Hello folks. I am looking for some input regarding a PC build geared toward video editing. It is based on the build outlined by the VideoGuys. I have built 2 normal PC's in the past, but nothing this robust. Would really appreciate someone with more experience having a look and making any suggestions for changes you think would help. I am trying to keep this in the area of $1500 to $2000.

The aspects of the build that I need to work out are following:
1. how to set up Raid Storage drives inside the tower rather than going with the external unit below. Is it best to go 4x 1TB drives or 2x 2TB drives? Also, what type of controller is best for speed.

2. Whether to go with the Antec Mid Tower or Full Tower case, and what type of cooling accessories to purchase.

3. Compatibility of all the parts and the Power supply - is this large enough?

4. To go with an SSD for the boot drive or have the extra storage a normal 1TB 7200 rpm drive will provide.

5. Video cards -- just too many options it seems

While I am careful at assembly, I am sure my questions show that there are large gaps in my knowledge of this type of system.

Newegg parts list:

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129097)

SSD Boot Drive:
Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443)

CPU: Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 2011 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115229)

Graphics Card Candidates:
EVGA 012-P3-2078-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 448 Cores (Fermi) Classified Ultra 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130758)

EVGA 025-P3-1579-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) HD 2560MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130687)

EVGA 012-P3-1570-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130593)

Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131800)

PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139021)

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231429)

Bluray Drive: Pioneer Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 10X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner BDR-207MBK (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129073)

You forgot to mention THE most important part; what NLE will you be using, you always have to build your pc based on your NLE requirements.

I really like SSDs as boot drives. A recent build I did with an SSD boot drive starts up in about 20 seconds, from cold to completely ready to go.
Google for "power supply calculator" when you get all your parts spec'd out to determine how many watts you need. I recommend a modular power supply to get rid of the unnecessary cables.
Some motherboards support RAID right from the onboard SATA ports, but you can also get RAID cards. I recommend an internal RAID backplane so you can swap out the drives easily.

You forgot to mention THE most important part; what NLE will you be using, you always have to build your pc based on your NLE requirements.

I will be using the Adobe Premiere and After Effects CS6

I would recommend a powerful graphics card then, since Adobe Media Encoder uses your GPU to accelerate encodes. Or if you're up for it, two cards with CrossFire or SLI.

Sandy Bridge E is fussy about memory. You would be better to use GSkill Ripjaws Z which is specifically designed for the X79 chipset.

You may need to go to 32GB of RAM to cope with Premiere + AE, depending on the material you edit and the complexity of your sequences.

The motherboard you have chosen allows you to have RAID arrays on both Marvell and Intel ports. With a similar motherboard I have a RAID0 array on both Intel and one pair of Marvell ports, used for E:\ Media, and F:\Cache plus storage. I back up regularly to an external drive. This system works well and is fast.

If you propose adding a RAID array to the Intel ports at some stage, you MUST enable RAID in the BIOS BEFORE installing Windows. If you do not and try to enable RAID later, Windows will become unbootable, and you probably will not be able to reverse this. Thios applies even though the drive on which Windows is intalled is not a RAID array, and there are no RAID arrays in the system at this point. You will need the Intel RAID pre-install driver on a USB stick to install using the F6 method as Windows itself does not include an appropriate driver.

Depending on how many drives you propose to install in your case, you may need a power supply rated at more than 750W.

A couple of things -

1) Premiere does not utilize dual GPUs

2) You could simply create a Windows RAID 0 stripe set, if working with the usual 25Mbps codecs

Jeff

The motherboard you have chosen allows you to have RAID arrays on both Marvell and Intel ports. With a similar motherboard I have a RAID0 array on both Intel and one pair of Marvell ports, used for E:\ Media, and F:\Cache plus storage. I back up regularly to an external drive. This system works well and is fast.


Alan, I like the sound of that. It seems a little simpler than what I mentioned and I also currently back up everything to an external drive. So as I understand it you have a boot drive and 2 RAID0 drives that you use for media storage and cache + storage.

Could you tell me what type of drives/size you're using? It sounds like this may be a good method for me to adapt my build to as it will keep things cleaner. Also, what do you use for a boot drive and are any other parts necessary for connecting the drives to the MB above?

Vincent, if you are using Prem Pro, then check out the PPBM5 results table, and specifically how the various systems are spec'd, and where they are placed in the table.

