Intel's New Core 2 Duo

Pete Bauer · December 15th, 2006, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

i suspect, unless the NLE software is multi-threaded, quad cores won't prove much of an advantage over dual cores.

Yup, that's what the early reviews have indicated. In the case of Adobe apps and Cineform, they ARE designed to use multiple cores so benefit greatly. I'm building a QX6700 system this weekend; if all goes well with the build, I'll give an update in a few days.

Renat Zarbailov · December 16th, 2006, 04:02 AM

Hi everyone :)
I am researching to build a system for video editing and effects, and it's my first time building a system myself. I mostly use Adobe products (Premiere Pro2, After Effects 7 and etc)

My choice is to pretty much follow the DIY5 spects from videoguys.com except for minor changes. I have a question to ask though. The ASUS P5W64 WS Professional costs less on pricegrabber than the ASUS P5WDG2 WS Professional motherboard. It seems that the former has more value as it packs more PCIe slots, that's pretty weird isn't it?

Also will I get a tremendous increase in speed if gone with Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad Core Processor as opposed to Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core Processor, do Adobe apps really support quad processors? Ideally I wanted to pack it with 8Gigs of Ram, but would you recommend getting the QX6700 Quad Core processor and go with 4GB instead?

My current machine is Dell XPS2, which is so damn noisy, it has numerous huge server fans, I had to literally put the machine in the closet and close the door to keep the noise down. Has anyone ever used water-cooling approach to cooling the processor with Zalman RESERATOR 2? I hear it makes the computer noticeably quiet.

Also, should I wait for Vista to come out and then build it, or build it with Win XP Pro and install Vista upon its release?
Will going with the PNY Quadro FX 1500 Pro Video Edition be a better choice than the top of the line 512mb cards from either ATI or nVidia?

Any comment is really appreciated.

Happy holiday season everyone!

Bart Walczak · December 16th, 2006, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renat Zarbailov

My current machine is Dell XPS2, which is so damn noisy, it has numerous huge server fans, I had to literally put the machine in the closet and close the door to keep the noise down. Has anyone ever used water-cooling approach to cooling the processor with Zalman RESERATOR 2? I hear it makes the computer noticeably quiet.

Hi

Instead of water cooling, you might consider Scythe Ninja for your processor, and a good power supply like Seasonic 550 or 650 Energy Plus. If you add to that a good Antec case, your computer should be pretty inaudible.

For more information see www.silentpcreview.com - this is an excellent site for info on quiet computing.

Renat Zarbailov · December 28th, 2006, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bart Walczak

Hi

Instead of water cooling, you might consider Scythe Ninja for your processor, and a good power supply like Seasonic 550 or 650 Energy Plus. If you add to that a good Antec case, your computer should be pretty inaudible.

For more information see www.silentpcreview.com - this is an excellent site for info on quiet computing.

After rigorous research I am going with the Scythe Ninja heatsink as opposed to watercooling. Thanks for the valuable info and the link.
Here is the list of the components that will make up the ultra-quiet powerhorse I am going to build:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad Core Processor

Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional Motherboard

Scythe SCNJ1100P 120mm CPU Cooling Fan

Antec P180 Silver Mid Tower (Plus five Nexus 120 mm Real Silent Case Fans to replace the Scythe one as well all four throughout the Antec case)

Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX EPS12V PS/2 Modular Power Supply

Kingston 1GB PC2-6400 800MHz 240-pin Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5 DDR2 SDRAM DIMM (I wonder if there's 2GB one-piece version of the same RAM, this way I will get two 2GB ones for now and later get another two to make total of 8GB) Also, do you know if Ram must be istalled in a sequence, I noticed the Ram slots are color coded on the Asus motherboard, it is yellow then black and then again yellow then black, is there a difference if you skip one slot, and or if you have two 2GB ones you should only put them in the yellow slots?

PNY NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500 Video Card (MPN: VCQFX1500PCIEPBV)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB Hard Drive (system drive, all my video editing will be done on four Lacie Big Disk drives which vary in storage from 300GB to 500GB)

Pioneer DVR-710 Dual Layer DVD±RW Writer

Samsung SyncMaster 244T Silver 24" LCD Monitor

My only concern is if I should get the 64bit version of Vista or stay with 32bit. Adobe doesn't specify if the current Premiere Pro 2.0/AF7/Photoshop CS3 support the 64bit environment.

