PC Build suggestions

[Brandy Bryan]

Getting ready to have a new computer built. I will be using CS5. The guy building does not have any DV experience. And I am a computer retard. So I would appreciate suggestions. I have about 3k available for the build.


Thanks for any help

[Vishal Jadhav]

I found my suggestions from quite a few forums when i built my PC last year, here is the built i achieved at the end and happy with it.

Gigabyte Mother board DX580 i guess
I7- 920 processor
12 GB DDR3 Ram
512 MB - ATI Graphics card
all HDDs should be minimum 7200 RPM
In case you get the Velociraptor with is 10000 RPM for the OS and the editing program it would work far more effeciently.
A Decent Full HD monitor - guess now the market can give you many choices in this.
Do ensure that you have a good SMPS since the power requirement is big , i use it without overclocking anything, however you can overclock and it should fly

Once you built this up there are some things to remember
1) You now have a 64 bit Hardware and CS5 is fully 64 bit software
2) Use a full 64 bit OS, i use the Vista 64 bit

This combination i have seen works damn smart at my end to edit HD.

All the best with your build, hope the above helps and yes it would be under the budget you have.

[Paul Newman]

Watch out for the graphics card - you need cuda enabled Nvidia card to support CS5 for the mercury playback engine in PremierePro - check on Adobe website for supported cards - with your budget - get SSD system drive - a mobo with sata III as well as usb 3 - and buy a 6 core i7 then clock it - that way you'll be well set for the future !

Paul

[Pete Bauer]

I agree with Paul's points. With a $3K budget, you can build a really capable box:

MB of choice, ASUS, Gigabyte.
6-core i7 processor
24GB RAM (PPro CS5 loves RAM, and if you use AE you'll get longer RAM previews -- expensive, yes, but go for it)
CUDA-capable nVidia-based graphics card with at LEAST 1GB (presently folks seem to find the 460, especially variants with >1GB, to be in the value/dollar sweet spot with a simple hack that you can find elsewhere on the forum)
SSD for your C: drive; opinions differ but I think an SSD is a better choice than any HDD for your OS/Programs drive
2 or more fast HDD to RAID for your working files
Load up Win7 x64 and CS5...enjoy!

[Randall Leong]

The problem with using an SSD for your programs as well as the system files:

Some programs eat up hundreds of GB of space during a typical install. This means that an SSD that will hold even one such program will be astronomically expensive. And most of the moderately-priced SSDs do not have enough available space to hold an entire production suite in addition to the system/boot files. To give you an example: A 1TB SSD costs a whopping $1800 by itself - whereas most of the sub-$200 SSDs offer less than 100GB of space. A large single SSD would have left very little room in a $3000 budget for the rest of the components.

[Pete Bauer]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

This means that an SSD that will hold even one such program will be astronomically expensive.

Huh??? Simply not correct; you must have slipped a digit somewhere in your calculations. I installed and use CS5 Master Collection on a 120GB SSD with no problem at all and plenty of space left over (sorry, not at home so don't have the exact amount). Happily editing away using that C drive for my project files as well. Many others have similar positive experience with smaller capacity SSDs than mine.

Decent SSDs can be had for $150-200 these days. Unless one has some other reason for having huge capacity on their OS/Programs drive, IMO there's just no need to do other than SSD.

EDIT: Did a quick look up on system requirements in GB:
20 = Win 7 x64
24.3=Adobe MC
03.5 = MS Office 2010 Pro Plus (for those that do other than edit with their machine)
-------
47.8 GB

Add another 10 GB for another gaggle of apps and it all still just fits on a 60GB drive. Get 80+ for headroom and you're in good shape.

[Randall Leong]

One of my most frequently used programs takes up all of 400GB of space (yes, 400 GB, not 40 GB, due to extremely sloppy code) - and it cannot run from any drive other than the boot/system drive. So for my particular use, then yes, an SSD of that capacity will be astronomically expensive.

[Pete Bauer]

Randall, then yours is a most unusual situation and not applicable to someone doing a PC build for CS5. An SSD is not essential, but is a good addition to a new build for typical editing boxes.

[Randall Leong]

Fair enough, Pete. Although it is not recommended to have any other programs installed on the same PC as the video editing machine, there are some who do it anyway because they simply cannot afford or don't have enough room for a second PC.