Benchmark Results (http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-1.php)

Hmmm... Just noticed my system is still placed 14th, and it is >10 months old now, but if you take a look at the News page, there appear to be performance issues with CS6.

Latest News (http://ppbm5.com/News.html)

That's interesting, and something I was not aware of.

Alan, I like the sound of that. It seems a little simpler than what I mentioned and I also currently back up everything to an external drive. So as I understand it you have a boot drive and 2 RAID0 drives that you use for media storage and cache + storage.

Could you tell me what type of drives/size you're using? It sounds like this may be a good method for me to adapt my build to as it will keep things cleaner. Also, what do you use for a boot drive and are any other parts necessary for connecting the drives to the MB above?

I have a 256 GB Crucial M4 as C:\
2 x 750 GB WD Caviar Black in RAID 0 as E:\ for media (captured HDV and copied AVCHD)
2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black in RAID 0 as F:\ for media cache and Encore projects.

In addition I Have a 500 GB WD Scorpio as D:\ for all non-video editing files plus video projects, and a 3 TB Seagate Barracuda as G:\ for Video exports and storage/backup. These are not really necessary for a good editing system

I use a second 3TB Barracuda for backup of all video files in an external eSATA case.

The only additional parts that I used for assembly were a set of latching SATA cables for security, particularly with the RAID0s, rather than the rather flimsy ones that came with the motherboard . My Lian-Li PC90-B case takes 2.5" drives or 3.5" drives without modification.

there are faster drives around now than the Crucial M4.

Bear in mind that if you plan to use WD disks in a raid environment and when working with critical data you need to go with the enterprise versions which have TLER and use a enterprise class RAID controller that is compatible with those disks, without TLER in the worst case you could end up loosing all your data if one of your drives in an array is doing error recovery from a bad sector. Best to use a raid 5 that can reconstruct your data if a drive fails. If the data you are working with is important and not recoverable if a drive fails then it's best to not build a raid 0 using the motherboards raid controller.

I will be using the Adobe Premiere and After Effects CS6

I suggest you go over to the adobe forums and show your system setup there, Premiere is one of the few NLE's out there that requires a specific setup to function optimally which is why I asked what NLE you used.

Bear in mind that if you plan to use WD disks in a raid environment and when working with critical data you need to go with the enterprise versions which have TLER and use a enterprise class RAID controller that is compatible with those disks, without TLER in the worst case you could end up loosing all your data if one of your drives in an array is doing error recovery from a bad sector. Best to use a raid 5 that can reconstruct your data if a drive fails. If the data you are working with is important and not recoverable if a drive fails then it's best to not build a raid 0 using the motherboards raid controller.

The need to use Enterprise grade WD drives in RAID arrays applies to parity RAIDs only. It does not apply to RAID0.

RAID0 provides excellent speed, and with a sensible backup strategy provides excellent Bang-for-Buck. I have used this drive structure for three years without ever having to call on my backup due to a drive failure. Now, as for OE, that is another matter .....

I accept that for many professionals, the need for data security necessitates a different strategy.

and with a sensible backup strategy with raid 0 you better have a backup strategy because if one drive fails all is lost. I don't use a raid setup but try to separate all my data as much as possible with a backup strategy that enables me to recover my OS and programs in minutes and recover my project I"m working on the day that drive would fail. Even in case of a fire and if all would be lost I still have a way (a external disc at my parents house that is being updated every week and especially when I offload new videofiles to my pc.) to recover all my video and projectfiles.

I have here 2 damaged harddrives that my wife used, just stopped working (within a timeperiod of 2 years) and only recoverable in a lab, only my wife doesn't take backup as seriously as I do...

Thanks for all the input Alan and Noa.

Ideally, from all my research - I would love to spend a fortune and setup the RAID5 array Noa mentioned.

That's just not feasible for me right now. Alan, I am leaning toward mirroring your setup with the Motherboard and CPU above and minus the SSD to save even more money. Can I ask why you went with the smaller 750GB drives for the media drives? I figure it's either price or the fact that you don't keep media on there longer than you're working on it for - so storage size may not be relevant.

I have the raw files on a separate drive for any video project I am working on, and nothing I've worked on is so critical at this point that I need to the minute backups...although I do see how nice having solid backups would be.

with raid 0 you better have a backup strategy because if one drive fails all is lost.

