i7 980x Now or Wait for Sandybridge?

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

Spotted an early report of Sandy Bridge not being too much to get excited about ...



Read the rest at Premiere Pro Benchmark for CS5

Andrew

Actually, my particular 950 requires massive over-clocking just to perform well at all. But even with a good air cooler, my 950 peters out at about 3.8GHz without having the CPU to get to near-overheating.

Sorry, but with the i7-9xx series, you get what you pay for. You really need to spend $6,000 or more on a single i7-9xx system (that includes the cost of a hardware RAID card, 12 or more hard drives, 24GB of ultra-high-speed, ultra-low-latency (DDR3-2000 or faster speed with CL6 latency timings at that elevated speed) and super-expensive liquid or liquid nitrogen CPU cooling) just to outperform the fastest of the $1,500 i7-2600K systems. Most i7-9xx configurations costing less than $3,000 do not perform very well due to compromises in memory and/or storage and/or cooling. (I confirmed my findings by simply running the PPBM5 benchmark on my current system at its stock Turbo frequency of 3.2GHz and at an overclocked 3.83GHz. The total time in PPBM5 improved by only about 40 seconds - from the 300-ish seconds at stock to 260-ish at 3.83GHz. This indicates that something is bottlenecking my system. I might have to replace the 6 x 2 GB modules to upgrade to 24GB using 6 x 4 GB modules just to improve performance. Unfortunately, all I can afford are DDR3-1333 modules with 9-9-9 timings since DDR3-1600 or faster modules with even 9-9-9 or 8-8-8 timings still cost more than I want to spend at this time.)

[Randall Leong]

And when the Sandy Bridge motherboards do go back on the market, spend the little extra money for an i7-2600(K) rather than settling for an i5-2500(K): The quad-core i5 CPUs lack HyperThreading, so that performance in video editing won't be as good as with the i7 (although the one low-ranking result of an i5-2500 system in the PPBM5 list was partly due to that system having only 4GB of RAM).

[Andrew Clark]

So the P67 MB's have no capability to add in a RAID card for an external array?

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Andrew Clark

So the P67 MB's have no capability to add in a RAID card for an external array?

As I mentioned, the P67 mobos have no more than four available PCI-e lanes (after accounting for a single graphics card and all of the onboard controllers on the mobo). And the Asus P67 mobos have their PCI-e x4 slot running in x1 mode by default. Forcing that slot to run at its full x4 bandwidth on the P8P67 Pro will disable both of the mobo's PCI-e x1 slots, the USB 3.0 front-panel header and the eSATA ports. Also, one of the PCI-e x1 slots is disabled by default. Enabling it will also disable the USB 3.0 front-panel header.

[Scott Chichelli]

Originally Posted by Andrew Clark

So the P67 MB's have no capability to add in a RAID card for an external array?

if you can find a 1x card yes.. past that no. other boards have slightly better layout than Asus.
if you need something like a sonnet array then you really should be on a Dual Xeon anyway.

Scott
ADK

[Andrew Clark]

Hmmm...OK, so what about utilizing the onboard e-SATA or USB 3.0 ports to utilize with this:

TowerRAID TR4UTBPN - 4 Bay USB 3.0 / eSATA Hardware RAID 5 Tower (Black)

Would this work for and external RAID array with the P67 MB's?

[Andrew Smith]

Thanks for that link for the TowerRAID product. It's beyond me how people could spend megabucks for a "proper" RAID card when you can get something like that for a few hundred dollars and then just add your own drives.

Andrew

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

Thanks for that link for the TowerRAID product. It's beyond me how people could spend megabucks for a "proper" RAID card when you can get something like that for a few hundred dollars and then just add your own drives.

Andrew

There are many reasons why a 'proper' real hardware raid controller is better. For one, this external box is a single point of failure where if one piece breaks, the entire unit must be replaced or possibly sent to Sans Digital for repair. Just because of this, I would never use it on any work computer.

Also, its performance is greatly limited and its single cable can get saturated very easily. A single Samsung F3 can almost saturate its entire bandwidth, 2 F3's can saturate 100% and a single SSD can saturate 100%.

