Building a PC for video editing (Adobe Premiere Pro)

[heat23]

I am building a PC for my dad who wants to use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit home videos, add titles, create HD documentaries, etc. (He has prosumer -> professional quality equipment).

Anyone have any suggestions on what type of system will be best suited for this project? He will be editing from multiple streams and creating 1-2 hour films. Estimated budget for the hardware is $1500-$2000

What type of CPU is best suited for this?

Will he need a separate GPU? Will dual help?

I was thinking 12 - 16 GB of RAM.

He wants to be able to burn to DVD or Blu-ray

Any need for a non-onboard sound card?

He needs several TBs of disk space - what is a cost-effective drive that gives good performance?

Thanks!

 

[Gigantopithecus]

The Intel Core i7-970 and i7-980 would be the best CPUs for video editing in Premiere Pro. However, they are tied to a dead socket (LGA 1366), and cost ~$600. The Core i7-2600K costs ~$325 and is also a very solid performer. You can see from this benchmark how the 6 core Gulftowns stack up against the 4 core Sandy Bridge. Depending on how much editing he does (prosumer/pro indicates a lot of work), you should consider the Gulftowns.

Whether he wants a GPU (or two) depends on what effects he uses. There's a list of GPU-accelerated Premiere Pro effects here.

RAM is so cheap that 16GB is a no-brainer.

Internal BR-D/DVD burners are less than $100.

No need for a non-onboard sound card.

Any hard drive can fail, but I stick to Western Digitals and Samsungs. I just recently built an editing rig for a friend and I went with an SSD for the OS and applications, two 1TB WD Blacks in RAID 0 for render/scratch, and for now, one 2TB WD Green for media storage. The 2TB green drives offer the best price:capacity for storage purposes.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Look at Supported NVIDIA Graphics cards for GPU Acceleration

 

[Slugbait]

He will be editing from multiple streams and creating 1-2 hour films...He needs several TBs of disk space - what is a cost-effective drive that gives good performance?

Actually, he wants several drives. At least two drives for scratch, one for export. More info: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/4.0/WS369BD79A-5DF9-48d8-9F49-6B56026087C8.html

I would suggest this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

Performance wise, 12 gigs is better than 8 for CS5, but the real improvement comes with 16.

I think the i7-2600K would be perfectly fine for now...and if he wanted to upgrade later once they work out the kinks with Ivy Bridge, you won't be kicking yourself for spending so much more just a year earlier. Instead, put the money you'd save over the Gulftown toward a really good mobo.

 

[mfenn]

Here's what I would do:

i7 2600 + GA-Z68A-D3H combo $405
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB kit x2 $100
GTX 570 $295 AR - cause it's supported w/o hacking
Intel 320 120GB $220 - for the OS and Adobe suite itself
Samsung F3 1TB x4 $240
LG BD-R $80
Antec HCG 520W $53 AP
Antec P183 $140
Total: $1533 AR AP

That gives you plenty of CPU and storage horsepower, and is at the lower end of your budget.

 

[Blue Shift]

Here's what I would do:

i7 2600 + GA-Z68A-D3H combo $405
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB kit x2 $100
GTX 570 $295 AR - cause it's supported w/o hacking
Intel 320 120GB $220 - for the OS and Adobe suite itself
Samsung F3 1TB x4 $240
LG BD-R $80
Antec HCG 520W $53 AP
Antec P183 $140
Total: $1533 AR AP

That gives you plenty of CPU and storage horsepower, and is at the lower end of your budget.

YES.

 

[FS]

Here's what I would do:

i7 2600 + GA-Z68A-D3H combo $405
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB kit x2 $100
GTX 570 $295 AR - cause it's supported w/o hacking
Intel 320 120GB $220 - for the OS and Adobe suite itself
Samsung F3 1TB x4 $240
LG BD-R $80
Antec HCG 520W $53 AP
Antec P183 $140
Total: $1533 AR AP

That gives you plenty of CPU and storage horsepower, and is at the lower end of your budget.

Great suggestions. It's quite apparent that you kept in mind the price/performance while recommending the parts; but I was wondering why you would suggest that particular case. It stands/sticks out quite a lot from other suggestions because of how expensive it is while not offering much to offset that cost. USB 3.0 in front is decent (not sure if the mobo has front USB 3.0 headers on it) but there are cases that have more than one USB 3.0 ports in front yet they go for less than $100 (CM Storm Enforcer comes to mind) and some even have eSATA in front for less than $100.

I am just asking as the OP didn't mention anything regarding the type of case or the budget desired. So he might as well go with the best bang for the buck case.

 

[Operandi]

Here's what I would do:

i7 2600 + GA-Z68A-D3H combo $405
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB kit x2 $100
GTX 570 $295 AR - cause it's supported w/o hacking
Intel 320 120GB $220 - for the OS and Adobe suite itself
Samsung F3 1TB x4 $240
LG BD-R $80
Antec HCG 520W $53 AP
Antec P183 $140
Total: $1533 AR AP

That gives you plenty of CPU and storage horsepower, and is at the lower end of your budget.