Happened to me on a relatively new build with a pair of 1st generationn Velociraptor 300Gb drives in raid0. I use Shadow protect set to a 15 minute interval, so was able too be up and running PDQ.

I have also lost one of my external 1Tb USB3 WD My Books this year. Those are the only two drive failures since I started using computers with the BBC micro whenever that was, but the raid0 array had my most irriplaceabe work on it, so I was pretty pleased to have that back up. I also had a straight back up of that drive, but it was nearly a week old.

Tom's Hardware reported that HDD production is fully recovered from the Thailand floods a while back. I think it was Hard that said this was not being reflected with pricing, but that may have caught as well by now.

The 750 GB drives were at a special price - no other good reason.

I am happy with the risk of data loss, provided that my raw files are still available. Previews, cache, etc. can soon be re-created.

If you are a professional, then a specialist RAID card from Areca and multi-drive RAID 3/5/10 or whatever arrays are a justifiable expense, perhaps, and for some a necessity.

Thanks Fellas - yeah, I was eyeing the 750GB drives because they are at $85 each now, so 4 wouldn't be too bad, or even 5 and use one as a boot drive.

Great Idea with the shadow protect, that would be something else I might do as I do have backup software. Currently I just manually back things up. I am a pro photographer, but video is becoming a more serious hobby as time goes by.

The occasional music video, promo, or just fun experiment is all I do. I would just love some speed!

Currently I am working on an HP consumer machine with a 1TB Sata drive, 9BG RAM, and an i7 920 @2.67GHz with an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260 Card.

The wife's computer needs replacing so I was planning to build myself a new one and set up this one for her. That's my excuse anyway... ;)

Another question about RAM. Is it better to go with 32GB RAM like this for $144 (1600) : Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10Q-32GBZL (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231507)

Or with a 16 GB of higher quality RAM (2133): Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231503)

The 750 GB drives were at a special price - no other good reason.

I am happy with the risk of data loss, provided that my raw files are still available. Previews, cache, etc. can soon be re-created.

If you are a professional, then a specialist RAID card from Areca and multi-drive RAID 3/5/10 or whatever arrays are a justifiable expense, perhaps, and for some a necessity.

agreed; two cheap HDD's and an ARECA card, or multiple cheap HDD's and a decent ARECA card outweigh the benefits of single Raptor drives, significantly.

How much of a difference in speed is there when using RAID off the motherboard vs. setting up RAID off of a card?

Vincent,

A bit late in the game, but to start off with your last question, how much slower is an on-board raid over an identical raid with a dedicated raid controller. Not significant when you use striped or mirrored arrays, but with parity raids they can be - in normal operation - up to 40% slower than the dedicated controllers. However, if you ever need to rebuild an array, due to a disk failure, then the difference is easily 100%.

It is frowned upon to give links to other fora, but a number of your questions have already been answered in several articles on the Adobe Hardware Forum. Maybe have a look there. If you can't find the info you are looking for, you can always contact me by PM.

Also have a look at a now nearly fully documented build I just did: Intro Part 1 (http://ppbm7.com/index.php/intro-part-1)

It is quite long, but if you take the time to read it, there may be thoughts to show other perspectives, priorities all related to a complete build.

Initial reaction to your build list:

a. Change the Fermi card to a Kepler card, like the GTX 660 Ti.
b. Change the Corsair TX (bronze) to an AX (gold) PSU.
c. Change the RipjawsX to RipjawsZ F3. The X series is only for 1155 platforms and you need 2011 platform compatible memory.
d. Consider changing the Crucial M4 to a Corsair Performance Pro or Neutron GTX, Plextor M5 Pro or Samsung 840.

There are a number of posts about these things on the hardware forum.

Thanks Harm, I may PM you!

There's a thread on here somewhere, where I went through this last November for my custom system.

The only thing I can comment on is the SSD issue. I'm very glad I went that route for my C: drive. My system boots in the 15-20 second range. Super quick!

I've never done the raid thing, but have my drives as:

C: 128 GB Crucial - Windows OS
D: 128 GB Crucial - Programs/cache/scratch

and then two 2-TB Seagate 7200 RPM 64MB Cache harddrives for data.

Those are all SATAIII (6Gbps) drives as well.

The whole system is pretty peppy!

