AMD for CS5-after effects

[Viswanadha Reddy]

I am planning to go with AMD ,i use Sony Vegas & Adobe after effects

Processor : Phenom II X6 1090T
MotherBoard : M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
RAM : Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 8GB
Storage Drive : WD Green 1 TB
PSU : CORSAIR TX650W
Graphics Card : SAPPHIRE HD6870 1G DDR5 (HD6870/1G/DDR5)
Monitor : 21.5-inch Asus VH222H

please comment on this,any body experienced with these products

[Randall Leong]

If you're using After Effects or any other Adobe CS5 program such as Premiere Pro CS5, the AMD parts are much less than ideal. In fact, at stock speed the Phenom II x6 1090T is actually slower than the slowest Intel i7 CPU ever manufactured when it comes to running CS5. This is because the current AMD CPUs lack full support for SSE 4.x, which Adobe makes good use of (and strongly recommends for optimal performance).

In addition, the choice of an AMD graphics card is also less than ideal if the programs that you're planning to run (or are running) use GPU acceleration. You see, both Sony and Adobe (in the latest versions of their editing software) support only Nvidia's CUDA for GPU acceleration - but AMD's (or ATi's) GPUs would force software-only mode, which also relies heavily on the CPU. As a result, you could end up with a system that's slower than a three-year-old Intel Core 2 Quad in these prosumer video editing apps.

Third, the choice of a WD Green drive as your system's only hard drive is far from ideal. That drive spins at only 5400 RPM, and always spins itself down to a complete stop even if the system is on if nothing is accessing the drive. Worse, it takes far too long for the drive to spin itself back up to its full speed when something needs to access the hard drive. Plus, you have only a single hard drive for everything (including the operating system, programs and video files), which most prosumer video editing packages strongly advise against. You will need at least two additional hard drives (all should be true 7200 RPM drives or faster - any "Green" series drives will spin at a much slower speed) in order to edit smoothly.

[Viswanadha Reddy]

Thank you Randall .Finally I decided to move away from AMD as no one is encouraging it for CS5.:),few bucks extra here is my new wish..Comments plz


Processor Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366
MotherBoard Asus Rampage III GENE R3G X58
RAM Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 8GB
PSU CORSAIR TX650W
Graphics Card Zotac GTX470/1280MB 320-bit GDDR5
Cabinet CoolerMaster 430
Monitor 21.5-inch Asus VH222H

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Viswanadha Reddy

Thank you Randall .Finally I decided to move away from AMD as no one is encouraging it for CS5.:),few bucks extra here is my new wish..Comments plz


Processor Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366
MotherBoard Asus Rampage III GENE R3G X58
RAM Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 8GB
PSU CORSAIR TX650W
Graphics Card Zotac GTX470/1280MB 320-bit GDDR5
Cabinet CoolerMaster 430
Monitor 21.5-inch Asus VH222H

Better, but it still fails to address the storage issue. You'll still be stuck with just a single slow hard drive for absolutely everything (operating system files, page file, program files, video source files, documents, project files, media cache files and encoded output files all on that single drive), with no additional drives anywhere.

[Viswanadha Reddy]

I am ready for new hard drives..Can please suggest me Two Hard Drives..Thank you

[Panagiotis Raris]

hi, i have exactly the same motherboard and CPU. you have triple channel RAM; i would switch to triple channel sets. if you have any questions or problems feel free to contact me; i have my system overclocked and stable at 4.3Ghz, RAM overclocked and timings tightened, etc.

avoid WD hard drives. SSD's are great for a boot/OS drive, but expensive. most recommend 4 separate hard drives for CS5; on the low side you could get away with $170 for 4 hard drives.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Panagiotis Raris

avoid WD hard drives. SSD's are great for a boot/OS drive, but expensive. most recommend 4 separate hard drives for CS5; on the low side you could get away with $170 for 4 hard drives.

While the WD "consumer" hard drives work well as single drives, they frequently drop out of RAID arrays. This forces you to spend around 50 percent higher for an RE series version of the WD drives if you want to use a WD drive in a RAID array at all.

