Looking for new computer for CS6 Production Premium

unadog said:
However, the current 3930K and 3960X have two cores disabled, as well as part of the L3 cache. I really hope that Intel will announce a 3980X with all 8 cores enabled as well as all 20 MB L3 cache. The i5-2690 has all cores enabled and the full complement of L3, so why not for the i7-39 range? To answer my own hopes as being something not expected in the short term, is that Intel is very strict about the 130W TDP limit, so do not expect that 8-core to appear until the Ivy version of these chips are available. Still time to wait and see.
Click to expand...

i wonder where do u get that info from? about 2 cores disabled? is there any kind of image showing that 2 cores are not working during rendering or something? i`d like to know more! in fact i just contacted intel support and asked about it - they told its not true! i am also going to buy that 3930K cpu.... but i think its a 3rd time when i read that "news" and now its makes me worried!

regards
 
That was not my comment on the 2 cores. It was from the link above that quote, from www.ppbm6.com

You could check the site and possible message him from there. The site is in beta The main site is www.ppbm5.com

FWIW, I just saw a link to Dell Small Business, with a Dell Vostro 470 Mini Tower, upgraded to the i7 Ivy Bridge 3770 for $740 base price. Newegg price for the CPU is $319:


Core i7 Processors

3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3770 processor (3.40GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.90GHz)
​

The rest of the system is fairly basic and would need upgrading. Not a full tower.

You can also look at their XPS 8500 to get ballpack pricing on the newer i7's. The base price on that with the same chip is $900 with 8GB. Add your own RAM, video card, etc.

Michael​
 
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Robert,
I would run your specs by someone at avadirect. They will help you get a customized solution where all the components function optimally together. I too would recommend Ivy-bridge which also has the benefit of lower power consumption. Also, SSD for system drive. If you still want to go with the sandy-bridge then take a look at http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Vi...dge+E/0xe9b142f408a2b03ab88144a434e88de7.aspx
If you go with avadirect count on about 3 weeks from order to delivery. It will be worth the wait.
 
WOW! You guys have my brain on overload :-) but I am very thankful for everyone's help.

I have been playing with the configurator on AVADIRECT and I came up with a system to use as a starting point. Please take a look at what I have put together and let me know your thoughts. View attachment PC.pdf

There are soooo many options that I have no clue the best route, but I am slowly getting a better understanding.

I do not see any PC on AVADIRECT that give me the IvyBridge option that you guys have mentioned. I do like everything I read about AVADIRECT, plus the fact that they are located less than 1 hour drive from me is a benefit.

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
Pifemaster Productions
www.pifemaster.com
 
I'm also in the market for a new workstation.

My options are (general concept):

OPTION 1: LGA 1155 + Thunderbolt (advantage here is having a fast high-bandwidth Thunderbolt interface, there exists only two boards that have this)
OPTION 2: Single LGA 2011 for Core i7 (advantage here is I can have 64GB Ram)
OPTION 3: Dual LGA 2011 (advantage here is having tons of threads and having 192GB Ram)
OPTION 4: One of the above options + Cubix GPU Xpander (need to clarify how Adobe CS6 PP and AE utilizes the Cubix system)

I would go to newegg.com as they have a good way to narrow down your motherboard search, for instance you can constrain your search by number of DDR3 slots...etc.

As for power supply, hands down either the PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1200Watt or the Antec High Power Pro 1200 Watt. Both have dual 8-pin connectors so you can scale to a dual socket board.

I like the PC Power and Cooling myself as all the leads are hard wired to the unit as opposed to having some hardwired on the Antec version.

As for the case, I like the Lian Li PC-V2120, it provides lots of room for air ventilation and can accommodate up to an HPTX sized motherboard which is "13.6 by 15 inches". This is perfect as a dual LGA 2011 motherboard is roughly 13 x 13.6 inches.
 
Thank you Mark.

I have put together another PC based on the Ivy Bridge Processor. Here is what I came up with. I would love to get something ordered. I already have CS 6 Production Premium on hand.

View attachment Ivy Bridge.pdf

I would love some feedback on this setup. Things I am not sure of:

Do I really need that large of a tower case. I know I will never use10 or 11 hard drives. But I want a good quality case.
Is that the best/compatible memory for this setup
What about CPU cooling options?
Is that a good SSD hard drive
There are a few Nvidia 580's available. Not sure which one is best for Adobe CS6

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
Pifemaster Productions
www.pifemaster.com
 
Robert,

I think you have a few expensive componets that are over-kill. What I am suggesting is best value and performance. Here is what I would recommend but please get the opinion of others. Of course if you have the $$$ then why not. Also a great read on PCs for Adobe at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/947698


- Case ANTEC Performance One P280 ( known for being well constructed and very quiet). Review at http://www.silentpcreview.com/Antec_P280
- Power supply CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX HX should be plenty. Review at http://www.silentpcreview.com/Corsair_Gold_AX850_Power_Supply
Power calculator at http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
- Your SSD is really large and expensive. 256 GB should be plenty.
- 32 GB of ram is a lot. You would probably be happy with 16 GB but some say you can never have enough.
- You have 2 DVD players selected. I would get the blu-ray one which will also handle SD DVD.