Nice pics.

Personally I would (and did) step up the case to a Lian Li. I have the PC-9F and it's the nicest case I've ever worked with, tons of room, good cable management, soft mounts for everything mechanical, super classy understated looks, and very high-quality build (ever peice is AL_.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112304

I would also consider a modest HS/F upgrade just to cut down on noise since this system is going to see high load a lot of the time. The Zalman CNPS5X is one of best heatsinks you can get for the money.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118090

I’ve personally had good luck with Mushkin RAM, and good positive experiences with support when it was needed.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226095

 

[oynaz]

One issue with the video card: It is hot and noisy. Depending on how much he plans to use the supported effects, a less powerful card might be a better choice.

Regarding sound card: If he wants to record/sample, an upgraded sound card makes a huge difference. Audiophile 2496 is a good, cheap option (check if it includes preamps. I cannot remember.

Edit: A very good build, though, Mfenn.

 

[Operandi]

Regarding sound card: If he wants to record/sample, an upgraded sound card makes a huge difference. Audiophile 2496 is a good, cheap option (check if it includes preamps. I cannot remember.

Edit: A very good build, though, Mfenn.

You are better off going with a external solution rather than an internal card for the sound in my opinion.

 

[rockyjohn]

I think the i7-2600K would be perfectly fine for now...and if he wanted to upgrade later once they work out the kinks with Ivy Bridge, you won't be kicking yourself for spending so much more just a year earlier. Instead, put the money you'd save over the Gulftown toward a really good mobo.

Good point. But Gulftown is getting pretty long in the tooth. When will its replacement be coming out and what performance improvments might be expected? I would hate to see him invest in Sandy/Ivy Bridge only to see them blown away by Gulftown 2 (whatever it is called) for video work.

Heat - which version of Adobe does your father use? CS3 did not offload to the GPU, CS4 does with both nVidia and ATI/AMD cards helping out, and it is only CS5 that takes advantage of CUDA with the Mercury Processing Engine. Here are a couple of articles:

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/389996-cuda-significantly-accelerates-photoshop-cs4-premiere.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adobe-cs5-cuda-64-bit,2770.html

You may also be able to comfortably step down the size of the GPU - you could go down to the GT 560 and save about $130 - and maybe go down more. I have no personal experience, but the article linked further down provides some benchmarks worth looking at (about 2/3 of the way down the page, that show little difference in performance between the GT 240 and other nVidia cards up to the GTX 570. It also states that the benchmarks are confirmed by many emails received from people who upgraded and were surprised that they had no improvement in performance.

http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm

The author beleives that the reason is the GPU is waiting on the rest of the computer. I would wonder if there also might be something written into the software architecture that might affect it. But if he is right, then maybe Gulftown provides an important advantage. It is unfortunate that Adobe does not provide better guidance on this, but it might be worthwile to skulk around there forum and see if you glean some more wheat.

 

[Slugbait]

Heat - which version of Adobe does your father use? CS3 did not offload to the GPU, CS4 does with both nVidia and ATI/AMD cards helping out, and it is only CS5 that takes advantage of CUDA with the Mercury Processing Engine.

If using versions prior to CS5, there is absolutely no reason to have more than four gigs of RAM...those older versions cannot utilize more than 4G.

 

[mfenn]

One issue with the video card: It is hot and noisy. Depending on how much he plans to use the supported effects, a less powerful card might be a better choice.

That is very true. I picked the GTX 570 because it is the lowest-end card that is officially supported by MPE. Now, you could of course forgo it completely if, like you said, it wouldn't benefit you in your workflow. It is also possible to hack in support for other Nvidia cards.

I would also consider a modest HS/F upgrade just to cut down on noise since this system is going to see high load a lot of the time. The Zalman CNPS5X is one of best heatsinks you can get for the money.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118090

I’ve personally had good luck with Mushkin RAM, and good positive experiences with support when it was needed.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226095

Both good suggestions!

Great suggestions. It's quite apparent that you kept in mind the price/performance while recommending the parts; but I was wondering why you would suggest that particular case. It stands/sticks out quite a lot from other suggestions because of how expensive it is while not offering much to offset that cost. USB 3.0 in front is decent (not sure if the mobo has front USB 3.0 headers on it) but there are cases that have more than one USB 3.0 ports in front yet they go for less than $100 (CM Storm Enforcer comes to mind) and some even have eSATA in front for less than $100.

I am just asking as the OP didn't mention anything regarding the type of case or the budget desired. So he might as well go with the best bang for the buck case.

Nice pics.
Personally I would (and did) step up the case to a Lian Li. I have the PC-9F and it's the nicest case I've ever worked with, tons of room, good cable management, soft mounts for everything mechanical, super classy understated looks, and very high-quality build (ever peice is AL_.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112304

I see I am bracketed on both sides with regard to the case choice! :awe:

The reason that I suggested the P183 is because it is a high-quality, classy (IMHO) case with excellent noise dampening features. You could of course cut $100 out of the build by going with something like the Antec Three Hundred and not lose any application performance.

