View Full Version : System Upgrade


Jason Selmes
May 30th, 2010, 07:28 AM
Hi all,

Is this package any good?

Intel Core i7-920 Cpu +Asus P6TD Deluxe +DDR3 4G Combo - eBay (item 270529792717 end time Jun-11-10 00:24:12 PDT) (http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Core-i7-920-Cpu-Asus-P6TD-Deluxe-DDR3-4G-Combo-/270529792717?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3efcd50acd)

I know its low on the RAM but ill tell them to minus the hard drive for more Ram.

My system here is crashing and under heavy Stress from A wedding my friend shot with an Sony EX1. I have a Sony Z5P HDV and my current system can handle it farely well without the needs for upgrades.

Current system picture is below

The EX1 MP4 footage just kills my system and the CPU is running full MAX and the RAM is loaded to the hilt.


I thinking

1. Intel I7
2. Gigabyte 1366 Socket MBOARD
3. 8gb Ram
4. Some type of Video card..(is it really needed? or More Ram is better?)

Any help appreciated. I dont want to spend good coin and still have it lagging and under heavy stress which makes it basically impossible to edit.

thanks guys!

Jason Selmes
May 30th, 2010, 07:33 AM
Here are my current system stats

Also what is going to make my system not run like its revving at 1000000 RPM. Its hard to edit footage when its glitchy and wont scrub properly. Sometimes it just hangs and wont do anything and can get really frustrating.

Randall Leong
May 30th, 2010, 09:02 AM
Good combination (provided that you get more memory, as you stated in one of your posts). But that eBay seller's combo price is actually much higher than what Newegg sells those exact same items individually. Newegg's total price for those exact same items (purchased individually) comes out to only $939.92 shipped - and even if you live in a state where Newegg is required to charge sales tax, you'd still come out $75 ahead if that sales tax rate is 12% (and even more ahead if your state charges a lower sales tax percentage). In fact, the difference in price is almost enough for you to buy two more 4GB kits of the same memory from Newegg (at the price of $109.99 per pair).

Oh, I did not see that you are from Australia. In this case, then, Newegg in the U.S. will not ship outside the Continental U.S. As such, that eBay seller might actually be less expensive than what most resellers in Australia charge for them.

Jason Selmes
May 30th, 2010, 07:45 PM
Hi Randall.

thanks for the response to my thread.

Will these upgrades make sginificant improvements to my system? I ask this because currently my system is ok but really tends to LAG heavily with more than 1 video track. I am currently editing a video for a friends weddding and it has become near impossile to continue editing it bwecause it either crashes due to large CPU and Ram usage or even if it doesnt crash the video is to glitchy and makes it very hard to edit.

I guess my hopes are to have a system that can easily edit footage from multiple sources such as AVCHD HDV ETC.

My current camera is a SONY Z5P and works a treat with my current system but as soon as i throw some MP4 Sony EX1 Footage at it, it just dies!


Will this package suit my needs?

I think the Intel I7 is my choice with 8gb of Ram and also a Video card of some kind.

Thanks again

Jason Selmes
May 30th, 2010, 08:28 PM
Good combination (provided that you get more memory, as you stated in one of your posts). But that eBay seller's combo price is actually much higher than what Newegg sells those exact same items individually. Newegg's total price for those exact same items (purchased individually) comes out to only $939.92 shipped - and even if you live in a state where Newegg is required to charge sales tax, you'd still come out $75 ahead if that sales tax rate is 12% (and even more ahead if your state charges a lower sales tax percentage). In fact, the difference in price is almost enough for you to buy two more 4GB kits of the same memory from Newegg (at the price of $109.99 per pair).

Oh, I did not see that you are from Australia. In this case, then, Newegg in the U.S. will not ship outside the Continental U.S. As such, that eBay seller might actually be less expensive than what most resellers in Australia charge for them.

Also I have a few friends in the USA that can dispatch onto me here in Australia if i purchase parts from Newegg. This would be a bonus are your parts there a relativly alot cheaper than here in australia

Sareesh Sudhakaran
May 30th, 2010, 09:30 PM
try to get 12GB of RAM - that will stay standard for a few years.
Are you using CS5 or Vegas or what? If you're using CS5, then go for a GTX card according to their specs. You should be able to add as many timelines as you want.

Jason Selmes
May 31st, 2010, 12:36 AM
Hi mate,

Currently using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.

Yeah i was thinking 12gb of Ram. I am really looking for a solid Platform that doesn't bog down when trying to edit. Render times don't bother me but good fast editing does,

Jason Selmes
May 31st, 2010, 12:39 AM
With PC video editing is Ram the major key? And how much does the video card come into it?

I prefer a good CPU and lots of Ram considering the info you guys gave me good stuff thanks

Jay West
May 31st, 2010, 02:42 PM
Jason --

On that ASUS mobo. You want a P6T Deluxe Version 2, not the previous version.. I second Sareesh's suggestions that you get at least 12 G of RAM and an nVidia GTX video card. I'd also strongly recommend upgrading to CS5 and upgrading to Win 7 if you do not already have Win Vista 64.