I would just add that one of the most used items in my computer is a "hot swap" bay. This allows me to slide hard drives in and out for quick backups. Costs $30. Anything that goes on my system to edit is first backed up and put on the shelf. So your worries about RAID will not be about failure. Let it rip with RAID 0 and always have a backup. But know going in that if you are a video editor, you will always need a lot of hard drives laying around.

But, also realize that RAID is most often not needed. The only time I see a benefit with RAID is if I am building disc images. RAID speeds up the file transfer. If you edit anything with compression you do not need a RAID. AVC-Intra is 100mbps. Tha translates to about 10 megabytes per second needed for disc throughput. A modern single SATA drive will do over 100 megabytes per second...

So do not fall into the trap of thinking video editing = RAID. It is just not true. Now if you do a multicamera edit you might want to put a camera per drive just to ease the load.

I use external drives for my source files because I have a lot of them and it lowers the heat level in the computer case. They are turned off when I am not using them. If you fill your case full of drives they will just generate heat and spin when you are not using them. Heat and spinning is what ends the life of drives.

I would just add that one of the most used items in my computer is a "hot swap" bay. This allows me to slide hard drives in and out for quick backups. Costs $30. Anything that goes on my system to edit is first backed up and put on the shelf. So your worries about RAID will not be about failure. Let it rip with RAID 0 and always have a backup. But know going in that if you are a video editor, you will always need a lot of hard drives laying around.

But, also realize that RAID is most often not needed. The only time I see a benefit with RAID is if I am building disc images. RAID speeds up the file transfer. If you edit anything with compression you do not need a RAID. AVC-Intra is 100mbps. Tha translates to about 10 megabytes per second needed for disc throughput. A modern single SATA drive will do over 100 megabytes per second...

So do not fall into the trap of thinking video editing = RAID. It is just not true. Now if you do a multicamera edit you might want to put a camera per drive just to ease the load.

I use external drives for my source files because I have a lot of them and it lowers the heat level in the computer case. They are turned off when I am not using them. If you fill your case full of drives they will just generate heat and spin when you are not using them. Heat and spinning is what ends the life of drives.

Actually, with some NLE software, RAIDs are required especially for HD material because such software actually decompress compressed video material to compressed RGB and then recompress it back to the original format on the fly. And just a single track of 1080i/p uncompressed RGB video requires well over 200 MB/s (1.6 Gbps) worth of disk throughput. Unfortunately, even the fastest single HDD falls far short of this 250 MB/s (2.0 Gbps) minimum (in terms of both average and minimum physical throughput), based on known benchmark tests done by others. In fact, their maximum physical throughput falls well short of that 250 MB/s minimum. This is all because some NLEs still cannot handle native editing of compressed video, and so must decompress and recompress during editing.

I did not know that. I am an Edius user and the only other NLE I have used is Premiere. If that is the case with other NLEs then it would save money to ditch that NLE and move to one that does not need a RAID!

Tim, I built my current system after spending a lot of time on the Adobe Premiere Pro Hardware forum, but still kind of crept up on the final spec.

My system has a 3930K running at 4.4Ghz, 32Gb RAM, GTX 570. I've always used multiple drives, and when first built I had a 256Gb SSD for OS and program files, a 300Gb Velociraptor for project files, and other drives for data.

The above system still stuttered with a single track of 1080p H.264 from a DSLR. So I got a second V'raptor and raid 0'd it for the project drive, and set a couple of 1Tb WD Blacks for Exports and data. (plus lots more drives for back up and other data.

This made all the difference, and everything works smooth as silk with multiple tracks on the timeline. Incidentally, the much bigger 50Mb/s files from my XF300 seem to put far less load on the system than the DSLR files.

This sytem was rated forth fastest on Harm's PPBM5 results page for quite a long time, and is still placed 14th as I type this.

Benchmark Results (http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php)

One of the V'raptors failed a while back, and I replaced drives with 2nd gen 600Gb V'raptors, which made a much faster raid 0 array. I have not tried the PPBM5 benchmark with this set up. I use Shadow Protect set at 15 minute incremental updates, and lost nothing when the drive failed. I also have four USB3 WD My Book externals (6Tb in total) and one of the 1Tb drives has also failed in the last year. That had non crucial data on it and was not backed up. The scary thing is I have no idea what I have lost on that drive, but I have not got round to making a concerted effort to recover the data.