EDIT: Taken directly from this unit's manual,"The parity calculations for R5 MODE may result in write performance that is somewhat slower than the write performance to a single drive."

After some more reading, this unit does not support hot-swapping drives. If a drive dies, you must turn off the unit's power and then replace a drive. Or if you just want to add a drive or remove a good drive, the unit's power must be turned off. There is little to no control over the settings aside from the raid level switched on the back. If you have used a real hardware raid controller, then you will understand why having access to the multitude of various settings is important. I can do and see everything from the 3ware or Areca web browser.

These units are ok if you only need storage expansion and have no room inside the computer case. As far as I can tell, most of these units have no email support if a drive dies and few have alarms. With a 'proper' Areca raid controller, I get email and a loud beeping alarm. With my external SAS cases, I can service and replace any piece very easily from local electronic stores (Microcenter, Fry's) or contact PC-Pitstop where I bought them from and get parts the next day.

The biggest factor is reliability. There is a reason these units are cheap. Most come with only 1yr warranty whereas 'proper' raid cards have 3 years. Also, not all backplanes are created equal. I have tried several cheaper 4-in-3 Sata backplanes and had problems with all of them and now only use Raidage SAS backplanes at $140 each with zero problems.

Back to performance: 'proper' raid controllers have dedicated chips to calculate parity and run various throughput algorithms which significantly increase performance when more than one stream of data is being written and/or read. These cheap external boxes usually use a combination of software and normal x86 CPUs which result in serious performance degradation when more than one read/write operation is being performed. With my Areca 1680ix and 6 2TB drives in Raid 5, I can download the new SxS-1A card via expresscard adapter (60MB/s+) and copy a different project folder to 2 other backup eSata drives at full speed all the while Premiere Pro is conforming from the same R5 array.

Also, the dedicated raid controllers are able to rebuild arrays 3-5 times faster which can take a day or more with large arrays (so software raid can take days). This unit is setup to provide host access priority during the rebuild process and if the array is being accessed during the rebuild, it will take far more time to rebuild. With my 3ware and Areca cards, I can adjust how much priority is given to the rebuild and to I/O operations.

[Andrew Smith]

That makes sense to me. Thanks for explaining that. I think it would be worth it to spend the $140 and be done with it.

Can you post a link to the Raidage SAS product, please? I'm having difficulty finding it via Google.

Andrew

[Andrew Clark]

Hey Steve -

Thanks for that detailed info.; kinda had a hunch that it was a "too good to be true" type of thing!!

Anyways, what are the differences between the 3ware and Areca cards?

So in order to utilize those above RAID cards that you mentioned, one would have to purchase a MB for the 980x/990x CPU's (I believe it's the 1366 socket / x58 chipset MB's)?

SandyBridge MB's / CPU's vs. the x58 MB's / CPU's....one platform better / worse than the other?

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

That makes sense to me. Thanks for explaining that. I think it would be worth it to spend the $140 and be done with it.

Can you post a link to the Raidage SAS product, please? I'm having difficulty finding it via Google.

Hi Andrew Smith (other Andrew, I'll get to you in a minute :)

This is just the 4-in-3 cage. The only issue with this cage is that it requires a reverse breakout cable from 4 sata ports on the mobo to a SFF8087 on the cage - "+getMessage("iPrintVerKit")+"
"+getMessage("iPrintVerKit")+"

This is the entire case I use which includes the Raidage cage. I have 2 of these 8 bay cases and 1 4 bay case - an 8 bay & 4 bay are connected to my HP Z800 and Areca 1680ix (8bay) and onboard Sata ports (4bay); other 8 bay case is connected to my home pc (custom) to a 3ware 9750 raid controller.
"+getMessage("iPrintVerKit")+"

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Andrew Clark

Hey Steve -
Thanks for that detailed info.; kinda had a hunch that it was a "too good to be true" type of thing!!
Anyways, what are the differences between the 3ware and Areca cards?
So in order to utilize those above RAID cards that you mentioned, one would have to purchase a MB for the 980x/990x CPU's (I believe it's the 1366 socket / x58 chipset MB's)?
SandyBridge MB's / CPU's vs. the x58 MB's / CPU's....one platform better / worse than the other?