Sounds like you are anxious to make your purchase. This is something that you don't want to rush. It took me about 2 months of research before I settled on the specs for my computer which compliments my NLE software.
 
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Mark Williams said:
Robert,

I think you have really loaded up with expensive componets that are over-kill. What I am suggesting is value for performance
Click to expand...


I would agree in general.

I configured a system with the same CPU, same 32GB of RAM, 2, 2GB HDD's in RAID 0, and a smaller OCZ 128 GB SSD (I think) for about $2,300.

I tried to save the config, but I didn't have cookies turned on, so I lost it. I can try to rebuild it for comparison.

I think if you targeted a build of under $2,500 you would get the 90% without the premium for that extra 10%.

You could back off a bit on the SSD, the case, and the power supply (especially if you are going to use more network drives and only a single graphics adapter.)

I think the use of 8GB chips for RAM is good, as you won't have to replace them later when you do want to upgrade. I am puzzeled that the mother boards seem to have only 4 DIMM slots? They say 4x8 = 32GB as the max RAM? No 8 slot boards?

Even my 3 year old Dell had 6 slots.

This is a great start overall. I think it just takes a little soak time, a little tweaking here and there, and you will find teh sweet spot on price vs. performance.

I'll keep browsing as I have time.

Michael
 
unadog said:
I am puzzeled that the mother boards seem to have only 4 DIMM slots? They say 4x8 = 32GB as the max RAM? No 8 slot boards?
Click to expand...

I also thought this was absurd. The SandyBridge boards all had 8 slots for ram.

I adjusted the configuration based on Mark's post and I really like this new setup.

View attachment Newest.pdf

I thought that the original tower I had selected may be overkill.

I think I would like to add a SATA 6 Gb/s drive to use as a render drive. Thus the VelociRaptor.

I am completely unsure on the Ram. I do not need overclocking, but I want the best performance (within reason).

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
Pifemaster Productions
www.pifemaster.com
 
That looks pretty good!

A couple of small things:

You might add a second HDD so that you can do a RAID. You already have a controller. A RAID is highly recommended.

Adobe CS6 does not always perform nicely with network drives, as far as I understand (I am not architected that way, so can only pass that on ...) You might try 2 or 3, 2TB internal drives? 2 in RAID for scratch, etc. 1 as a Project/Media drive?

You could still go smaller on the SSD. I don'rt know that more than 240 GB is needed? Anyone else? I'll check my desktop to see what I am using on my C: drive.

Finally, I might opt for 32 GB of RAM for this reason. You are getting 4x4GB chips and using all DIMM slots. If you want to go to more later, you will have to pull all those chips and go 4x8GB. Might as well go either 2x8GB if possible, or 4x8GB. Those 4GB chips are going to be wasted eventually.

Other than that it looks pretty good! You might add up the wattage on the 580, 3-4 HDD's, etc. Just for a sanity check - there are web sites that will help you do that.

Sleep on it,, mull it over, never a hurry. It looks pretty good. I think you can make tweaks and keep it at $2,500, which is fairly reasonable. Or squeeze down to $2,250 if you wanted.

Cheers!
Michael
 
FYI.

I just saw this. Decent CPU, HDD, RAM.

i-7 3770K Ivy Bridge, 2TB, 10 GB RAM, $1,149, free shipping (Also saw $1,069 free shipping elsewhere.)

http://livehotdeals.com/HP-Pavilion-HPE-h9-1120t-Phoenix-Desktop-PC_97476?utm_source=google_ad

Processors3rd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K quad-core processor [3.5GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
Hard Drives2TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
MemoryFREE UPGRADE to 10GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 8GB
NetworkingPremium Wireless-N LAN card
Optical DrivesBlu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
Operating SystemWindows 7 Home Premium [64-bit]
Support2-year limited hardware warranty support
Video Cards2GB AMD Radeon HD 7770 [DVI, HDMI, DP & VGA via adapter]

HP Pavilion HPE h9-1120t Phoenix Desktop PC
 
unadog said:
FYI.

I just saw this. Decent CPU, HDD, RAM.

i-7 3770K Ivy Bridge, 2TB, 10 GB RAM, $1,149, free shipping (Also saw $1,069 free shipping elsewhere.)

http://livehotdeals.com/HP-Pavilion-HPE-h9-1120t-Phoenix-Desktop-PC_97476?utm_source=google_ad
Click to expand...

The problem I see there is that other than the processor, I would still need to upgrade alot - OS, Graphics Card, No SSD, no Storage drives, etc.

I have tweaked the AVADirect system a little further and I am really starting to like the looks of this system (on paper). Here is what I have now... View attachment Getting Real Close.pdf

I switched to the 850 watt power supply (small cost difference - just to be safe)
I added a second storage drive & Raid 0
I downsized the OS SSD drive
I switched the ram to 8gb sticks (they do not have an option to add 4 sticks of that particular memory, so I would call them about adding 2 more sticks)

I still need to add some type of cpu cooling (No clue what is best)
I am not sure if the nvidia 580 card I chose is the right/best one.

