CS4 Production Premium System Wish

[StevePaul]

I am in a fortunate position to purchase a new system for editing. I’ve been using a Dell quad core system w/Vista 32 and it works, but it’s slow. I use it for corporate work which is great, but with everything that I do, running CS4 is a little taxing.

So my question is, if you had a budget of $2500 for a dedicated Editing system, what hardware would you get? Would you build the system or purchase a manufactured system?

I’ve been looking at putting together a workstation with,
2 quad core 2.66 cpu’s
6 gb ram per CPU
Graphics card with 4 DVI Output 512 mb ram
Raid 1 with twin 500 gb drives.
2 — 1 tb drives
Vista Business 64/bit OS

What are your thoughts?

[Bobby]

Hi Steve. Sounds like fun!

I would change the RAID hard drives to WD VelociRaptor 300's. They are a really fast drive if money is no object - about $230 ea. from Newegg.

I have one non-RAID in my video editing PC. I always planned to RAID it, and may do so when I install Win7 in October.

People will tell you to have a regular HD for your system drive and the RAID for data, but I just go for it as C: - I want my system as snappy as can be when doing OS stuff like loading programs.

[Chuck Engels]

Here are my thoughts, and the thoughts of others as well
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1640&p=12703#p12703

I prefer purchasing a complete system, my Dell Precision 490 couldn't have been built for what it cost me at the Dell Outlet

[jackfalbey]

It's well worth reading Harm Millaard's excellent article on building a PC for video editing:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/433549?tstart=0
You'll learn more than you probably need to know.

[Bill Hunt]

I strongly recommend Harm Millaard's articles, linked to by Jack. He covers most aspects on gear, plus OS setup.

For an editing workstation, I have an slightly older unit. However, I have 4x 1TB SATA II's, 2x 1TB ATA-100's (would have 300's, but controller on the MoBo is limited to 100's), and 1x 250GB SATA II 10,000RPM for OS and programs.

New machine will have an I/O along these lines:
C:\ 350GB SATA II 10,000RPM
D:\ 2TB RAID 0 on separate PCIe controller (media)
E:\ 2TB RAID 0 on separate PCIe controller (Export)
F:\ 1TB SATA II Projects
G:\ 1TB SATAII Audio
H:\ 1TB SATA II (Asset storage)
I:\ - J:\ different brands of DVD burners
K:\ BD burner
L:\ - O:\ 4x 1TB hot-swappable eSATA array w/ 8x spare HDD's
P:\ - Z:\ my 2TB FW-800 externals, slowly being replaced by eSATA's

Along with CPU, the I/O sub-system is right at the top of the list. RAM is slightly behind for most applications and Assets.

Good luck, and it sounds like a killer system. I would use a non-RAID system disc. Harm discusses this in that article.

Hunt

[Clayton]

New machine will have an I/O along these lines:
C:\ 350GB SATA II 10,000RPM
D:\ 2TB RAID 0 on separate PCIe controller (media)
E:\ 2TB RAID 0 on separate PCIe controller (Export)
F:\ 1TB SATA II Projects
G:\ 1TB SATAII Audio
H:\ 1TB SATA II (Asset storage)
I:\ - J:\ different brands of DVD burners
K:\ BD burner
L:\ - O:\ 4x 1TB hot-swappable eSATA array w/ 8x spare HDD's
P:\ - Z:\ my 2TB FW-800 externals, slowly being replaced by eSATA's

Along with CPU, the I/O sub-system is right at the top of the list. RAM is slightly behind for most applications and Assets.

Good luck, and it sounds like a killer system. I would use a non-RAID system disc. Harm discusses this in that article.

Hunt

Holy Cow!!!!!!!

[Bill Hunt]

Right now, this is just a machine on paper. I'm looking to try and build it within a year. By then, Win7 ought to be out and maybe even up to SP-1 (nowadays, I seldom adopt a new OS, until the SP-1 release and some good reports from the field), plus I'm speculating that Adobe will have released CS5 too.

Right now, my older workstation still performs perfectly, though I only edit SD material. By then, I will probably have added an HD workflow.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Hunt

[Clayton]

Absolutely, as we all do!

[Doreen L.]

I just purchased Adobe Creative Suite 4 - Production Premium and I'm really concerned that my 2 year old Dell XPS is underpowered for these programs. I just got the software this week so I haven't really played around with it too much yet (there's a definite learning curve here. LOL).

I really don't want to buy a new system if I can avoid it and from what i can tell from the Dell site, I can't really upgrade the processor much. My biggest concern is with editing HDV files (My beloved Panasonic GS400 fried and died in July so I went and got the Sony FX7. It does record HDV on DV cassettes which seems to be a little less hoggy than AVCHD). Was wondering if Chuck or any of the others have suggestions on Dell models since we've done well with them (was very happy with this computer which I bought from the Dell outlet).

Doreen

[jackfalbey]

Your XPS should have no problem running CS4. My 5-year-old Dell 8400 will run CS4. The issue is with the type of footage you'll be editing and the level of effects you'll be applying. You should be fine editing HDV as long as you're not trying to do "Star Wars"-level effects.

Try it with your current set-up and if for some reason you're not happy with the performance, we'll be happy to give advice on upgrading your PC. Otherwise, your money might be better spent on other equipment.

[Bob]

I generally agree with Jack. I wouldn't touch AVCHD without a quad processor, but you should be fine for ordinary work with hdv. Expect that complex AE work will require a good amount of time too. The one thing you may want to do sooner rather than later is to bring your RAM up to 4GB. Especially if you will be using dynamic link. Dell probably filled all four slots so you'll need to replace the existing ram to upgrade, but if you shop around you should be able to do it using four 1GB sticks for under $80 or thereabouts.

[Doreen L.]

Thanks guys. So far, so good but I haven't done too much. I really don't want to invest in a new computer right now and adding RAM is relatively cheap.

Bob - funny you should mention that you have an 8400 (I know Chuck has/had one too). We have one that when my daughter turned it on the other day, she got the blue screen. Ugh. After going through all the usual steps, it came up with different error messages when I tried to reboot and then finally tried to do a reinstall of XP. The final message was that the C drive was corrupted. I bought a new SATA WD hard drive and when my husband tried numerous times to do a fresh install of XP on the new drive, it would get to the same spot (28 to 32%) and would stop and give a message that it couldn't install. I forget the error message. He even tried the XP installation CD from our 8200 and it still stopped at the same point and said it couldn't be installed. I don't know what, if anything, we can do - I would like to keep that computer if we could get it to work.

I've done all sorts of googles - and nothing worked including changing the SATA operation in the bios and a couple of other things. Some mentioned it could be the RAM or CD Rom Drive. I don't know - do you think there's something simple we're missing?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

You might try replacing the battery on the mother board. This is very cheap, easy to do and could (strong emphasis on COULD) be the source of the problem.

[Doreen L.]

Thanks John. It might be worth a shot and it's cheap. It's very fustrating because that computer has always been used the least out of all the computers we've ever had.

[Bill Hunt]

If you have not seen these articles, http://forums.adobe.com/thread/436215, you will get some great ideas of how to build/buy an NLE system.

Good luck,

Hunt