware recommendations on the websites for their NLEs. I'd recommend looking at those and going "one better." Adobe in particular has a page called "OpenHD" which shows specific turnkey systems that they've "certified" to work.

Here's a link:

http://www.adobe.com/adobeopenhd/certified_solutions.html


Adam,
Thanks for that link. I think something in that line might just work for my applications.

The time has come for me to upgrade the graphics cards - I'm getting sick of Magic Bullet being outperformed by a second rate system.

So I'm looking at getting a pair of the 9800GTX cards to put in the two PCI-Express ports. My concern lies in the fact that those cards both look like they require two PCI-E power plugs each! And I don't know whether I'll have the facility to do so.

Motherboard: SuperMicro X7DW-AN
Power: Antec 1000W True Power Quatro

As it is, the system has a single PCI-E power cable running to one of the 7800s and there are two spares that are not plugged in. I'm worried that I will be short a few cables and don't really know what's involved in simply plugging them in and hoping it all works...

I just read this on a forum about the card:

It requires 2 x 6pin power adapters which are supplied, but each of those will require 2 x molex connections. So if you do not have 4 molex power connections available you may need to upgrade your PSU too. 3/5 for power

I don't even know what a molex connection is or looks like but if one card needs 4 of them then I'd need 8 of them and I don't think that'll work... will it?

P.S.

Also, just copied the entire system drive to a spare HDD using HDBoot, which is the best thing ever (and free for download (and only 4MB)).

So basically I have two identical system drives, which both load up perfectly.

So I'm going to leave my editing system totally alone and never add anything to it - anything I ever need to test, I'll test on my back-up system first, which I can also allow to have access to the Internet or install games on or whatever.

And the best part is, I completely unplug the Editing System Drive from the computer when I'm using the alternate system drive - so it's pretty much perfectly safe from infection.

I thought I'd ask what problems I may expect to find (if any). So far it's worked like a charm - I'm even using two completely different sized HDDs for the two system drives and created an additional partition on the back-up drive and swapped system drives half a dozen times with no errors, no need to change anything in the BIOS or anything. So I'm feeling very optimistic! If anyone has done similarly and encountered problems, I'd love to hear about them in advance...

Next step... GPUs... any advice on that matter by the way?

Thanks,
-- John.