I shoot weddings and events and do a fair amount of multi-cam work. My projects are shot with three to five cameras. Most are HDV cams with MRC1 recording units. While I do not have an EX1, I do have a NX5 whose AVCHD files impose similar loads on editing with Premiere Pro.

Up until last fall, I was running CS3 under WinXP on a system with 4 gB of RAM. I tried running CS4 on this set-up and found it was just not up to the task with a multi-cam project. I upgraded (sourcing the parts from NewEgg). The current system is based on an ASUS P6t Deluxe ver. 2 mobo, 12 gB Corsair RAM, and a PNY/NVidia GTX 260 video card, and ran CS4 under Win 7.

The upgrade to 12 gb of RAM and Win 7 and CS4 made some things easier but brought some new sets of problems, rather like the ones you have described. Some of the bogging-down problems were fixed by putting video storage files and scratch files on different high-speed drives. (I choose to add a G-Speed ES with a PCIe RAID card; I put video and project files on that RAID and put the render files on the on-board RAID). I began having intermittent problems when working on longer projects, particularly after I added the NX5 to the camera mix.

My work arounds were: (a) using CIneform Neoscene and NeoHD on the footage and (b) breaking my project up into 10 and 15 minute segments. I had great luck with NeoHD at first, but I began running into odd audio-synch issues with the conversions from two of my cameras in longer multi-cam projects under CS4. (Basically, the Cineform conversions of footage from those two cameras seemed to get a bit longer than the originals which made them progressively lose synch with the footage from the other three cams. The synch divergence would be as much as 15 frames over an hour.) The alternative to using Cineform was dividing the project into short segments --- say, 10 to 15 minute --- each in its own sequence, At the end of the project, I'd nest all the sequences together in a new timeline and be ready to export.

These problems all went away when I switched over to CS5 at the beginning of the month. I had a couple of temporary odd issues which all seemed to go away last weekend when I installed the CS5 version 5.01 software update. The MPE engine seems to help a lot. Editing a multi-cam HD project is now as easy as and smooth as editing SD multi-cam projects used to be.

Jason Selmes
May 31st, 2010, 05:41 PM
Hay Jay,

thanks for the long response, it answered alot of questions that I had.

Look like I am going to have to upgrade to CS5 and also windows 7 so I can utilize for RAM that XP doesn't allow.

So you have seen a massive difference with bogging down issues with the new CS5? I run s Sony Z5P and also want to get the MCR1 card recorder aswell very soon. I notice that the MPG HDV footage from the Z5P on my system work fairly well but the AVCHD EX1 MP4 footage just kills my system :-)

1. Windows 7
2. CS5
3.. 12 Gb Ram
4. I7 920 or 930


ill take a look at some motherboards you mentioned and also video cards

thanks Jay

Alonzo Love
June 2nd, 2010, 01:13 AM
Since you're running CS5 @64bit that's a good thing;however,insure that all your drives are running @ the same speed, ie: 7200 RPM is the slowest speed you'll want to any video editing! Get drives @ 7200 rpm or better say 10,000-15,000 rpm for the best performance.Also usb-3 is ten times faster than usb-2! Say you have a 25gb dvd to download or what ever, under usb-2 it would take 13 minutes to download, and under usb-3 it would take 70 seconds to download the same file!.Get one of the newer sata/6gb and usb-3 mobo's by Asus or EVGA, GIGABYTE.Intel 5500/5600 cpu's .ENJOY!!!

Jay West
June 2nd, 2010, 09:31 PM
All of my drives are at least 7200 rpm drives and all but one (used for booting back to XP on the odd occasions when I need it) are SATA 3. I got my mobo about a year ago before USB 3 and SATA 6 were available. I do not have any experience with those features but the newest ASUS mobos do seem to have them. Check with Videoguys to see if they are doing any DIY experiments with these boards yet.

On bogging down: When I first installed CS5, I encountered some random bogging. It was nowhere near as bad as it had been under CS4 and seemed limited to particular sequences especially when I was making titles. This issue has not recurred since I installed the CS 5.01 upgrade.

I do not have a Z5 but I do have an FX 1000 (and a Canon XH-A1) which I run with Sony MRC1 units. There has been no bogging of any kind with the footage from the CF drives for those cameras under CS5 and, with CS4 running under Win 7, the bogging down tended to occur in the latter parts of longer sequences --- say at 35 to 50 minutes on the timeline. AVCHD/MP4 footage killed CS4 under Win XP and tended to bog down CS 4 under Win 7 under the new system after about 5 minutes into a multi-cam timeline.

Alonzo Love
June 4th, 2010, 06:19 AM
Jay, that sounds okay and you've gotten a big advantage from CS5 running on 64bit ops, and perhaps in the future you'll be able to have a system with the new sata 6gb and usb-3.The Asus P6TDelux ver.2 board is a good system! I've built supermicro's ,asus,gigabyte,Iwill,and Intel +Evga systems before, and even if one's got a system with all the latest & greatest bells, the application makes the difference!Glad that adobe stepped up to the plate!SSD drives are great but expensive, where sas 2 are good too! But stay with a 2.5 size factor drive since the larger 3.5 drives hog more power! You can never have enough ram! Good to have
your dvd drive on external, and a good 4-6 drive raid for video, and a seperate raid for audio!