Video editing, Blu-Ray burning and Adobe CS5

[martynmoore]

Hi guys

I make HD movies and need a machine that will fly through editing and rendering tasks, outputting to various video formats quickly and easily.

I also use Photoshop and would like to create 360 degree panoramas by stitching hi-res images together.

And I want a big (27in) monitor.

What do you think of the pre-designed Vortex machine?

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/vortex-1200-video-editing-pc/

And can somebody explain the thinking behind the solid state drive AND the 1TB serial hard drive as a second hard disk, as specified. I already use a Drobo RAID-type device with three 1.5TB drives.

And I'll want to burn Blu-Ray discs.

Comments and ideas much appreciated.

 

[Phoenix]

The smaller SSD is for the operating system and other applications to speed up their loading time considerably, the 1TB HDD is meant for file storage and non-essential programs. It would help if you listed a budget so that other members have something to work with.

 

[martynmoore]

OK, Phoenix, thanks for that. Because I'm using an external drive, I probably don't need two internal drives. Would you keep the SSD or the conventional drive? And why? (Sorry so many questions.)

Budget, that's a good idea. Well, including the monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse, I'd want to keep it under £1500. It's a business purchase, so the right spec is more important than the price.

I'll get the pro version of Windows 7 for the XP mode, too.

And if anybody can suggest a good projector for showcasing my work, I'd be very grateful. Up to £500.

 

[Phoenix]

Well ideally I would go for the SSD as the internal drive but because it's so small and rather expensive it would be better to go for a high performance HDD instead like the caviar green one (there's not a lot of difference between the green and black in terms of performance because HDD's can't make use of full SATA 6GB/s but the green is cheaper, quieter and cooler than the black one). Here's an example of a good build for the budget:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM)
12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)

Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11 + MAFIA II

Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£89)

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)

Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1366 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Firewire & Video Editing
1 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Monitor
IIYAMA E2710HDS 27" WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D FULL HD 1920x1080 (£239)

Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Wireless Desktop® MK250 Keyboard and Mouse Combo (£19)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days

Quantity
1

Price: £1,496.00 including VAT and delivery.

While you might not need 12GB of RAM just yet it's a good idea because video editing and photoshop do consume quite a large amount of it and this way the machine will be future proof and able to tackle more advanced editing in the future. The GTX470 has 256 more CUDA cores than the GTS450 which will help to run everything smoothly in photoshop. You could change the case if you don't like it but it will keep all of the internal components cool and it does have dust filters so you won't have to worry so much about cleaning the inside of the case. The mouse and keyboard chosen are again subjective and you could change them to different ones if you don't like the look of them.

 

[martynmoore]

That's great. Really helpful. Your insight into the choice of internal drive is great. The only changes from your spec that I might consider are additional Firewire ports (my Drobo external RAID-type drive uses Firewire as does one of my cameras, so more than one Firewire will be really useful) and Windows 7 Pro because it offers XP mode.

This could be funded in part by only getting 6-8GB RAM at first. Memory could be cheaper in future, making an upgrade easier 18 months from now.

Thanks very much, Phoenix.

 

[Phoenix]

Yeah 6GB of RAM would be fine for now and it will be cheaper in the future, just make sure that you're using RAM in multiples of 3 (3GB,6GB,9GB,12GB etc.) because the i7-950 performs best with triple channel memory

 

[Sleinous]

You can also buy the same in 4GB modules of course, so, 3x4GB = 12GB and, 6x 4GB = 24GB, another two upgrade options for you.

 

[martynmoore]

Hi guys

Thanks for this. Still not taken the plunge.

My accountant has now told me that it will be advisable to increase the budget for this video editing machine to £2000, to allow my business to claim back the VAT in full.

With that in mind, and including the speakers and Office software, what else would you change about the spec? I'm also inclined to keep the SSD as per the original video edit specification.

Any additional advice will be much appreciated.

Martyn

 

[Phoenix]

Going from the previous build you could upgrade to something like this with £500.00 more:


Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-960 (3.20GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1536MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX580 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DX 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk
80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)***SPECIAL***
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£76)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2710HDS 27" WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£239)
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Wireless Desktop® MK250 Keyboard and Mouse Combo (£19)
Speakers
LOGITECH S220 2.1 SILVER/BLACK SPEAKER SYSTEM (£19)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,995.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-core-i7-pc/

 

[martynmoore]

Thanks Phoenix. It needs to be over £2k to get the VAT back. Crazy, isn't it?

I'm considering dropping the spec of the case to the Sileo 500 Quiet Mid Tower, dropping the graphics card to the 1280 GTX470 as previously specified and swapping to the 600W Quiet 80 Plus Quad Rail PSU power supply. I'll probably add the 3-port Firewire card, a 1.5TB Caviar Green HDD and get Win7 Pro, single licence Office and the Logitech Z-2300 2.1 speakers. Can you see any flaws in my thinking? Is the cheaper graphics card false economy if I can make saving elsewhere?