Sorry to hear of the data loss and the performance situation you have with Premiere. I can only comment on my experience and with Edius. I can edit DSLR footage straight from the CF card, adding filters, over USB 2.0 - with a four year old i7-920 CPU.

I guess the hardware build really needs to match the NLE. In theory, more compressed footage (DSLR footage) should stress the CPU more than the drive throughput. But it seems each software has a different way to achieve its end result.

I am a Edius user for three years and do not have nor have needed raid. I Plays straight from the timeline without rendering out to a HDTV preview monitor. Here are my antiquated system specs.

Edius 5.5, HDSPARK output card, Asus P6T Deluxe mobo, i7-920 processor, Antec 900-2 case, Corsair 650 watt p.s., Corsair 3GB XMS3 PC3-12800 DDR3, Sapphire HD4830, WD 160GB Caviar system drive, 1TD WD Caviar Black video drive, Lite-on IHAS324, Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium, Vista 32 bit, Amtron P2 card reader, Samsung LN19A330 HDTV

I am a Edius user for three years and do not have nor have needed raid. I Plays straight from the timeline without rendering out to a HDTV preview monitor. Here are my antiquated system specs.

Edius 5.5, HDSPARK output card, Asus P6T Deluxe mobo, i7-920 processor, Antec 900-2 case, Corsair 650 watt p.s., Corsair 3GB XMS3 PC3-12800 DDR3, Sapphire HD4830, WD 160GB Caviar system drive, 1TD WD Caviar Black video drive, Lite-on IHAS324, Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium, Vista 32 bit, Amtron P2 card reader, Samsung LN19A330 HDTV

This is because Edius is optimized for such slower, lower-end hardware. It does not decompress/recompress on the fly like other NLEs. If I had Edius instead of other NLEs, I would have still been using an old Core 2 Quad PC instead of my current Sandy Bridge i7 for editing even 1080i/p AVCHD material. Unfortunately, I upgraded the hardware before I began to learn about Edius.

Actually, with some NLE software, RAIDs are required especially for HD material because such software actually decompress compressed video material to compressed RGB and then recompress it back to the original format on the fly. And just a single track of 1080i/p uncompressed RGB video requires well over 200 MB/s (1.6 Gbps) worth of disk throughput.

Ummm... doesn't the decompression happen in the memory? You're implying that the software reads compressed, writes uncompressed, and then reads uncompressed again to play back. I don't know any NLE that actually does that. Some compositing apps like Nuke or After Effects, perhaps Mocha do cache the uncompressed frames for playback, but they do it for another purpose.

I've been able to easily work with Premiere Pro without RAID, with an older drive that had about 60-70 MB/s throughput. Granted, no multicam edits. But you don't need top shelf hardware to get a decent experience.

Ummm... doesn't the decompression happen in the memory?

Actually, depending on how much system RAM is installed in the computer, the decompressed frames are written to, read from and then dumped from the disk's media cache folder that many NLEs use. As a result, if you have a really slow disk system, you often have to render the timeline (previews) first in order to get decent playback especially if your system has only a small amount of system RAM installed. No wonder why Premiere Pro CS6 runs at its best with more than 16GB of RAM installed: If you have less than 16GB installed, the decompressed frames will use the media cache disk far more frequently.

Alan & Harm, I have the following components for the build listed below. I would like to ask if you know of any good links/tutorial offhand that describe how to get the ASUS P9X79 up and running correctly with RAID enabled?

I have read that the bios should be updated, followed by the Marvell and Intel Drivers.

Some basic info Info I need is for:
Which port should the OS drive be connected to?
Which ports should each pair of the RAID0 drives be connected to? (4 drives total)

I have the following links for the RAID setup, etc:
How to setup a RAID System: How to Setup a RAID System | Hardware Secrets (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/How-to-Setup-a-RAID-System/393/1)
Problem setting up RAID0 on ASUS p9x79Pro: Adobe Community: Problem setting up RAID0 on ASUS p9x79Pro (http://forums.adobe.com/message/4867934#4867934)

Parts list:
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS
CPU: Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 2011 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73820
Video Card: MSI N660 Ti PE 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
OS: Windows 7
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10Q-32GBZL
Drives: Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Drive Config: 1=Operating system, 2x1TB=RAID0, 2x1TB=RAID0 (Backup will be to dual 3TB External Drives)
Power Supply: CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Burner: ASUS Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner BW-14D1XT
Case Speaker: APEVIA Model CVTCSPK 2" Case speaker
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler
Case: Fractal Design Define XL Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Full Tower Silent PC Computer Case
Card Reader: Kingston's USB 3.0 Media Reader Computer Memory FCR-HS3
USB 3.0 BackUp/Export Drives: Seagate Expansion 3TB USB 3.0 Black Desktop Hard Drive STBV3000100
Extra Case Fan: Rosewill ROCF-11003 Hyperborea 140mm Case Fan

Randall, with due respect, I think you're confusing several issues here.