 

[gsellis]

Re - Socket 1366 and Gulftown -> "Long in the tooth"

Don't fall into "the next thing coming kicks butt" trap. There will always be faster and you can get into analysis paralysis playing that game.

Sandy Bridges is out for me as I am going to go with what Gary is saying over at Videoguys in the DIY builds. I am going to build to Hexcore on X58 (i7-980). And I am going to use the Gigabyte board (GA-X58A-UD3R) as it still has a PATA 133 on it (but that is just a $15 card if go with the ASUS like it). I will keep my 2 NEC DVD burners that have been flashed to support the DVD-ROM bitsetting on +R media (and add a Pioneer BD). DVD-ROM Bitsetting is less of an issue, but I saw a Daewoo DVD player recently that was still working (Daewoo players were my nemesis 2005-2007) But... my build is less than being about a budget build. The Quadro 4000 is half most budgets (Avid Media Composer 5.x is my suite).

Generally, a Raid-1 C:, Raid-5 E:, and a F: (reliable as you care to pay for) are kind of where you want to be. SSDs are fast, but to get a 'big' one is $$$. An affordable SSD can get too small for a full suite with effects editors, graphics suites, etc., with accidental writes to C: (the 'photos' and 'video' defaults in the Windows OS can burn you at times) A pair of Raptors might be a better, but slower option.

From juggling, a TB disk for your capture and work drive is about minimum these days. Not knowing what your dad is doing is kind of the hard part. But 20+ tape multi-cam projects can easily get to 500GB. WD Black series are inexpensive for a 5 year drive.

The "F:" is essential if you have a good editor. This is the effects render drive. You setup the editor to write all of its rendered effects to this drive. During real-time playback, the editor reads from both the video store and render at the same time. Two sources share the load with better playback.

PS - I like Mushkin too, but with what the memory analysis showed at AT recently, I will save a little $ and trade latency for size.

 

[mfenn]

Does Sandy Bridge magically become "OK to use" once they announce an X series chipset? A 980X is great if you like paying nearly three times as much in terms of total platform cost as you would for an i7 2600K. Otherwise, not so much.

 

[gsellis]

Does Sandy Bridge magically become "OK to use" once they announce an X series chipset? A 980X is great if you like paying nearly three times as much in terms of total platform cost as you would for an i7 2600K. Otherwise, not so much.

For me, X is kind of out. Too old school to want to OC in an editor. That is probably outdated thinking. But I remember the DV issues with audio and video synch related to issues introduced by overclocking. It came in through the firewire port and then video goes through the CPU and audio through the processor in the audio card before assembly. That was the source.

Gary's biggest complaint is related to the shared bus on SB. With PCIe I/O Hardware, hardware RAID (on a card), and GPU, they are not comfortable. I can relate to this knowing that GPU effects and real-time HDV playback were introduced at the Intel Developers Forum as a PCIe demo run in Pinnacle Liquid Edition. This demoed the real world gain in playback using the GPU across 16 Lane PCIe over 16X AGP.

Based on that, I would venture that if the editor did not heavily use the graphics card, it would be processor, processor, processor. Forget the chipset and go for newest speed. Add something like Aja, RAID boxes, and GPU leveraged editing, maybe stick with X58 for time being.... if editing is your income. If you edit for a living, a qualified workstation is probably the true answer as you get better support when something breaks (I have never seen a bug-free editing suite).

No matter how much I spend though... I still am not expecting to be invited to work on some big production. I blame it all on the camera work and the director (which would also be me )

 

[mfenn]

If you edit for a living, a qualified workstation is probably the true answer as you get better support when something breaks (I have never seen a bug-free editing suite).

Agree 100%.

Regarding I/O, sure X58 is fine if you need a lot of PCIe lanes. However, that does not pertain to the OP's situation at all. If you wanted a real professional-class system you would be doing what you suggested above and buying a certified system.

For hobbyist and prosumer (i.e. people who are likely to build their own), a Westmere makes no sense.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

My best recommendation would be to wait for Bulldozer if he can, honestly. Those 8-core CPUs should make short work of video encoding. Otherwise, though, I can't tell you to wait for Sandy Bridge-E since it's at least five months away. Bulldozer is a month away.

So either go for a Core i7-2600 if you can't wait, or for an FX 8-core if it turns out to do great in multi-threaded programs (which it's more than likely to).

 

[mfenn]

I thought Bulldozer shared an FPU between the two cores in each module? That would really limit it in encoding because it is pretty much all FP ops.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I thought Bulldozer shared an FPU between each two-core module? That would really limit it in encoding because it is pretty much all FP ops.

Hmm, that's true. We don't how how much or if it will in fact affect it in a noticeable way.

Given that Sandy Bridge is older now and more mature in terms of the motherboards I'd say he should go that route, then. The waiting game is kind of never ending and there's something faster that will probably be released every 3-6 months, whether it comes from Intel or AMD. I really doubt you'd need something faster than an i7-2600 for encoding unless it was your full-time job, in which case he should get a Core i7 980 instead. The obvious advantage to SB over Nehalem is the much lower platform costs, so that's something to keep in mind.