building a PC for editing

Bret Pritchett · December 29th, 2003, 01:21 PM

A few of my main interests are:

AMD or Pentium
what is dependant on AMD or Pentium. What I mean is, do I have to buy a certain motherboard with Pentium or AMD? Is it just the motherboard or is video card centered around processor too?

should I RAID 4 60gb w/ 8mb or just keep it simple and just go with 1 hard drive? (I already have a 120gb to spare)
or
should I put all my regular computer stuff on a 120gb (windows, program files, etc) and have a seperate 250gb partitioned with just my editing programs and video on it?

How much ram? Is 1gig of Kingston ram enough? (there is a sale at Office Max)

Video card - how reliant am I on this for editing? Do video cards come into play more with creating 3D graphics (like with Maya) than video editing? Am I using the hard drive or video card more when I'm using something like Premiere?

sorry for so many questions

Any thoughts?

Rob Wilson · December 29th, 2003, 01:54 PM

AMD or Pentium - Personal preference for many. General opinion is that Intel is better at video

should I RAID 4 60gb w/ 8mb or just keep it simple and just go with 1 hard drive? (I already have a 120gb to spare) or
should I put all my regular computer stuff on a 120gb (windows, program files, etc) and have a seperate 250gb partitioned with just my editing programs and video on it?

Designate a single fast drive for your system files and editing software. Use a second drive for video and a third for rendering

How much ram? Is 1gig of Kingston ram enough? (there is a sale at Office Max)

For most folks, YEP. I'd check prices at newegg.com before buying retail

Video card - how reliant am I on this for editing? Do video cards come into play more with creating 3D graphics (like with Maya) than video editing? Am I using the hard drive or video card more when I'm using something like Premiere?

Lots more variables to consider. Do you want (now or in the future) to use more than one monitor? What else will the machine be used for etc.

Glenn Chan · December 29th, 2003, 02:52 PM

1- What's your budget? (roughly)
2- Which NLE do you want to run?

Doing some tests with Vegas, performance seems to be:
-hugely dependent on CPU
-slightly affected by memory bandwidth (DDR400 vs DDR333 RAM and which mobo/processor you run)
-improved by hyperthreading (3% on super long renders to 20% on very short renders) ONLY WITH VEGAS
-not really affected by memory timings (so get brand name RAM like Kingston or Crucial). I can't measure any difference.
-RAID can make a small difference but is not really worth it.
-PAT (875 chipset versus 865) doesn't seem to make more than a 2% difference, but I am not 100% sure about that (I don't have a real PAT board). Considering how expensive the 875 chipset boards are compared to 865PE ones, I wouldn't get them. Some of the 865PE boards also have PAT enabled. PAT is the main difference between 875 and 865. Intel stripped down the 875 (mainly removed PAT) to make the 865. They aren't pleased that motherboard manufacturers figured out how to enable PAT.

My suggestion is to get a Pentium rig since they are better than AMD at video-related tasks (~3X faster with certain encoders that use SSE2 optimizations) and are faster than the 32-bit AMD processors. The 64-bit AMD processors might be better than pentiums, but not because they're 64-bit. There aren't really any good benchmarks comparing the AMD64s to the fastest Pentiums. However the 3000+ is more pricey than the pentium 2.4C/2.6C/2.8C and very close in performance.

Motherboards - The Asus P4P800 deluxe is good. It comes with firewire and 2 extra IDE channels compared to the non-deluxe version. MSI and some other manufacturers also make some good boards with the 865PE chipset. The P4P800 from what I read has the nicest onboard sound of all the Intel chipset motherboards. It is better than a SB Live (I have one :) ).

Processor - 2.4C, 2.6C, 2.8C are all good. If you want to overclock the choice is more complicated, but I think the higher speed processors are better for overclocking (the higher the better).

RAM- definitely get RAM in pairs to take advantage of dual channel. Brand name RAM (kingston, crucial) is good. 1GB is good.

Hard drives- If you partition your system drive so that 40GB is for system, data, and applications then that stuff won't run amock and fragment the rest of your drive. Leave the rest of the system drive for video or something. You can make a 700MB partition for important data to backup to CDs often (i.e. project files).

Some people say you shouldn't run video off your system drive since it can cause dropped frames. If you have other programs running or if your system drive is badly fragmented then this *could* happen, although it's entirely avoidable. A safer setup is like a 80GB system drive + 250GB drives for video storage. If you like to live on the edge then get just one 250GB drive and partition it 40GB/700MB/the rest.