If what you were saying was true, then I would have never been able to reach any sensible playback in any NLE. Full 1080 frame decompressed is 1920x1080x24 bits = 6,2 MB. Even with only 1 GB for the video data you can fit about 160 frames, which is more than enough to get a decent playback. In fact, you most likely don't need more than 4-5 frames if you are streaming in real time. Which means you could feasibly display quite a lot of 1080p streams even with 1 GB of RAM, assuming no other bottlenecks in the system.

Also, assuming a video with data rate 26 Mbps, for a typical drive that has more than 100 MB/s throughput you could theoretically fit about 30 streams. Heck, you could put about 10 streams through the old USB 2.0 interface! The reason you can't in the real time is the drive's seeking time - playing several files at the same time is a serious performance hit on the transfer rate. Even RAID systems are not free from this problem, this is why 10,000+ RPM drives were invented, and this is where SSDs really shine.

The true bottleneck with compressed video is the CPU power. Some compression types are more CPU-intensive, than the others. AVCHD is very hard, MPEG-2 is easier. Long GOP formats are atrocious for random seeking, because the whole GOP has to be processed to get to the single frame, sometimes meaning 75 frames or more. This is perhaps the only place where possibly the amount of RAM could have any impact at all on video decompression.

The only places where RAM is important are computationally heavy effects that are not accelerated by the GPU on a multi-core machine perhaps with floating point (32-bit vs 8-bit) color space. On a multi-core machine, each core gets assigned its own amount of RAM to do things. If you have 8 GB on a 4-core machine with threading means that each core gets at the most 1,5 GB of RAM, perhaps even less. For some types of image manipulation this might not be enough, and this is why 16GB is better than 8GB. Plus you have to hold the project structure, caching, etc. But it has very little to do with compressing and decompressing actual video, and even less with writing decompressed frames to the swap drive, especially during playback.

The final proof is in monitoring the disk usage during playback. I hardly ever get writes during playback even with effects. 99% of time I get reads, and guess what? They are at about the bitrate of the compressed footage that my NLEs pull from the drives. This is why you can easily edit from an external USB 2.0 drive. The main culprit for dropped frames with compressed video is the CPU. With uncompressed it's mostly HDD throughput.

That said, I do agree that for optimal performance you need to balance your system's RAM against the amount of cores that you have, and ideally you'd have at least 4GBs per core. But even with 32 GB on my main machine, Premiere hardly ever comes over 10-12 GBs of usage during typical work.

What type of footage are you planning to edit? If you are uncertain how to set up a raid system correctly it might be better just to use the drives separately, WD black drives are plenty fast for editing mpeg2 or avchd footage, if you are working with uncompressed data and doing a lot of multi-cam, then faster raid drives are better. Also, your motherboards manual should give you the needed info how to connect the drives for a raid setup, is there no way you can download the manual to see what the possibilities are?

Here is another thought on setting up a high speed data drive.. How large are the projects being worked on? It would be rare for them to be really huge unless it was an uncompressed workflow. For something like that I would strongly recommend an offline/online setup..

BUT

If you are looking for speed and the projects aren't huge why not consider something like this:

Samsung 512GB 840 Pro Series 2.5" Solid State MZ-7PD512BW

This thing is faster than any motherboard based RAID0 is going to be (it is basically is a RAID internally using flash chips). If you want to get really crazy you could always RAID a couple of those SSDs. I can't imagine you needing more data flow than that. :)

I have read some concerns about SSD having a limited write and read cyclus which was the reason why they are best used for the OS. I"m not so sure about it though but might be something to think about before putting any critical data on it that is going to be access almost constantly. I also think Vincent pointed out he had to watch his budget and these 500 gb SSD are very expensive compared to regular HD's.