Any comments are really appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Jon Whiteford · December 28th, 2006, 09:36 PM

at one time, xp itself would only support two "cores", then intel brought out Hyperthreading and a xeon system with two processors would be seen by xp as four "cores".

I have been in the computer biz for 34 years, and my advice is stay away from vista for now, unless you think you will need no support. Or you think there won't be a vista sp1 and sp2? I would also stay away from xp64, as there are few drivers, and not many updates for it.

will that asus mb come with a bios that supports the quad core2? not all do, some can be flashed by the user, some cannot.

I don't think xp can use more than 4 gBytes of memory. the colors probably do mean something on the ram slots, see if you can download a userguide pdf for that motherboard from the asus site or email their support. you can also ask about the bios and quad core support.

any xp os you buy now should have a free upgrade to vista coupon with it anyway.

how about the system drive in a removable drive caddy? then you can keep one os with the minimum install and no virus checker and no internet support with a pp2 install to keep all the variables to a minimum, then one disk with os for getting on the internet and ftp ing or sending video.

good luck, and did I mention stay away from vista and xp64? If you don't believe me call adobe and try to get support under those os/s from their tech support people, NOT the salesmen!

Pete Bauer · December 28th, 2006, 10:01 PM

The two colors for the RAM slots represent pairing used for dual channel. Check the motherboard's documentation to be sure, but for most boards (including the one ASUS system I've built), you want identical memory sticks in slots of the same color (eg if you are installing a total of 2 sticks, they go in slots 1 and 3, or 2 and 4) so you'll get the benefit of running the memory in dual channel.

Heads up: while I liked the Antec P180 case well enough the first time 'round to buy another one for my quad core system, it IS a #$%$^ to string the various cables through that case. Antec has a new "Nine Hundred" case that I just saw on the shelf at Fry's Electronics that might be worth a look. I can't really vouch for since it showed up after I'd already built my system, but it sure looked better in terms of fan placement and build ergonomics.

Jon Whiteford · December 28th, 2006, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete Bauer

The two colors for the RAM slots represent pairing used for dual channel. Check the motherboard's documentation to be sure, but for most boards (including the one ASUS system I've built), you want identical memory sticks in slots of the same color (eg if you are installing a total of 2 sticks, they go in slots 1 and 3, or 2 and 4) so you'll get the benefit of running the memory in dual channel.

Heads up: while I liked the Antec P180 case well enough the first time 'round to buy another one for my quad core system, it IS a #$%$^ to string the various cables through that case. Antec has a new "Nine Hundred" case that I just saw on the shelf at Fry's Electronics that might be worth a look. I can't really vouch for since it showed up after I'd already built my system, but it sure looked better in terms of fan placement and build ergonomics.

for now? IS there a case that does'nt cut your fingers and is easy run wires? oh yeah, and is reasonably priced? I have used several of the antec sonata cases and they are a step up from the "thirty nine ninety five case AND power supply" crap.

You seem to be well versed in systems and software and I would like your opinion.

thanks

Pete Bauer · December 28th, 2006, 10:45 PM

Jon,

I'm just an enthusiast who prefers to build my own computers with just the components I want rather than buy turnkey, so I've learned by trial and error. Mostly error. So my opinions warrant a grain of salt.

Personally, I'll probably wait just long enough to get solid word that my software (specifically Adobe Production Bundle) will not only run properly, but better, on Vista before I'll upgrade my editing box. Easy enough to restore from a disk image if things do go awry. But my "everyday" computers, with a multitude of software and hardware ranging from older DVD drives to my wife's iPOD to pocket cameras to a variety of my kid's games, will wait much longer to make the jump to 64 bit, if ever. Rumors on the internet are that Vista won't do too well on older systems, and for those systems, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In a couple years when I replace those systems, I suppose by then the new boxes will be Vista systems.