RAID- not necessary unless your machine can do multiple streams of RT or you want to edit uncompressed. Some motherboards have RAID controllers so you can do it for "free". RAID controllers vary in quality though. The Intel ICH5 RAID controller (works on most mobos) I believe is decent but uses SATA drives (which are sometimes more expensive).

Case- Antec 3700AMB is a good choice unless you need more hard drive space. That case does not have a headphone or firewire jack in the front (minor inconvenience). It comes with a quality 350W power supply, which should be enough for the max # of hard drives you can put in that case.

Video card - With some NLEs the video card doesn't affect performance at all. Make sure you get a dual head video card though- running 2 monitors is a very nice to have!!! 2 monitors are cheaper than 1 big monitor. If you run 2XLCDs then you'll need a card with dual DVI out, and if you want 2XCRTs then make sure your card can do 2XVGA out (some can't).

Check newegg.com for prices. They are the first place you should look if buying over the internet. Great prices and great service (check their reselleratings.com).

Bret Pritchett · December 29th, 2003, 04:41 PM

"For most folks, YEP. I'd check prices at newegg.com before buying retail"

I've bought from newegg before. At Office Max - after rebates a Kingston 256mb stick of DDR ram is 9.99 - haven't found anything better than that on Newegg

"Designate a single fast drive for your system files and editing software. Use a second drive for video and a third for rendering "

A drive just for rendering - how would that work? would the editing program be on that one, and all the video files on the 2nd drive?

my budget is $600 (not including monitors or HDDs)
here's what I'm looking at

ATI Sapphire RADEON 9600 256mb DDR AGP Video Card
$112 - new

Asus P4P800 Deluxe
$130

Intel P4 2.8 Ghz 800 FSB CPU
$214

4 sticks of Kingston 256 DDR ram (1 gig total)
$40

Chieftec Dragon
$60

Glenn Chan · December 29th, 2003, 05:26 PM

Quote:

"Designate a single fast drive for your system files and editing software. Use a second drive for video and a third for rendering "

Dedicating a drive to rendering is a waste of money. You are better off partitioning the system drive and using the second partition for renders. On a 2 hour project you won't exceed 2 hours of renders (26GB). If you want to export your project before printing to tape (good idea usually) that'll take another 26GB or so. Remember than a 80GB drive is like 70GB when formatted.

With Vegas Video the performance difference of rendering from one drive to another is too little to care about.

Quote:

ATI Sapphire RADEON 9600 256mb DDR AGP Video Card
$112 - new

The extra 128MB of RAM only helps on games when you are running at high quality settings. I don't think the 9600 can handle those settings. You might want to check some benchmarks like those at Anandtech to see if that's the case. For video editing I don't think the extra RAM makes ANY difference. Any only some programs take advantage of the extra power that your video card can provide.

Quote:

Chieftec Dragon
$60

I don't think the chieftec case comes with a power supply. Enermax, Antec, Sparkle, PC power and cooling are all good power supplies. The brand is very important in determining quality. Poor quality power supplies will give fluctuating power when under load, which can cause crashes and possibly damage your computer. Some power supplies can't even handle their rated wattage. So get a quality power supply. If you are planning to use LOTS of hard drives then you may need a PS larger than 300/350W.

The Antec 3700AMB is a pretty good value for a case considering you get a quality power supply with it. However, some of the Chieftec cases have nice aesthetics :)

You should consider which programs you want to use and whether or not they benefit from a nice 3d card. After Effects and games are programs that benefit.

Bret Pritchett · December 30th, 2003, 03:46 AM

I have found a combination deal online:

for $420
Chieftec Mid-Tower Case w/ 420w PSU $420
Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz
Asus P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard

of $370
Chieftec Mid-Tower Case w/ 420w PSU $420
Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz
Asus P4S800 Motherboard

so my question is, Is it worth the extra $50 for the Asus P4P800 Deluxe instead of the P4S800?

also, I'm on a tight budget, I'd like to keep cost low. So what I want to know is will there be enough of a difference to spend the extra $50?

I will be using this primarily with Adobe Premiere and rarely After Effects.

Glenn Chan · December 30th, 2003, 04:48 PM

From a quick look at the Asus website, the P4S800 uses a Sis chipset while the P4P800 uses an Intel chipset. I don't know too much about how the two differ. They seem to perform the same.

Things to check:
How many IDE and SATA devices does the P4S800 support? (and how many do you need?) The P4S800 may not support SATA devices while the Intel board supports 2 (with possibility of RAID). SATA drives are more expensive at lower price points but will eventually overtake PATA in the future. Some of them give really good performance like the Hitachi ones <-- Hitachi SATA drives are good for your OS + applications but may not be the best for video storage.