Areca vs 3ware: both are great. I have had a 3ware 9650-8 running 24/7 since 2006 with zero problems. Our $18,000 broadcast server came with a 3ware 9690 raid controller. The current generation is the 9750 with anywhere between 4 to 24 SAS/SATA ports. The prior generation is the 9690 and the one before that is the 9650.

Yes, you need a X58 mobo and preferably with a PCIe x8 2.0 just for the raid card (this is in addition to a PCIe x16 for the gfx card).

I looked into this Sans Digital unit about a year ago to use for backups and replace the 2 external e-Sata enclosures I have been using because I go through 2 2TB drives every 4-6 months. They are nice for the money but you have no control whatsoever. Just being able to use different stripe sizes for Raid 0 or 5 can make a huge difference in both sequential read/write and random access performance. A large stripe is beneficial to video editors due to very large file sizes whereas a smaller stripe can be beneficial to random access and smaller files. I would imagine that this Sans unit was not designed with the video editor in mind.

One VERY important aspect many people miss: get a very good UPS. I spent over 30 hours recovering 950GBs of data, which was not backed up, because of a simple power outage that corrupted a raid array. Luckily, I was able to recover 95% of the data and learned my lesson. Ever since, I have been using a $600 UPS from APC with a 2nd battery for extended run time.

With current high efficiency power supplies, the need for a 'True/Pure' Sine Wave UPS is more evident. The bad part is these UPS' cost far more. I learned about this issue last year when a regular UPS would not work properly with my HP Z800's 89% 1100w PSU. HP released a document stating that many of their 85% and up PSU's required True Sine Wave otherwise a regular UPS could still cause the computer to shut off during a power outage.

I use this $450 Cyberpower 1500w for my HP Z800.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842102068

And this $520 Cyberpower 1500w rackmount for our servers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842102019

However, if you can afford it, APC makes the best UPS.

[Scott Chichelli]

Hey Steve,

thanks for that..
a big +1 on the UPS. to add to it make sure the UPS is larger than your power supply and accessories attached (LCDs etc)

bad /dirty power (low ) is worse than spikes. this is the bigest killer of drives and other components in a system.
more people than not have dirty power. (less than 120v)

"line iteractive" is what you want

warning people do not be misslead by "VA" VA is not watts.

if you have a 1000W power supply you need a 1000 W UPS. 1KA (1000VA) is NOT 1000W

i prefer tripplite every bit as good as apc and less money.


as far as Raid cards i prefer Intel.
Scott
ADK

[Scott Chichelli]

Originally Posted by Andrew Clark

Hey Steve -

Thanks for that detailed info.; kinda had a hunch that it was a "too good to be true" type of thing!!

Anyways, what are the differences between the 3ware and Areca cards?

So in order to utilize those above RAID cards that you mentioned, one would have to purchase a MB for the 980x/990x CPU's (I believe it's the 1366 socket / x58 chipset MB's)?

SandyBridge MB's / CPU's vs. the x58 MB's / CPU's....one platform better / worse than the other?

what are you doing workflow wise that you think you need an 8 drive or larger raid array?
are you doing red 4K or uncompressed?
20 layers and mass effects?

Scott
ADK

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

And when the Sandy Bridge motherboards do go back on the market, spend the little extra money for an i7-2600(K) rather than settling for an i5-2500(K): The quad-core i5 CPUs lack HyperThreading, so that performance in video editing won't be as good as with the i7 (although the one low-ranking result of an i5-2500 system in the PPBM5 list was partly due to that system having only 4GB of RAM).

Originally Posted by Scott Chichelli

agree 100%
the 2500 does not have HT the 2600 does, this made a huge difference in benchmarks.

Agree with Scott. I've discovered another Sandy Bridge system with only 4GB of RAM on that PPBM5 list - this time, an i7-2600K overclocked to 4.2GHz - and that system performed only a tad below my i7-920 system overclocked to 3.7GHz with 6GB of RAM. More RAM would have helped both systems - the 2600K more so than the 920.