While SSDs do have limited write cycles, it isn't an issue with the application because if you have a dedicated source media drive in your system it only gets written to when you load on a new project. In reality it is a problem that is somewhat overstated. When you look at the cycle limit of a professional grade SSD it is high enough that it won't become an issue for more than 6-10 years of use. Are any of us expecting our conventional hard drives to last that long? I certainly don't.

This drive isn't cheap but it could be cheaper than building a RAID0 to equal its data performance. To get to the continuous READ/WRITE rate of the 840 PRO SSD it will require no less than 4 WD VelociRaptor 10,000rpm drives (and then only if they are under 50% full). That will get you a larger volume of storage but it will also consume much more power, tie up 4 SATA ports and not be any more reliable than a single SSD.

If you don't have a 4 port RAID controller built into your computer you will have to buy one of those as well. At that point the SSD is even cheaper in total capital outlay.

Vincent, I just read the entire thread and I think a lot of your questions were answered. I can see by your post number that you are new here. You have to understand that your topic of discission is huge and has many ways to accomplish the end result. This same internet site that you are frustrated with has brought you all of the information for free. There is a lot to learn here. Sure you can not always control the theads but if you are nice to people the process goes a lot smoother!

To your question about RAID. If the RAID you are setting up is NOT for the operating system then you do not need to do anything special other than set the motherboard up for RAID in the BIOS and then create the RAID in Windows Disc Management. So first load Windows and get the rest of your system up and running then add the drives, and create the RAID.

The OS drive should go in the "port 0" SATA connector (grey color). Install the 4 drives for the RAIDS in the light blue connectors.

Noa Put - Thanks! I edit 5D and 7D footage, with the occasional odd video camera thrown into the mix. No RED or anything really heavy. I also do work in After Effects, so that is something I really want this PC to do better in than my old machine. I am reading the manual and it seems straightforward. Just saw some warnings on other threads about the need to enable RAID in the bios prior to installing windows and then the need to install drivers during the windows7 install process. So I guess my question is when I enable RAID, do I do so for all the ports, or just specific ones? (I don't know how the bios screen or these options even look yet in the GUI) -- Also, should the RAID drives take up all 4 6GB/s Ports (2 Intel, 2 Marvell) and the OS drive just go on a 3 GB/s port? The manual doesn't get so specific as to point out where to plug in each drive and how to enable RAID. It assumes a minimum level of user knowledge that I don't fully possess at this point.

Chris - Thanks as well! SSD is something I'll do on the next build when the prices come down some. Also, I already put together the machine...just haven't turned the thing on yet because I want to go through the MB manual carefully first. The ASUS P9X79 Pro has RAID controllers built in.

Tim - Thank you. I guess I am just a little confused about the part about enabling RAID, then installing the appropriate drivers at the right time. If I take it slowly and step by step, I suppose I could get it running. Don't want to make any dumb mistakes though, as I have read of people making windows unbootable by attempting to enable RAID after installing windows. I'm a bit of a wise ass Tim, but you're absolutely correct in what you said about being nice. I get frustrated too quickly for sure.

In your case, you only need to enable RAID support in the BIOS before you start installing Windows. Since you are not putting Windows on a RAID you do not need to worry about drivers. You are going to just create a RAID once Windows is up and running using the tools inside Windows.

I would start with only one RAID and leave two discs as single to start out. You can always reformat the two drives and create a second RAID later if you find that you need more RAID. With 5D & 7D footage I do not think you NEED a RAID to edit.

I would also get an SSD for your OS drive. Just a 120GB drive which can be had for about the same cost as a 1TB drive these days. They are fast.

You might want to put your OS drive on the 6GB SATA for more speed. So use the two grey connectors for non-OS drives and put the OS drive in one of the blue SATA ports.

After Effects likes a fast CPU and a lot of RAM which you have so your system should be nice once it is up and running.

Regular harddiscs do not benefit from 6GB/s Ports, they are just not fast enough but SSD's are. I"m not experienced in setting up raid arrays so I wisely leave those tips to others :) But like Vincent said, for dslr footage you don't need raid, it does however speed up copying data between drives but the actual editing relies much more on the cpu or gpu.
If you are using after effects a lot then fill your system with as much ram as it can carry and you can afford, AE east ram for breakfast.