My basic (budget) 4-drive recommendation for HD editing using CS5 would be as follows:

System drive: 1 x 500GB Samsung F3 HD502HJ ($45)
Video source/project drive: 2 x 1TB Samsung F3 HD103SJ ($120)
Media cache/encoded output drive: 1 x 2TB Samsung F4EG HD204UI ($90)

$255 plus tax (from Micro Center).

By the way, at that same Micro Center, the RAID-capable version of the 1TB F3 drive costs $10 more than the regular 1TB F3. However, you don't need the F3R unless you're going to use the drive as part of a RAID 3/5/6 array or a combination RAID involving any of those three parity RAID levels.

I could spend less, but I would most likely end up with drives that are too small, too slow (sequential-speed-wise due to the use of older, lower-density platter designs) or that have a very low capacity-to-price ratio.

And Seagate and Hitachi hard drives are slower (sequential-speed-wise) than the Samsung drives despite their 500GB platter designs. Each of them could sustain a maximum of only around 125 MB/s on the outer tracks (versus about 140 MB/s for the Samsung drives mentioned above). All except the 2TB Samsung spin at 7200 RPM (the 2TB Samsung delivers a high sequential transfer speed despite its slow 5400 RPM spindle speed due to its use of 667GB platters, making that low-RPM drive an excellent choice as an output drive for transcoded videos).

And what about the 2TB drives from Seagate and Hitachi? Well, from Seagate, there are only three: the Barracuda XT (which is way overkill for an output drive) and the old Barracuda LP and the newer Barracuda Green (the Green is faster sequentially than the LP, but both drives spin at 5900 RPM, and even the Barracuda Green is no faster than the Samsung F4EG sequentially). And the 2TB Hitachi 7K2000 drive is, if anything, slower than its 1TB brandmate because it uses five 400GB platters (versus two 500GB platters in the 1TB 7K1000.C drive).

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

While the WD "consumer" hard drives work well as single drives, they frequently drop out of RAID arrays. This forces you to spend around 50 percent higher for an RE series version of the WD drives if you want to use a WD drive in a RAID array at all.

My basic (budget) 4-drive recommendation for HD editing using CS5 would be as follows:

System drive: 1 x 500GB Samsung F3 HD502HJ ($45)
Video source/project drive: 2 x 1TB Samsung F3 HD103SJ ($120)
Media cache/encoded output drive: 1 x 2TB Samsung F4EG HD204UI ($90)

$255 plus tax (from Micro Center).

Now that I read Harm's advice against RAID 0 for project and video source drives in the Adobe forums, I will have to change this a bit. For a four-drive system, the video source/project drive would be changed to a fast single 2TB 7200 RPM hard drive, such as a 2TB WD2001FASS or a 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT. (The 5400-5900 RPM hard drives that I mentioned in my previous post are about as fast sequentially as the two 2TB 7200 RPM fast hard drives mentioned in this post, but are noticeably slower in random access speeds.) And instead of the two 1TB Samsung F3s for the media cache and pagefile, I recommend two smaller 500GB F3s or 320GB F4s in RAID 0.

By the way, my testing in PPBM5 indicated that I would not have lost much - only about 15 to 20 seconds in the Disk tests - by using a single 2TB WD Black drive instead of the usual dual-drive RAID 0 as the media/output/project drive.

[Panagiotis Raris]

i am about to check out performance with a 6 disk RAID5 as media/cache drive, USB 3.0 as source drive, another USB 3.0 as export destination, and twin SSD's in RAID0 as boot/OS vs my current SSD for boot/OS, 2 disk RAID0 media/cache and 2 disk RAID0 source/project drive configuration.

system is i7 950@4.2Ghz, 12GB RAM, GTX9800+ OC 1GB. i expect it should be marginally faster.

[Viswanadha Reddy]

Thanks You very Much.

Processor Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366
Mother Board Asus Rampage III GENE R3G X58
RAM Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 8GB(2*4GB)
PSU CORSAIR TX650W
Graphics Card Zotac GTX470/1280MB 320-bit GDDR5
Cabinet CoolerMaster 430
Monitor 21.5-inch Asus VH222H
System drive 500GB Samsung F3 HD502HJ
Video source/project drive 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT 800
Media cache/encoded output drive 320GB F4s in RAID 0 * 2

So Ready to go,order tomorrow and has to be ready by weekend..please comment any...

