Money is no object editing PC

[Travis Reese]

You are right, the 743-TQ865 is not yet available from Supermicro, only announced. I verified that the 743-TQ760R is the exact same chassis except for the power supply. The redundant power supply can be removed and replaced with the power supply from the TQ865 when it becomes available if I need the extra power.

The hard drives were a bit more for the Barracuda ES series which are server class hard drives made to be run in RAID enclosures. The standard Barracudas were $119 ea. as opposed to $149 ea.

A quick lookup of currency conversion: 1 euro = US $1.48

Thanks for the tip on the BIOS settings.

[Mike McCarthy]

You purchases TWO Xeon CPUs, correct? If not, that is a lot of capability going to waste. But that should be a fast system, have fun with it. I only plan to spend about $3K, but my system will definitely be XDCamEX capable. I hope you are doing something really crazy that can take advantage of the added system horsepower.

[Travis Reese]

Nope, just the one CPU for the moment. Will be adding a second later. From what I've read even though many NLE packages (PPCS3) can take advantage of up to 16 cores the second CPU won't make a dramatic difference. I may be wrong with this assumption however. And actually, I'm just impatient. Won't be doing anything too extreme. Just wanted the best system I could get within reason.

[Mike McCarthy]

I will be honest, your configuration makes no sense to me. The only reason to get a workstation class system is for the dual CPUs, and the high bandwidth I/O slots. PCIe has negated that difference to a degree, and you aren't using any PCI-X solutions like AXIO or Xena. Why not get an LGA775 based Core2Quad system? The 8800Ultra doesn't make much sense either, unless you play games. I have an 8800GTX in my edit system, only because I got it for free, and I play BF2. It doesn't work well for editing, runs hot and loud, and doesn't support full screen video overlay.
Any reason you chose the 5440 over the 5365. The older one will be faster, you aren't taking advantage of the new faster FSB, why use the newer gear? If you aren't using the faster FSB, why get the newer MB? I mean if you have money to burn, have at it, but it doesn't make sense to me.

Just my thoughts on the matter. The new 45nm CPUs are a big disappointment, so I am just going to get older gear (Woodcrest/Clovertown) for cheaper, after waiting months for the new release.

[Harm Millaard]

In comparing the X5365 to the X5472 I noticed over here that they are around the same price, at least according to initial, preliminary offers. If that turns out to be the case then the increased cache (8 >> 12 MB), the increased FSB, the higher clock speed, the inclusion of SSE4 and lowered TDP make the newer generation very worthwhile.

I agree that such a server board is best used with both sockets filled. To keep costs somewhat in hand I would personally use a nVidia 8800GT card, not an Ultra. They are very close in performance but not in price. Most NLE's don't use the GPU very much, so here you can save some $$ on an otherwise very powerful and costly system.

Why do you consider the Harpertown so disappointing in comparison to the Woodcrest/Clovertown?

[Mike McCarthy]

Lack of availability, the increased FSB is only available on the highest models, didn't bring down prices any. I usually purchase a step or two below the top of the line (no Extreme Edition for me). Compare the 2.66Ghz version between 5300 and 5400 series and you will see what I mean.

[Travis Reese]

Any reason you chose the 5440 over the 5365.

Yes, the new SSE4 instructions.

PCs should see increases of about 15 percent for imaging-related applications; 25 percent for 3-D rendering; more than 40 percent for gaming; and more than 40 percent faster video encoding with Intel SSE4 optimized video encoders.

[Mike McCarthy]

Don't hold your breath. I am not saying that that is not true, but I will wait until I see an independent benchmark before I believe it. 10% is a bit more realistic, and wouldn't surprise me.

[Travis Reese]

Oh, I'm not. I'm ordering parts and building a machine. I'd say those waiting for benchmarks are holding their breath.

I simply made my post to give people in the states an idea of what was actually available and not just announced and it what it cost me to get those parts.

[Mike McCarthy]

I'm not holding my breath either. I am planning to buy an HP XW8400 today, since it is the last day for a particular deal. I am buying dual 5150s, with the plan to upgrade to 5400s once they become widely available, if I find myself needing the quad horsepower.

[Harm Millaard]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy

I'm not holding my breath either. I am planning to buy an HP XW8400 today, since it is the last day for a particular deal. I am buying dual 5150s, with the plan to upgrade to 5400s once they become widely available, if I find myself needing the quad horsepower.

Make sure that HP delivers a mobo with the Seaburg chipset (5400X) and with DDR2-800 FBDIMM's, otherwise you may end up with another costly upgrade when you decide to upgrade to 54xx CPU's.

[John Hewat]

Since the Nvidia 8 series GPUs are out of the question, I'll take to my new machine the 7800GT + one new card.

Could I get some recommendations for the other card.

Priorities are:

1. Full screen preview available with Prospect & CS3.
2. Render speed improvements in Magic Bullet.
3. Price approx. $300 or less.
4. HDCP support.

I'm looking at the 7600GT, which is nice and cheap or the Quadro FX 570, but I don't know what the benefit of it is.

[Mike McCarthy]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

Make sure that HP delivers a mobo with the Seaburg chipset (5400X) and with DDR2-800 FBDIMM's, otherwise you may end up with another costly upgrade when you decide to upgrade to 54xx CPU's.

Someone posted to my site today to report that they couldn't get a new 5400 series CPU to work in their XW8400, but the presumption was that a BIOS update could be expected to fix that. I still have not purchased one yet, they were out of the one I wanted, but I still plan to get one before the end of the year. I am trying to find a refurbished one with 5300 CPUs, so that I won't have to worry about trading up in the future, but they are hard to come by. I am aware that the new 1600FSB will not work with the XW8400, but I could still get up to a 3.0Ghz model with the 1333FSB if desired.

As far as GPUs, the 7600GT should be cheap. Get one and try it. If you don't like it, keep it as a spare and try another one. It is hard to predict how certain combinations will work together, and if you are going to be experimenting, it makes sense to try for the cheaper solutions first.

[John Hewat]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy

As far as GPUs, the 7600GT should be cheap. Get one and try it. If you don't like it, keep it as a spare and try another one. It is hard to predict how certain combinations will work together, and if you are going to be experimenting, it makes sense to try for the cheaper solutions first.

Think I'll do that.

Also, is there a 3.00GHz quad xeon in the 53xx series? I can't find one higher that 2.66GHz. The only 3.00GHz I can find is in the 54xx series, which isn't available over here yet...

Also, just spoke to another guy who's doing a quote for me and he said I was insane for looking at the Xeons. He said if I could see a performance increase in 8 cores of Xeon over the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.00GHz he'd give me the computer!

He also told me that CS3 wouldn't even use the 8 cores and that the 8800GT may have the full screen preview re-enabled, unlike other 8 series Nvidia cards.

So he just confused me and I don't know what to make of his opinions...

[Harm Millaard]

Originally Posted by John Hewat

Also, is there a 3.00GHz quad xeon in the 53xx series? I can't find one higher that 2.66GHz. The only 3.00GHz I can find is in the 54xx series, which isn't available over here yet...

It is the X5365, introduced in august.