[Jarred Gastreich]

Side note from Brandy's original post.

I am building a laptop for same-day edit purposes. I will be using CS5. I have decided to go with HP's ENVY 17 series and I need to decide on a 1tb 7200rpm or 2tb 5200rpm hard drive. The 2tb is $250 more but my budget allows for it. Do I really need 7200rpm?

[Pete Bauer]

Assuming you're working in HD of some flavor, a single-drive system definitely won't be optimal, so the faster the drive, the better. Will your same-day edits require anything approaching even 1TB?

I took a quick look at the Envy specs on the HP site; it is missing one feature that I personally consider essential: a CUDA-capable nVidia video subsystem. That means you will not be able to enjoy CUDA acceleration of commonly used effects. If I was buying this machine for CS5, here's what I'd get from the available options (not taking the time to price it out, but I'm sure it would be expensive):

- fastest processor option
- 8GB RAM
- SSD option for internal drive (it's a combined 160GB SSD and another 640GB 7200 drive
- separately, an eSATA drive for my data

But again, I'm so happy with smooth timeline editing using the 40 or so CUDA-enabled effects in PPro CS5 that I personally wouldn't buy any machine that wouldn't support it. If you're doing straight cuts with minimal color correction, etc, then it might be ok, though, especially if you're using Cineform FirstLight to minimize your PPro effect needs.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Jarred Gastreich

Side note from Brandy's original post.

I am building a laptop for same-day edit purposes. I will be using CS5. I have decided to go with HP's ENVY 17 series and I need to decide on a 1tb 7200rpm or 2tb 5200rpm hard drive. The 2tb is $250 more but my budget allows for it. Do I really need 7200rpm?

As Pete stated, it does not offer NVIDIA graphics at all - CUDA or pre-CUDA. The only GPU choice in that ENVY 17 is an AMD (ATi) Mobility Radeon HD 5850, which cannot use MPE's GPU mode at all.

[Craig Coston]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

The problem with using an SSD for your programs as well as the system files:

Some programs eat up hundreds of GB of space during a typical install. This means that an SSD that will hold even one such program will be astronomically expensive. And most of the moderately-priced SSDs do not have enough available space to hold an entire production suite in addition to the system/boot files. To give you an example: A 1TB SSD costs a whopping $1800 by itself - whereas most of the sub-$200 SSDs offer less than 100GB of space. A large single SSD would have left very little room in a $3000 budget for the rest of the components.

??? Don't run games on an SSD then. I have an Intel 80GB SSD and I have Win 7 Pro, CS5 Prod Premium suite, web dev tools, Office 2010, and assorted video utilities and run just fine with room to spare. A 128GB drive would be more than enough space for a video editing system.

On this forum I would assume to address people's video editing needs, as this is a video editing forum. I understand that there may be people that tinker and dabble with video on the side and also play games on their machine, but I think that is the exception and not the norm here.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Craig Coston

??? Don't run games on an SSD then. I have an Intel 80GB SSD and I have Win 7 Pro, CS5 Prod Premium suite, web dev tools, Office 2010, and assorted video utilities and run just fine with room to spare. A 128GB drive would be more than enough space for a video editing system.

On this forum I would assume to address people's video editing needs, as this is a video editing forum. I understand that there may be people that tinker and dabble with video on the side and also play games on their machine, but I think that is the exception and not the norm here.

See my clarification below:

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

Fair enough, Pete. Although it is not recommended to have any other programs installed on the same PC as the video editing machine, there are some who do it anyway because they simply cannot afford or don't have enough room for a second PC.

Also, in another thread that I made a post in, a small-capacity mechanical hard drive is ill-suited to a modern video editing system. If the main mechanical system hard drive is more than about 60% full, the performance will start degrading seriously (not to mention that those small-capacity conventional drives tend to be of much older designs that are relatively slow by current standards). And it is not recommended to have a system drive that's cluttered with games and other miscellaneous junk in a video editing system.

[Robert Ellis]

My first video editing PC will also have to double as my everyday PC so I'm taking forum advice and adding a second hard drive. Question/s:
Does the video edition software go on the video data file dedicated drive or on the OS drive?
Is there a 10,000 rpm mechanical hard drive?
Can this hard drive be an external without loosing data rate speed?

Because this new PC has a 1 TB OS hard drive, I'd like to keep editing my stills there and add a new HD just for video.