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Viswanadha Reddy

Thanks You very Much.

Processor Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366
Mother Board Asus Rampage III GENE R3G X58
RAM Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 8GB(2*4GB)
PSU CORSAIR TX650W
Graphics Card Zotac GTX470/1280MB 320-bit GDDR5
Cabinet CoolerMaster 430
Monitor 21.5-inch Asus VH222H
System drive 500GB Samsung F3 HD502HJ
Video source/project drive 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT 800
Media cache/encoded output drive 320GB F4s in RAID 0 * 2

So Ready to go,order tomorrow and has to be ready by weekend..please comment any...

I would change the RAM. You see, the RAM model that you picked is only a 4GB (2 x 2GB) kit. You would need to buy three kits of that RAM (6 x 2GB in all) to get the 12GB recommended minimum for CS5. 8GB is not quite enough for CS5.

[Scott Chichelli]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

Now that I read Harm's advice against RAID 0 for project and video source drives in the Adobe forums, I will have to change this a bit. For a four-drive system, the video source/project drive would be changed to a fast single 2TB 7200 RPM hard drive, such as a 2TB WD2001FASS or a 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT. (The 5400-5900 RPM hard drives that I mentioned in my previous post are about as fast sequentially as the two 2TB 7200 RPM fast hard drives mentioned in this post, but are noticeably slower in random access speeds.) And instead of the two 1TB Samsung F3s for the media cache and pagefile, I recommend two smaller 500GB F3s or 320GB F4s in RAID 0.

By the way, my testing in PPBM5 indicated that I would not have lost much - only about 15 to 20 seconds in the Disk tests - by using a single 2TB WD Black drive instead of the usual dual-drive RAID 0 as the media/output/project drive.

this is simply not correct.
and you cant go by the PPBM test as the almighty answer to all things video..
its a nice test for a way to look at what may happen with a system..

for AVCHD/XDcam 2 sets raid 0 is ideal. more than that is pointless less will slow you down on renders particularly as you add layers /effects.
raid 0 also helps with playback of same.

if you have raid 0 for the project drive and dont have it for the export/render to drive you are out of balance.
you final exports will be slower than 2 drive raid 0.

as for the raid dirve statements above again
(you did finally mention it)
only Parity raid need enterprise drives. standard raid 0 does not need them.
drives with 64meg cache are better than that of 16/32meg..

Scott
ADK

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Scott Chichelli

this is simply not correct.
and you cant go by the PPBM test as the almighty answer to all things video..
its a nice test for a way to look at what may happen with a system..

for AVCHD/XDcam 2 sets raid 0 is ideal. more than that is pointless less will slow you down on renders particularly as you add layers /effects.
raid 0 also helps with playback of same.

if you have raid 0 for the project drive and dont have it for the export/render to drive you are out of balance.
you final exports will be slower than 2 drive raid 0.

as for the raid dirve statements above again
(you did finally mention it)
only Parity raid need enterprise drives. standard raid 0 does not need them.
drives with 64meg cache are better than that of 16/32meg..

Scott
ADK

Scott,

I switched the drives so that my media source/project drive is now a fast non-RAID drive. The output/media cache/render-previews-to drive is now on the RAID 0 array.

[Scott Chichelli]

sweet! but why not balance them out? of course if you are still working with DV/HDV its not needed..

Scott

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Scott Chichelli

sweet! but why not balance them out? of course if you are still working with DV/HDV its not needed..

Ideally, if I'm going to be working with two RAID 0 arrays, then I would have had to purchase four identical drives. If I mix or match brands, I would likely still end up with an imbalance although the amount of imbalance would be significantly smaller.

And come to think of it, two RAID 0 arrays are recommended even for HDV due of the nature of most NLEs: Most, including CS5, actually work in uncompressed AVI and 4:4:4 RGB. The presets are there only so that the proper conversion could be done within the program.