Ideal new COMPUTER System for Adobe CS4 (4.0.1)

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davdav

Active member
I am building a new computer and was considering the Intel i7 but wanted your advice before I parted with any of my hard earned money.

On the Panasonic PASS site it seems to recommend:
"DELL Precision 690 3.0GHz quad Xeon x2 , 4GB-RAM
Windows XP sp3 English"

So now I am confused - Xeon or i7 or Quadcore

Has anyone got a good i7 system working with native AVCHD from the HMC150 without any glitches, and if so would you mind posting your system's hardware components so that I can build one with confidence that it will work for me.

Thanks in advance.
 
Not an i7 owner but just to let you know (so you won't expect great things) that premiere still doesn't support 720p AVCHD and any workaround will cause your system to hang...

I'll wait for them to come up with an update and than I'll upgrade my machine, till then I'll go the DVCPRO way...

If I were building a machine now I would have picked up either an i7 or a good quad, any of them will do the trick and more.
With these systems you can edit XDcam like nothing and AVCHD will be fully editable in all NLEs (assuming you're using windows XP/vista/7) and by user experience I believe you can add some effects and still get smooth playback.
 
Xeon's are server/production versions of Intel's consumer lines. Going Xeon's usually raises costs as both the processor and ECC RAM are most costly than their consumer counterparts. Xeon based workstations offer higher stability than consumer products, but 'stability' uses refers to high end servers running very high loads 24/7 for years.

For a price/performance ratio, i7 is my suggestion.

There have been reports that i7 systems handle AVCHD very well: http://www.avforums.com/forums/camcorders-video-editing/945346-avchd-isnt-problem-play-edit.html

And reports of older Xeon's (Harperton) not holding up quite as well: http://www.hv20.com/showpost.php?p=197127&postcount=2. Though I'm sure that the new Mac Pro's with the Nehalem Xeon's (i7 Xeon) will more than fine, just costly.
 
I just built one....
Antec 1200 Case
Intel Core i7-920 CPU
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 X58 Motherboard
Corsair 850 watt PSU
Corsair 3X2GB DDR3 Memory
4 Western Digital 750 GB HD
LG Burner
Vista Business 64bit
GTX280 1GB Graphics Card

I wish I could tell you all about CS4 on it, but I don't have it yet. Camera is on the way. Right now I'm just trying out test files with cineform.
 
I'm using a XEON 8 core cpu, w/ 12gigs of ram and a EVGA GTX260 card, 750 watt power supply, a Supermicro server motherboard, 2 "hot swap" WD 1tb HD's and Vista Ultimate.

She was cheap $1300, runs sweet, and eats AVCHD nicely!

I believe the ram cost is comparable. But the i7 cpu's, depending on which ver., are way more than XEON's at the moment. Try double to, triple the cost. But i7's aren't twice as fast!

When the prices fall in a year or 2, I may consider building another w/ i7's. Until then, I'm good!
 
ronedee said:
But the i7 cpu's, depending on which ver., are way more than XEON's at the moment. Try double to, triple the cost. But i7's aren't twice as fast!
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I find that statement reversed. i7's are not double/triple the cost. Xeon's are double/triple the cost of their core i7 equivalents.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Core i7 940: ~$600. CPU Score: 6,159
Core i7 920: ~$290. CPU Score: 5,456
Xeon 5460: ~$1800. CPU Score: 4,885
Xeon 5450: ~$900. CPU Score: 4,759

That being said, dual Xeon Harperton's systems are price equivalent to core i7 setups and perform similarly: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=7942.

But your upgrade path with the i7 will probably be cheaper if you chose to update your CPUs in the future.
 
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