Jon Whiteford · December 28th, 2006, 10:52 PM

yeah, but which vista? there are like 5, with basic, home,...,...,and vista Ultimate with aero! most people will need a new card to run aero. oh, well.

when you go to vista will you email me? I will be very interested. maybe a post here.

rstiltskin@yahoo.zom (remove the z)

Renat Zarbailov · January 9th, 2007, 04:43 PM

Hello everyone,

I decided to build the system using the following approach. Since editing the footage on the external hard drives connected via USB or Firewire is noticeably slow I was wondering if anyone can recommend the fastest SATAII drive for the system (OS install and apps), and separate RAID setup of two identical hard drives totaling 1TB with RAID10 configuration. Back in the days to have a RAID setup one needed RAID controller cards, is this approach still yealding fastest editing capabilities or will I be able to connect both RAID drives directly into the motherboard, I will be using Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional Motherboard. So if going with RAID controller card, what would be the best card to get?
Ideally I will be digitizing the miniDV raw footage onto the RAID 1Terabyte drive then editing the projects and then moving all that data to external USB/Firewire drives for storage. What do you think of this approach to economize on storage. Later, when Blue-ray drives are around $200 I will store the finished video projects onto 50GB blue-ray media, avoiding buying more external hard drives for content storage.

So to conclude, what is the best way to go?
1. Fastest C: drive SATAII hard drive no more than 320GB needed.
2. Fastest SATAII RAID10 two hard drive approach, totalin 1TB in capacity with or without RAID controller card.

Any comments are really appreciated.

Thanks a bunch

Bart Walczak · January 10th, 2007, 05:45 AM

Fastest SATA drives (actually you won't benefit ith SATAII enhanced bandwidth with current drive speeds) are Western Digital Raptors. The 150 GB version gives you 300 GB in total when you combine them in RAID.

Similarly, WD 500 GB HDDs get very good benchmarks and are reliable drives.

You can find some additional information on www.storagereview.com.

Harm Millaard · January 10th, 2007, 11:50 AM

To add to that, for media storage and scratch disks use Hitachi T7K500 or Seagate 7200.10 drives. I haven't checked the capabilities of the Asus mobo you envisage, but if it has 6 SATA2 connectors AND uses the ICH8R chipset, I would suggest the WD Raptor as boot disk and up to 5 Seagates (the sweet spot currently is the 320 GB version at $ 95 in $/GB) in a Raid5. That will give you an effective storage capacity of 1.2 TB, redundancy in case one drive fails and more than sufficient speed for HDV editing. Otherwise have a look at the Areca ARC 12x1 ML PCIe SATAII Raid controllers. The fastest ones available.

For a chassis also have a look at the Lian Li PC-V2100 line. Perfect quality, lots of storage room and great airflow.

Pete Bauer · January 10th, 2007, 11:55 AM

RAID5 read speeds are fast, but write speeds can be quite slow because of the calculation and writing of parity data to the array. So I normally use RAID0 for scratch disks and capture, then a separate RAID5 setup for longer term storage. The slow write speed might hamper the writing of temp files and slow down timeline performance.

Harm Millaard · January 10th, 2007, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete Bauer

RAID5 read speeds are fast, but write speeds can be quite slow because of the calculation and writing of parity data to the array. So I normally use RAID0 for scratch disks and capture, then a separate RAID5 setup for longer term storage. The slow write speed might hamper the writing of temp files and slow down timeline performance.

Pete,

That is why I said the ICH8R is required. That supports the Raid5 and is quite a bit faster than the previous ICH7R chipset. The Areca uses the IOP341 chipset, so this is an extremely fast HBA card. Look at these performance data, published by Areca. The information lacking is the number of disks in the array.

http://www.millcon.nl/Harm/Areca.jpg

In an ideal situation you would probably have a 2 or 3 disk Aid0 (leaving out the R due to lacking redundancy) on internal SATA connectors, using the ICH8R and a 6-8 disk Raid5 or Raid6 on the Areca, but that seems a bit far in light of the original question. From the link above you can see however that the penalty of a R5 or R6 in terms of performance is far lower than would be generally expected in comparison to a (r)aid0.

Renat Zarbailov · January 10th, 2007, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

Pete,

That is why I said the ICH8R is required. That supports the Raid5 and is quite a bit faster than the previous ICH7R chipset. The Areca uses the IOP341 chipset, so this is an extremely fast HBA card. Look at these performance data, published by Areca. The information lacking is the number of disks in the array.

http://www.millcon.nl/Harm/Areca.jpg

In an ideal situation you would probably have a 2 or 3 disk Aid0 (leaving out the R due to lacking redundancy) on internal SATA connectors, using the ICH8R and a 6-8 disk Raid5 or Raid6 on the Areca, but that seems a bit far in light of the original question. From the link above you can see however that the penalty of a R5 or R6 in terms of performance is far lower than would be generally expected in comparison to a (r)aid0.