Performance. The Sis chipset seems to be within a few percent of Intel chipsets (865/875). http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...deo_benchmarks Please be aware that Tom's Hardware tends to draw conclusions based on synthetic benchmarks that don't reflect real world performance.

P4S800 doesn't have firewire? If not, factor in the cost of a firewire card. Remember you need a firewire cable, which is cheap when bundled with a FW card.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to much information about the P4S800 motherboard. It looks like it performs practically the same and have a few less features than the P4P800 motherboard. For $50 more the P4P800 deluxe may not be worth it?

Glenn Chan · December 30th, 2003, 04:56 PM

At newegg, here are some prices:
P4P800 deluxe - $130
Pentium 2.6C 800FSB Hyperthreading - $174 RETAIL BOX
Chieftec Yellow Heavy Duty Aluminum Server Case - $82 with 420W power supply + $10 shipping

If I calculated shipping correctly, that's $386 + $10shipping + tax depending where you live. If you go with the antec 3700AMB it's a bit cheaper. newegg has great service too.

Bret Pritchett · December 30th, 2003, 06:08 PM

^ I didn't see a P42.6 for less than $170 - i'll check again

and I prefer the Dragon case over the Server case

thanks for checking - this is probably one of the most helpful forums I've been on

Glenn Chan · December 30th, 2003, 07:18 PM

Whoa you're right. It's $174 for the retail box 2.6C.

Andrew Leigh · January 1st, 2004, 05:00 AM

Hi,

recently upgraded to

ABIT IC7-G, 3 Gig Intel P4, 1 gig of DDR400 Kingston RAM (matched pair).
40 Gig WD OS and 2 x 180 Gig WD Data

Made one mistake, should have bought ATA drives.

The PC really comes into it's own when editing. For the rest of the time it is on idle. On my P3 733MHz with 512Mb of RAM a 50min video would take 5.5 hours to decode into MPEG-2. Have just completed a 40 min project that took 55 minutes to decode. Renders are also remarkable quick.

Take a serious look at the ABIT board, it works just fine with my Raptor.

Cheers
Andrew

Glenn Chan · January 1st, 2004, 03:25 PM

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDgwLDY=
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDg0LDE=
There are some reviews of the Abit IS7-G versus the P4P800 deluxe. Don't pay too much attention to the performance tests, the difference is very small and the motherboard manufacturers cheat at the tests by overclocking the boards they send to reviewers mildly. The Abit IS7 (not G) doesn't have the extra 2 SATA channels (with silicon image RAID controller) and the IC7-G is more expensive since it uses the 875 chipset (which makes little difference other than in price). http://www.mbreview.com also has some good reviews.

Differences to look for:
ease of installation
easy to use/configuration issues
how many hard drives you can attach (SATA and PATA)

?overclocking? - overclocking is the only tweak worth doing for a video editing rig. Both Abit and Asus boards are good for overclocking but they each have their own strengths. Some people don't want to mess around with their computers that much though.

December 29th, 2003, 01:21 PM	#1
Bret Pritchett Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 44	building a PC for editing - any suggestions? A few of my main interests are: AMD or Pentium what is dependant on AMD or Pentium. What I mean is, do I have to buy a certain motherboard with Pentium or AMD? Is it just the motherboard or is video card centered around processor too? should I RAID 4 60gb w/ 8mb or just keep it simple and just go with 1 hard drive? (I already have a 120gb to spare) or should I put all my regular computer stuff on a 120gb (windows, program files, etc) and have a seperate 250gb partitioned with just my editing programs and video on it? How much ram? Is 1gig of Kingston ram enough? (there is a sale at Office Max) Video card - how reliant am I on this for editing? Do video cards come into play more with creating 3D graphics (like with Maya) than video editing? Am I using the hard drive or video card more when I'm using something like Premiere? sorry for so many questions Any thoughts?

