Powerhouse PC for use with Premiere CS5

[Thomas Church]

Hi guys, I've been a Mac user for a few years now and I've been sort of away from the PC as an editing tool for some years.

I'm considering going back to PC now since Premiere is obviously the superior software at the moment and I want to build a powerful computer to work with AVCHD, 3K and 5K files from RED.

Is there any solid recommendation you guys would make in choosing a PC?

What's the best processor at the moment, is there a basic CPU at Amazon that does the job?

I'm also considering getting a PC with USB 3.0, since external USB 3.0 drives are now cheap.

I currently use a 2.8 GHz 4 GB RAM iMac and I've been struggling at times.

My budget is around 1.5K (just for the CPU, already have the monitor, etc)

PS: I'm asking here because most "guides" online are pretty dated by now.

 

[Gary Huff]

How technically savvy are you? I really think you can't beat putting your own desktop system together. Are you comfortable doing that?

Here would be my recommendations:

Intel Core i7 or AMD Phenom II 1090T (in the fastest clock speed you can afford)
12GB of RAM minimum (24GB if you can swing it)
500GB Seagate Hybrid SSD Drive (Windows can use this and it should perform on par with 10,000RPM)
2TB Western Digital drive or higher (I like WD drives, but Seagate's the only one with the Hybrid SSD that I've been impressed with)
NVIDIA with either the GeForce 500 series or one of the Quadros that CS5 uses that you can afford (the 580GTX can be added to the text file that allows Premiere to use it to accelerate rendering and should do very well with CUDA. If you to take a break for some Crysis or Mass Effect, it can handle that too!)
Creative Titanium X-Fi HD (I think that's the newer model)

I would get USB 3.0 too. Should be a good standard for future hard drives, and with the kind of footage you're working with you're going to want speed, speed, speed when you have to transfer it around.

 

[marjamar]

Here's what I did. It's very fast, very capable and fun (recently bought my first video game in about 20 years or so to test system). I have it running fully stable a just over 4GHz on all 6 cores using air cooling. It's not as fast as Intel's i7-980X Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 core, but it's conservatively $1000 less expensive system. I have about $2,000 in my system and could spend another $500-$900 for a water cooling (CPU/GPU/MB) and get upto 4.4~4.6 GHz easily. Similar clock speeds can be attained with the i7 on water though.

It boils down to how much you can spend and if you (or someone you know) can build a system. If not, then I'd just look for the best you can afford from stores (walk-in and online).

-Rodger