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
Pifemaster Productions
www.pifemaster.com
 
Just found the corsair memory. It would cost +137.13 to add another 16gb of the same memory. That would take the total to $2695.00 with 32 gb or ram.

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
Pifemaster Productions
www.pifemaster.com
 
That looks good! I like it a lot! :)

I'll have a look at cooling options tomorrow. I usually don't go that route, so others might chime in.

The 2x Velociraptors will have great speed for rendering frames, scratch, etc. With a RAID 0 you will want to be sure to back up nightly, but it sounded like you have that covered with a NAS, etc.

We can compare the GTX 580 cards. I tend to shy away from overclocking for a video type system (vs. gaming, etc.) You don't want anything that can lead to instability. But the faster speeds are nice for the GPU's. Pros and cons.

You might look at Tom's Hardware for benchmarks or posts on the cards. Also the Crucial SSD, I know the OCZ Agility 3 had good ratings, I think the Crucial did too. Those are just minor tweaks on detail.

You might want to add in a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda for local project & media storage after you get it. Or from them, $111 was not bad on that.


I didn't think you would be interested in the HP. Thought I'd put it up though for someone more cash constrained.

Cheers! Off to bed!

Michael
 
Well I called AVADirect and spoke with "Joe" who seemed very knowledgable. He mad a couple of suggestions on some minor tweaks to my configuration and this is what we came up with:


[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]+ DESKTOP PC, Core™ i5 / i7 Z77 3-way SLI® / CrossFireX™ Performance Custom Computer System
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· ANTEC, Performance One P280 Black Mid-Tower Computer Case, XL-ATX, 9 Slots, No PSU
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· CORSAIR, CMPSU-850HX HX Series Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 850W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, 6x 8-pin PCIe
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· ASUS, P8Z77 WS, LGA1155, Intel® Z77, DDR3-2800 (O.C.) 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2+2*, SATA 6Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 3Gb/s /4, DVI, USB 3.0 /6, HDA, GbLAN /2, ATX, Retail
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· INTEL, Core™ i7-3770S Quad-Core 3.1 - 3.9GHz TB, HD Graphics 4000, LGA1155, 8MB L3 Cache, 22nm, 65W, EM64T EIST HT VT-d VT-x XD, Retail
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· COOLER MASTER, Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler, Socket 2011/1155/1156/1366/775/FM1/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· PROLIMATECH, PK1 Thermal Compound, Electrically Non-Conductive, 5g
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· G SKILL, 32GB (4 x 8GB) Ares PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL10 (10-10-10) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· ASUS, ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5, GeForce® GTX 580 782MHz, 1536MB GDDR5 4008MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI+HDMI+DP, Retail
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· CRUCIAL, 256GB M4 SSD, MLC Marvell 88SS9174, 500/260 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 6 Gb/s, Retail
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· WESTERN DIGITAL, 500GB WD VelociRaptor®, SATA 6 Gb/s, 10000 RPM, 64MB cache
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· WESTERN DIGITAL, 500GB WD VelociRaptor®, SATA 6 Gb/s, 10000 RPM, 64MB cache
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· SEAGATE, 2TB Barracuda®, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, Retail
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· RAID, RAID 0 (striping), min 2 hard drives required
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· PLEXTOR, PX-LB950SA 12x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, Retail
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· ROSEWILL, RCR-AK-IM5002 Black/Silver 72-in-1 Card Reader/Writer Drive, 3.5" Bay, USB 2.0
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]· WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)

Total Cost: 3148.41


The SSD Drive will be the OS Drive
The VelociRaptor's in Raid 0 for scratch disks
The Seagate as a non-raid storage disk
He suggested the Asus GTX 580 as opposed to the EVGA as it has 2 cooling fans instead of 1
Added a CPU cooler & Thermal compound
Switched memory to a lower profile RAM to allow the mounting of a CPU cooler
Switch to Core™ i7-3770S which has a lower power consumption
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 4"]What do you guys think? I am pretty much sold on this configuration and ready to order unless there is a red flag that someone sees.


Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
Pifemaster Productions
www.pifemaster.com
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
 
Okay, here is some of my humble input.

1. Why a SSD as a System disc. No benefit, than a bit faster starting of applications and system (you really just saving a few seconds here and there, opposed to a fast HDD)
When SSDs fail, they fail without warning and you are screwed. You are not gonna see some extra speed in any application.
I have two identical HDDs in those fast change drawers. One is a perfect, hand massaged system with all programs, the other one is a 1:1 mirror of it.
If number one starts acting up (or I mess with the system), I just mirror the spare version from number two on it and continue working. So for the price of a SSD, you could have two fast HDDs and peace of mind.

2. If you want SSD somewhere, scratch disc/pagefile disc is what I recommend - this makes really a difference.
With such a fast system there is almost no need anymore to render previews, so you don`t need a huge scratch disc.

3. I have two RAID 0 (made of two 2TB disks each) - one one lives my footage, to the second one I render my masters out - that`s where RAIDS shine.

Otherwise one of our workstations is pretty much the same than your list and it's screaming fast in Premiere.

Frank
 
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