So which Areca card should I use for RAID0 setup (I actually thought that write speed on RAID10 is faster the the RAID0)? Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional Motherboard supports RAID0, will I gain much write speed with Areca controller card?

Will having the c: drive without any RAID setup and d: drive as two identical drives on RAID0 slow the video editing? Or should I set the c: drive separately on RAID0 and the d: drive consisting of two drives set to RAID0? I will not be needing any RAID for the external drives to be used for long-term finished projects storage.

Thanks again

December 16th, 2006, 04:02 AM	#17
Renat Zarbailov Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Brooklyn Posts: 125	Hi everyone :) I am researching to build a system for video editing and effects, and it's my first time building a system myself. I mostly use Adobe products (Premiere Pro2, After Effects 7 and etc) My choice is to pretty much follow the DIY5 spects from videoguys.com except for minor changes. I have a question to ask though. The ASUS P5W64 WS Professional costs less on pricegrabber than the ASUS P5WDG2 WS Professional motherboard. It seems that the former has more value as it packs more PCIe slots, that's pretty weird isn't it? Also will I get a tremendous increase in speed if gone with Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad Core Processor as opposed to Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core Processor, do Adobe apps really support quad processors? Ideally I wanted to pack it with 8Gigs of Ram, but would you recommend getting the QX6700 Quad Core processor and go with 4GB instead? My current machine is Dell XPS2, which is so damn noisy, it has numerous huge server fans, I had to literally put the machine in the closet and close the door to keep the noise down. Has anyone ever used water-cooling approach to cooling the processor with Zalman RESERATOR 2? I hear it makes the computer noticeably quiet. Also, should I wait for Vista to come out and then build it, or build it with Win XP Pro and install Vista upon its release? Will going with the PNY Quadro FX 1500 Pro Video Edition be a better choice than the top of the line 512mb cards from either ATI or nVidia? Any comment is really appreciated. Happy holiday season everyone! __________________ Sincerely, Renat Zarbailov of Innomind.org

December 28th, 2006, 09:36 PM	#20
Jon Whiteford New Boot Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: somerset, kentucky 42501 Posts: 23	multicore support............ at one time, xp itself would only support two "cores", then intel brought out Hyperthreading and a xeon system with two processors would be seen by xp as four "cores". I have been in the computer biz for 34 years, and my advice is stay away from vista for now, unless you think you will need no support. Or you think there won't be a vista sp1 and sp2? I would also stay away from xp64, as there are few drivers, and not many updates for it. will that asus mb come with a bios that supports the quad core2? not all do, some can be flashed by the user, some cannot. I don't think xp can use more than 4 gBytes of memory. the colors probably do mean something on the ram slots, see if you can download a userguide pdf for that motherboard from the asus site or email their support. you can also ask about the bios and quad core support. any xp os you buy now should have a free upgrade to vista coupon with it anyway. how about the system drive in a removable drive caddy? then you can keep one os with the minimum install and no virus checker and no internet support with a pp2 install to keep all the variables to a minimum, then one disk with os for getting on the internet and ftp ing or sending video. good luck, and did I mention stay away from vista and xp64? If you don't believe me call adobe and try to get support under those os/s from their tech support people, NOT the salesmen!

December 28th, 2006, 10:01 PM	#21
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	The two colors for the RAM slots represent pairing used for dual channel. Check the motherboard's documentation to be sure, but for most boards (including the one ASUS system I've built), you want identical memory sticks in slots of the same color (eg if you are installing a total of 2 sticks, they go in slots 1 and 3, or 2 and 4) so you'll get the benefit of running the memory in dual channel. Heads up: while I liked the Antec P180 case well enough the first time 'round to buy another one for my quad core system, it IS a #$%$^ to string the various cables through that case. Antec has a new "Nine Hundred" case that I just saw on the shelf at Fry's Electronics that might be worth a look. I can't really vouch for since it showed up after I'd already built my system, but it sure looked better in terms of fan placement and build ergonomics. __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!

