Would my current machine make a good workstation?

[Liberator21]

I'm fairly certain I'll be learning the basics of video editing soon, and would seriously like to pursue it. I'm thinking of building a system around either Avid Xpress Pro or Adobe Premier. I have the opportunity to buy a QuadroFX 1400 right here on the forums, but that got be thinking, would my current GPU fair better? Also I was considering the move to the dual core, dual processor Socket F, but think this may be overkill. Here are my specs:

AMD Opteron 1212 @ 3.0Ghz
BFG 590SLI
4Gb OCZ XTC Plat. 4-4-4-10
Evga 8800GTS 320mb
2x WD Raptor 74Gb/ 16mb
Seagate Barracuda 400Gb Sata II
Lian Li PC-60PLUSII
DVD-RW/Card reader, etc,

Now I know the 8800 is more powerful, but I've heard for these professional workstation apps if you don't use an approved card it can cause serious problems. I also know Avid recommends the Quadro 1400. Also it should be noted I will be moving to a high quality 22" or larger monitor with this upgrade. Thanks!

 

[krotchy]

I can tell you that the quadros dont fare much better than geforces in premiere pro and avid. I know that they suggest them, but I have no problem running premiere on a 30 inch dell with a Quadro FX3400 and with a Geforce 7600GT, they seriously perform almost the same.

Give your 8800 a try, if for some reason you feel it going badly switch a quadro later.

My biggest suggestion for video editing is get more Hard drive space, mainly for a scratch drive, and to have the video be read from one and exported to another. If you really want to invest in some performance, get an Areca 1210 Raid controller and implement a Raid 0/5 with 4 drives, HDD IO tends to be the bottleneck for most video editing.

As far as dual socket, again kinda overkill. The HD station below (2xOpteron 280's) actually exports slower than my Core 2 Duo E6600 machine in most situations. Only a few codecs really take advantage of 2+ cores.

 

[ObscureCaucasian]

Yea for HD video 1tb wouldn't be overkill for HDD space.

I'd also suggest a 24" monitor if you can.

 

[Liberator21]

Thanks I will definately get some more HD space. Probably just upgrade to a bigger Lian Li to hold them all.

 

[LoverBoyJ]

more memory, faster CPU, super fast hard drive with lots of space and a very fast transfer mechanism is all you need for video editing. Your evga or quadro is an overkill, its good for games.
You may also have to consider the mode of transfer of the video to your pc (ie. from the video camera to PC), this will greatly help reduce drop frames when capturing the video.

My video editing PC is still using Geforce FX5200 with Adobe Premier Pro 1 and it works fine. I also have about 2Gb of ram which helps a bit from 1Gb. My next upgrade would be the processor, I need to get a faster CPU.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: LoverBoyJ
more memory, faster CPU, super fast hard drive with lots of space and a very fast transfer mechanism is all you need for video editing. Your evga or quadro is an overkill, its good for games.
You may also have to consider the mode of transfer of the video to your pc (ie. from the video camera to PC), this will greatly help reduce drop frames when capturing the video.

My video editing PC is still using Geforce FX5200 with Adobe Premier Pro 1 and it works fine. I also have about 2Gb of ram which helps a bit from 1Gb. My next upgrade would be the processor, I need to get a faster CPU.

what other mode to transfer video if your camer has 1394? is that still the choice or is that just the choice for sd mini dv stuff? i know canon has that one hdd for their upper end cameras but didn't think anything other than realtime can be had for transfering. again, i am not up on the hd stuff so maybe they made some enhancement to that as that is a real pain when you need to bring in a bunch of video - all at 1x

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: LoverBoyJ
more memory, faster CPU, super fast hard drive with lots of space and a very fast transfer mechanism is all you need for video editing. Your evga or quadro is an overkill, its good for games.
You may also have to consider the mode of transfer of the video to your pc (ie. from the video camera to PC), this will greatly help reduce drop frames when capturing the video.

My video editing PC is still using Geforce FX5200 with Adobe Premier Pro 1 and it works fine. I also have about 2Gb of ram which helps a bit from 1Gb. My next upgrade would be the processor, I need to get a faster CPU.

what other mode to transfer video if your camer has 1394? is that still the choice or is that just the choice for sd mini dv stuff? i know canon has that one hdd for their upper end cameras but didn't think anything other than realtime can be had for transfering. again, i am not up on the hd stuff so maybe they made some enhancement to that as that is a real pain when you need to bring in a bunch of video - all at 1x

You could always get an HD-SDI camera and capture station, that should only run about 50K .

1394 is pretty much the best method of capturing consumer HD and SD video.

 

[LoverBoyJ]

Originally posted by: krotchy

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: LoverBoyJ
more memory, faster CPU, super fast hard drive with lots of space and a very fast transfer mechanism is all you need for video editing. Your evga or quadro is an overkill, its good for games.
You may also have to consider the mode of transfer of the video to your pc (ie. from the video camera to PC), this will greatly help reduce drop frames when capturing the video.

My video editing PC is still using Geforce FX5200 with Adobe Premier Pro 1 and it works fine. I also have about 2Gb of ram which helps a bit from 1Gb. My next upgrade would be the processor, I need to get a faster CPU.

what other mode to transfer video if your camer has 1394? is that still the choice or is that just the choice for sd mini dv stuff? i know canon has that one hdd for their upper end cameras but didn't think anything other than realtime can be had for transfering. again, i am not up on the hd stuff so maybe they made some enhancement to that as that is a real pain when you need to bring in a bunch of video - all at 1x

You could always get an HD-SDI camera and capture station, that should only run about 50K .

1394 is pretty much the best method of capturing consumer HD and SD video.

as far as camera goes, most are still at firewire 1 (iLink for sony), there are already addin cards for firewire 2 w/c is about double the transfer speed, but I haven't seen or heard any camera that supports second gen firewire. who knows some company is already developing on it.

 

[pkme2]

Originally posted by: El Liberache

I'm fairly certain I'll be learning the basics of video editing soon, and would seriously like to pursue it. I'm thinking of building a system around either Avid Xpress Pro or Adobe Premier. I have the opportunity to buy a QuadroFX 1400 right here on the forums, but that got be thinking, would my current GPU fair better? Also I was considering the move to the dual core, dual processor Socket F, but think this may be overkill. Here are my specs:

AMD Opteron 1212 @ 3.0Ghz
BFG 590SLI
4Gb OCZ XTC Plat. 4-4-4-10
Evga 8800GTS 320mb
2x WD Raptor 74Gb/ 16mb
Seagate Barracuda 400Gb Sata II
Lian Li PC-60PLUSII
DVD-RW/Card reader, etc,

Now I know the 8800 is more powerful, but I've heard for these professional workstation apps if you don't use an approved card it can cause serious problems. I also know Avid recommends the Quadro 1400. Also it should be noted I will be moving to a high quality 22" or larger monitor with this upgrade. Thanks!

It really depends upon whether you're doing video for yourself or others.
Your needs may not as exacting as some of us. The Quadro for Avid is recommended because the gaming card might experience dropped frames while the Quadro will yield professional results.

I usually recommend pulled cards for better deals. A quadro 1400 can be had for $80 to $140 on THAT auction site. Good hunting.