cs5 and new PC

[demalibu]

Hi, Im up grading to a new PC and CS5, just using a Dell Optiflex.
How do these specs look:
Genuine Windows(R) 7 Professional 64bit (English)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-650 (3.2GHz,4MB)
Microsoft(R) Office Home and Business 2010 (English)
4GB (4x1GB) NECC DDR3 1333MHz SDRAM Memory
500GB 7.2k RPM SATA Hard Drive
16X Max DVD+/-RW MT/DT
1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT330, 1 DP and 1 DVI, 1 DP-DVI dongle(Full Height)
19-in-1 Media Card Reader for Mini-Tower
PowerDVD Software Version 8.3 and Roxio Creator Software (Factory Install and Media Kits)

Any suggestions for alterations or additions would be appreciated.

[Paul LS]

If you are working with Premiere Pro CS5 you may want to consider a Cuda graphics card that is supported by Adobe for GPU assisted playback of the timeline. It give great playback enhancement with the ability to play multiple high definition/AVCHD tracks without the need to render.

I have just been playing around with my GTX 260 and using a hack that allows Premiere Pro CS5 to use Cuda cards other than those offically supported by Adobe. The hack works but I am not seeing a huge increase in performance as I was hoping... but this may be because my PCI-e socket on this motherboard is version 1.0 and not 2.0 as supported by the GTX 260. I need to try it on my other computer.

[Bob]

The 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT330 does support cuda, but it's not one of the cards on Adobe's official supported list. The hack Paul mentioned would would with that card, but It's not clear how much benefit you will get from it.

You will benefit from adding a second internal drive to the system.

6GB would be better than 4GB for a 64-bit system. 4GB will work, but 6 will give it more breathing room.

The 3.2 GHz is good, but that's a dual core cpu with hyperthreading. How much HD/AVCHD will you be processing?

[Paul LS]

Finally got around to doing some more tests with PPro CS5 and Cuda hardware acceIeration.

I just did a test with Premiere Pro CS5 with AVCHD PIP (four scaled PIPs). With GPU it took 2min10secs to render out to AVCHD, with GPU disabled it took 7min40sec. GPU loads between 60-90%.

So the "hack" works and gives some significant improvement in performance in render speeds... both on the timeline and while exporting via AME. I am getting some improvement in timeline playback performance, but not as much as I would like.