December 28th, 2006, 10:45 PM	#23
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	Jon, I'm just an enthusiast who prefers to build my own computers with just the components I want rather than buy turnkey, so I've learned by trial and error. Mostly error. So my opinions warrant a grain of salt. Personally, I'll probably wait just long enough to get solid word that my software (specifically Adobe Production Bundle) will not only run properly, but better, on Vista before I'll upgrade my editing box. Easy enough to restore from a disk image if things do go awry. But my "everyday" computers, with a multitude of software and hardware ranging from older DVD drives to my wife's iPOD to pocket cameras to a variety of my kid's games, will wait much longer to make the jump to 64 bit, if ever. Rumors on the internet are that Vista won't do too well on older systems, and for those systems, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In a couple years when I replace those systems, I suppose by then the new boxes will be Vista systems. __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!

December 28th, 2006, 10:52 PM	#24
Jon Whiteford New Boot Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: somerset, kentucky 42501 Posts: 23	Thanks......... yeah, but which vista? there are like 5, with basic, home,...,...,and vista Ultimate with aero! most people will need a new card to run aero. oh, well. when you go to vista will you email me? I will be very interested. maybe a post here. rstiltskin@yahoo.zom (remove the z)

January 9th, 2007, 04:43 PM	#25
Renat Zarbailov Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Brooklyn Posts: 125	Hello everyone, I decided to build the system using the following approach. Since editing the footage on the external hard drives connected via USB or Firewire is noticeably slow I was wondering if anyone can recommend the fastest SATAII drive for the system (OS install and apps), and separate RAID setup of two identical hard drives totaling 1TB with RAID10 configuration. Back in the days to have a RAID setup one needed RAID controller cards, is this approach still yealding fastest editing capabilities or will I be able to connect both RAID drives directly into the motherboard, I will be using Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional Motherboard. So if going with RAID controller card, what would be the best card to get? Ideally I will be digitizing the miniDV raw footage onto the RAID 1Terabyte drive then editing the projects and then moving all that data to external USB/Firewire drives for storage. What do you think of this approach to economize on storage. Later, when Blue-ray drives are around $200 I will store the finished video projects onto 50GB blue-ray media, avoiding buying more external hard drives for content storage. So to conclude, what is the best way to go? 1. Fastest C: drive SATAII hard drive no more than 320GB needed. 2. Fastest SATAII RAID10 two hard drive approach, totalin 1TB in capacity with or without RAID controller card. Any comments are really appreciated. Thanks a bunch __________________ Sincerely, Renat Zarbailov of Innomind.org

January 10th, 2007, 05:45 AM	#26
Bart Walczak Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Warsaw/Poland Posts: 716	Fastest SATA drives (actually you won't benefit ith SATAII enhanced bandwidth with current drive speeds) are Western Digital Raptors. The 150 GB version gives you 300 GB in total when you combine them in RAID. Similarly, WD 500 GB HDDs get very good benchmarks and are reliable drives. You can find some additional information on www.storagereview.com.

January 10th, 2007, 11:50 AM	#27
Harm Millaard Trustee Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands Posts: 1,832	To add to that, for media storage and scratch disks use Hitachi T7K500 or Seagate 7200.10 drives. I haven't checked the capabilities of the Asus mobo you envisage, but if it has 6 SATA2 connectors AND uses the ICH8R chipset, I would suggest the WD Raptor as boot disk and up to 5 Seagates (the sweet spot currently is the 320 GB version at $ 95 in $/GB) in a Raid5. That will give you an effective storage capacity of 1.2 TB, redundancy in case one drive fails and more than sufficient speed for HDV editing. Otherwise have a look at the Areca ARC 12x1 ML PCIe SATAII Raid controllers. The fastest ones available. For a chassis also have a look at the Lian Li PC-V2100 line. Perfect quality, lots of storage room and great airflow.

January 10th, 2007, 11:55 AM	#28
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	RAID5 read speeds are fast, but write speeds can be quite slow because of the calculation and writing of parity data to the array. So I normally use RAID0 for scratch disks and capture, then a separate RAID5 setup for longer term storage. The slow write speed might hamper the writing of temp files and slow down timeline performance. __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!