Also, with the two internal drives, will I be running the OS and all applications on the 80GB SSD? So Win7, Adobe CS5 Production Premium, InDesign CS4, Office, iTunes, Spotify and all my utilities on one 80GB SSD and all documents, projects, movies and images on the 1.5TB HDD?

Seems like a lot of apps on a smallish drive.

 

[Phoenix]

That will reduce the cost by quite a lot (is that a problem? not really understanding the VAT thing you're talking about) but it will still be a great computer and let you do everything that you want it to. I'm not sure how large all of those files are together but I was thinking about putting windows 7 and Adobe CS5 along with other important applications on it.

But yes, I was thinking of using the SSD for your main programs then using the cavair green for everything else. Do you have all of those programs on the computer that you're using at the moment? you could check to see how large they are, windows 7 needs about 32GB (Microsoft's' website says that it only needs 20GB but I've read that it needs about 32GB from other places, I'm running windows vista on my laptop so I can't check) so that gives you 48~GB for the other applications which should be enough.

 

[martynmoore]

Thanks Phoenix.

The VAT thing is complicated. If I spend more than £2000 I can claim back the 17.5% VAT. So a more expensive spec could cost me less! Accountants understand. I don't.

My spec machine comes out a little bit more expensive than the one you suggested. I've saved money on the graphics card and box, but spent more on software versions and speakers.

It's not easy to make a direct comparison from my current machine. I'm using an upgraded iMac and all the applications I'm now running take up 20GB. I don't know how Mac/Windows versions compare but I expect to run the same programs on Windows 7.

Would I be better selecting another HDD instead of the SSD? How much difference will the SSD design make to application speed/efficiency? Do programs need additional space on the drive when running? I think that Windows 7 (pro) and my apps will fit on the 80GB drive, but don't want to slow them by running the drive close to capacity.

 

[Phoenix]

The program file sizes on a Macintosh will be the same size on Windows so they should all fit on. An SSD will make more difference than any other upgrade you could do on a reasonable system, they really do make a huge difference for loading files and performing other read/write functions. To quote someone from overclock.net:

Two words:
seek time


You, the user, ask for a file.

The RAID array goes: AAAAAAHHHHHSGNVJFKDLSNBJFGKDS find the file find the file where is it aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh oh wait there it is. HERE YOU GO

The SSD goes: File? Here. *yawn*

And that's when comparing two really fast hard drives in RAID 0 (for super speed) to a normal SSD. Programs shouldn't need any more space when running no, although it might be a good idea to leave a bit of room for future updates/patches/revisions of the software. The SSD won't run any slower when at max capacity so don't worry about that. If the cost is too much though just get a nice caviar green drive.

 

[PokerFace]

Going from the previous build you could upgrade to something like this with £500.00 more:


Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-960 (3.20GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1536MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX580 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DX 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk
80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)***SPECIAL***
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£76)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2710HDS 27" WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£239)
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Wireless Desktop® MK250 Keyboard and Mouse Combo (£19)
Speakers
LOGITECH S220 2.1 SILVER/BLACK SPEAKER SYSTEM (£19)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,995.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-core-i7-pc/

Phoenix,

I noticed in this build you put the SSD drive as the 2nd hard drive, whereas all the other builds I've seen you spec show the SSD as the 1st hard drive. Was that just a typo, or am I missing something?

Regards.

 

[PokerFace]

...oh, and if I'm correct...how about a rep point for me lol

 

[Phoenix]

There's no difference between having it in the 1st slot or second slot (just don't put it in the third/fourth) but yes it would be better to have it in the first slot just so that Sysprep isn't accidently installed onto the HDD rather than the SSD.

 

[martynmoore]

Brilliant advice, guys. Thanks very much Phoenix, Sleinous and PokerFace. I think I'm going to order this beauty today, so any final comments on choice of case, graphics card and internal drives will be much appreciated. I'll post the spec as ordered, probably tomorrow.

 

[Gorman]

As a rule of thumb we will always install windows onto the 1st hard drive, even if the customer has not selected the best drive for windows as the 1st hard drive.

Because you know, the customer is always right, even when he isnt.

 

[martynmoore]

Thanks for that, Gorman. I'll make sure I put them in the right order for what I need. The regulars on this forum are a real credit to you guys. How's snowy Holmfirth?

 

[Gorman]

Apart from the 11 mile or so detour on main roads to get to work, its ok!

We have had a lot though, theres at least a foot to 4 foot everywhere.

[video=youtube;D1cRzZFICHI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1cRzZFICHI[/video]