January 1st, 2004, 05:00 AM	#11
Andrew Leigh Major Player Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa Posts: 220	Hi, recently upgraded to ABIT IC7-G, 3 Gig Intel P4, 1 gig of DDR400 Kingston RAM (matched pair). 40 Gig WD OS and 2 x 180 Gig WD Data Made one mistake, should have bought ATA drives. The PC really comes into it's own when editing. For the rest of the time it is on idle. On my P3 733MHz with 512Mb of RAM a 50min video would take 5.5 hours to decode into MPEG-2. Have just completed a 40 min project that took 55 minutes to decode. Renders are also remarkable quick. Take a serious look at the ABIT board, it works just fine with my Raptor. Cheers Andrew __________________ PAL XL-1, DV Raptor, Premiere TOTAL AMATEUR - DOING IT FOR THE FUN

December 29th, 2003, 01:54 PM	#2
Rob Wilson Major Player Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Flagstaff, AZ Posts: 473	AMD or Pentium - Personal preference for many. General opinion is that Intel is better at video should I RAID 4 60gb w/ 8mb or just keep it simple and just go with 1 hard drive? (I already have a 120gb to spare) or should I put all my regular computer stuff on a 120gb (windows, program files, etc) and have a seperate 250gb partitioned with just my editing programs and video on it? Designate a single fast drive for your system files and editing software. Use a second drive for video and a third for rendering How much ram? Is 1gig of Kingston ram enough? (there is a sale at Office Max) For most folks, YEP. I'd check prices at newegg.com before buying retail Video card - how reliant am I on this for editing? Do video cards come into play more with creating 3D graphics (like with Maya) than video editing? Am I using the hard drive or video card more when I'm using something like Premiere? Lots more variables to consider. Do you want (now or in the future) to use more than one monitor? What else will the machine be used for etc.

December 29th, 2003, 02:52 PM	#3
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	1- What's your budget? (roughly) 2- Which NLE do you want to run? Doing some tests with Vegas, performance seems to be: -hugely dependent on CPU -slightly affected by memory bandwidth (DDR400 vs DDR333 RAM and which mobo/processor you run) -improved by hyperthreading (3% on super long renders to 20% on very short renders) ONLY WITH VEGAS -not really affected by memory timings (so get brand name RAM like Kingston or Crucial). I can't measure any difference. -RAID can make a small difference but is not really worth it. -PAT (875 chipset versus 865) doesn't seem to make more than a 2% difference, but I am not 100% sure about that (I don't have a real PAT board). Considering how expensive the 875 chipset boards are compared to 865PE ones, I wouldn't get them. Some of the 865PE boards also have PAT enabled. PAT is the main difference between 875 and 865. Intel stripped down the 875 (mainly removed PAT) to make the 865. They aren't pleased that motherboard manufacturers figured out how to enable PAT. My suggestion is to get a Pentium rig since they are better than AMD at video-related tasks (~3X faster with certain encoders that use SSE2 optimizations) and are faster than the 32-bit AMD processors. The 64-bit AMD processors might be better than pentiums, but not because they're 64-bit. There aren't really any good benchmarks comparing the AMD64s to the fastest Pentiums. However the 3000+ is more pricey than the pentium 2.4C/2.6C/2.8C and very close in performance. Motherboards - The Asus P4P800 deluxe is good. It comes with firewire and 2 extra IDE channels compared to the non-deluxe version. MSI and some other manufacturers also make some good boards with the 865PE chipset. The P4P800 from what I read has the nicest onboard sound of all the Intel chipset motherboards. It is better than a SB Live (I have one :) ). Processor - 2.4C, 2.6C, 2.8C are all good. If you want to overclock the choice is more complicated, but I think the higher speed processors are better for overclocking (the higher the better). RAM- definitely get RAM in pairs to take advantage of dual channel. Brand name RAM (kingston, crucial) is good. 1GB is good. Hard drives- If you partition your system drive so that 40GB is for system, data, and applications then that stuff won't run amock and fragment the rest of your drive. Leave the rest of the system drive for video or something. You can make a 700MB partition for important data to backup to CDs often (i.e. project files). Some people say you shouldn't run video off your system drive since it can cause dropped frames. If you have other programs running or if your system drive is badly fragmented then this could happen, although it's entirely avoidable. A safer setup is like a 80GB system drive + 250GB drives for video storage. If you like to live on the edge then get just one 250GB drive and partition it 40GB/700MB/the rest. RAID- not necessary unless your machine can do multiple streams of RT or you want to edit uncompressed. Some motherboards have RAID controllers so you can do it for "free". RAID controllers vary in quality though. The Intel ICH5 RAID controller (works on most mobos) I believe is decent but uses SATA drives (which are sometimes more expensive). Case- Antec 3700AMB is a good choice unless you need more hard drive space. That case does not have a headphone or firewire jack in the front (minor inconvenience). It comes with a quality 350W power supply, which should be enough for the max # of hard drives you can put in that case. Video card - With some NLEs the video card doesn't affect performance at all. Make sure you get a dual head video card though- running 2 monitors is a very nice to have!!! 2 monitors are cheaper than 1 big monitor. If you run 2XLCDs then you'll need a card with dual DVI out, and if you want 2XCRTs then make sure your card can do 2XVGA out (some can't). Check newegg.com for prices. They are the first place you should look if buying over the internet. Great prices and great service (check their reselleratings.com).

