Money is no object editing PC

[Mike McCarthy]

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.)

[Adam Gold]

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...

[Mike McCarthy]

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)

[Adam Gold]

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)...

[John Hewat]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy

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.

[David Zeno]

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/mothe...00/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.

[Mike McCarthy]

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.

[Adam Gold]

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...

[David Zeno]

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.

[Adam Gold]

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....

[Mike McCarthy]

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

[David Zeno]

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.

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy

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

[Terry Lee]

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..?

[Harm Millaard]

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.

[Terry Lee]

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!!