Vincent,

With your intended motherboard you have:

2 x SATA 6G ports on the Intel controller,
4 x SATA 3G ports on the Intel controller,
2 x SATA 6G ports on the Marvell controller.

Before you start installing Windows from a DVD, choose the F6 option to install a raid driver for the Intel controller. This is the first question asked when booting from the DVD. Once that driver is installed the Windows installation proceeds as usual. Using the F6 option does not mean you HAVE to create a raid, it gives you the choice to raid or not, but if you do not use the F6 you never have that choice on the Intel ports. The Marvell controller does not require the F6 use during installation.

Conventional HDD's do not profit from a SATA 6G connection, they are too slow, but SSD's can profit from a SATA 6G connection. DVD or BR devices must be installed in the Intel controller and the most logical port to use is one of the SATA 3G ports.

With these general comments out of the way, the question is what is the best setup in your case with your intended disks?

C: OS & programs & static pagefile (if using Win8) on SATA 6G Intel, single disk.
D: Media & projects on SATA 6G Marvell, 2 disks in raid0
E: Media cache & previews on SATA 3G Intel, 2 disks in raid0
F: USB3 for exports and backup of mainly the D: drive.

This would be my suggestion. And the other suggestion I have is to exchange the Corsair HX PSU for the AX Gold label PSU.

Hope this helps.

C: OS & programs & static pagefile (if using Win8) on SATA 6G Intel, single disk.
D: Media & projects on SATA 6G Marvell, 2 disks in raid0

Is this a typo, Harm? I wouldn't advise RAID 0 for media or projects. For small projects RAID 1 would be perfect, and for large projects I'm leaning towards RAID 10.

On a side note, even with Prores HQ at 220 Mbps (27.5 MB/s) one should be able to read four streams on a Sata II 3 Gbps consumer drive at 7,200 rpm.

Sata III 6 Gbps is good to have as 'future proofing'. But if the future is 3-5 years away, some new tech might take its place. Unless one is transporting 'that much' data over SSDs on a regular basis, Sata III is probably overkill for DSLR and Prosumer footage.

I could be wrong. Are there any scenarios where this is not true?

In reality, RAID 0 is fine if you have the data backed up.

I might have looked at the wrong mobo as the one I saw on Newegg had 6 SATA ports.

I agree, the 6Gb SATA is overkill for spinning discs, but can be used with a modern SSD for the Operating System.

Very difficult to get a concensus on computer building!

Sareesh,

No, it was not a typo. With the limited SATA ports available and the number of disks and the backup to the USB3 drive, I think a raid0 for media and projects is acceptable. It would not be my first choice, but then I use a dedicated raid controller and can circumvent the limited ports and still have lots of redundancy, but that does not apply to Vincent.

Raid10 is a costly array, because it requires 4 disks at least, and there are only 4 SATA 3G ports on the Intel controller, so the DVD/BR has to use the last SATA 6G port, it only delivers the same performance as a 2 disk raid0 array and only gives you the storage capacity of a two disk raid0, despite the cost. So IMO it is too costly on this kind of system to use raid10.

Thanks again folks, especially Harm! That clears things up nicely. I was pretty confused by reading all around the web it seems. Will stick with the normal drives for now and upgrade to SSD's once they get less expensive.

I see in the benchmark tests that many people are using SSD's for their OS, but not so much for the working discs at this point: Benchmark Results (http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-1.php)

Going to see if I can fire this monster up this evening after I straighten out the wiring.

Vincent, it would be interesting if you were to run the PPBM5 test and let us know when the results are up. Unless the PPBM6 test is running now, but I'd guess that is going to need time to build up a useful number of results.

Absolutely Dennis, will do that as soon as I have her up and running. Still haven't gotten to finishing the wiring today...

She is up and running, wired as neatly as possible, and ready to update the bios (currently running 2104 x64) and install the OS.

But before I do, I have come up with a few more questions...

At idle with the bios monitor up, this intel core i7 3820 processor is ranging at temps between 37 and 39 degrees. I looked up the thermal specs on intel's site, but all I see are max temps based on wattage. Ambient temp at my home is around 25 C and the motherboard temp is at 34 C. Does this seem normal or did I mess up installation of the CPU cooler?

Second question - on the ASUS P9X79 Pro MB, should the TPU and EPU switches be enabled? I am not planning to manually overclock, because that's over my head at this point and I just want the machine to be stable.

Thanks folks!