December 29th, 2003, 04:41 PM	#4
Bret Pritchett Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 44	"For most folks, YEP. I'd check prices at newegg.com before buying retail" I've bought from newegg before. At Office Max - after rebates a Kingston 256mb stick of DDR ram is 9.99 - haven't found anything better than that on Newegg "Designate a single fast drive for your system files and editing software. Use a second drive for video and a third for rendering " A drive just for rendering - how would that work? would the editing program be on that one, and all the video files on the 2nd drive? my budget is $600 (not including monitors or HDDs) here's what I'm looking at ATI Sapphire RADEON 9600 256mb DDR AGP Video Card $112 - new Asus P4P800 Deluxe $130 Intel P4 2.8 Ghz 800 FSB CPU $214 4 sticks of Kingston 256 DDR ram (1 gig total) $40 Chieftec Dragon $60

December 30th, 2003, 03:46 AM	#6
Bret Pritchett Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 44	I have found a combination deal online: for $420 Chieftec Mid-Tower Case w/ 420w PSU $420 Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz Asus P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard of $370 Chieftec Mid-Tower Case w/ 420w PSU $420 Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz Asus P4S800 Motherboard so my question is, Is it worth the extra $50 for the Asus P4P800 Deluxe instead of the P4S800? also, I'm on a tight budget, I'd like to keep cost low. So what I want to know is will there be enough of a difference to spend the extra $50? I will be using this primarily with Adobe Premiere and rarely After Effects.

December 30th, 2003, 04:48 PM	#7
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	From a quick look at the Asus website, the P4S800 uses a Sis chipset while the P4P800 uses an Intel chipset. I don't know too much about how the two differ. They seem to perform the same. Things to check: How many IDE and SATA devices does the P4S800 support? (and how many do you need?) The P4S800 may not support SATA devices while the Intel board supports 2 (with possibility of RAID). SATA drives are more expensive at lower price points but will eventually overtake PATA in the future. Some of them give really good performance like the Hitachi ones <-- Hitachi SATA drives are good for your OS + applications but may not be the best for video storage. Performance. The Sis chipset seems to be within a few percent of Intel chipsets (865/875). http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...deo_benchmarks Please be aware that Tom's Hardware tends to draw conclusions based on synthetic benchmarks that don't reflect real world performance. P4S800 doesn't have firewire? If not, factor in the cost of a firewire card. Remember you need a firewire cable, which is cheap when bundled with a FW card. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to much information about the P4S800 motherboard. It looks like it performs practically the same and have a few less features than the P4P800 motherboard. For $50 more the P4P800 deluxe may not be worth it?

December 30th, 2003, 04:56 PM	#8
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	At newegg, here are some prices: P4P800 deluxe - $130 Pentium 2.6C 800FSB Hyperthreading - $174 RETAIL BOX Chieftec Yellow Heavy Duty Aluminum Server Case - $82 with 420W power supply + $10 shipping If I calculated shipping correctly, that's $386 + $10shipping + tax depending where you live. If you go with the antec 3700AMB it's a bit cheaper. newegg has great service too.

December 30th, 2003, 06:08 PM	#9
Bret Pritchett Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 44	^ I didn't see a P42.6 for less than $170 - i'll check again and I prefer the Dragon case over the Server case thanks for checking - this is probably one of the most helpful forums I've been on

December 30th, 2003, 07:18 PM	#10
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Whoa you're right. It's $174 for the retail box 2.6C.

January 1st, 2004, 03:25 PM	#12
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDgwLDY= http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDg0LDE= There are some reviews of the Abit IS7-G versus the P4P800 deluxe. Don't pay too much attention to the performance tests, the difference is very small and the motherboard manufacturers cheat at the tests by overclocking the boards they send to reviewers mildly. The Abit IS7 (not G) doesn't have the extra 2 SATA channels (with silicon image RAID controller) and the IC7-G is more expensive since it uses the 875 chipset (which makes little difference other than in price). http://www.mbreview.com also has some good reviews. Differences to look for: ease of installation easy to use/configuration issues how many hard drives you can attach (SATA and PATA) ?overclocking? - overclocking is the only tweak worth doing for a video editing rig. Both Abit and Asus boards are good for overclocking but they each have their own strengths. Some people don't want to mess around with their computers that much though.