Building System for Premiere Pro

[Gian Joon]

I am trying to put a basic system together for editing r3d in premiere pro.

Need some advice on what should I go for. I plan to edit an Indie project shot on RED.

Thanks in advance.

[Obin Olson]

8 core system with min of 4gb ram, fast as hell HDD and a good graphics card

[Joe Carney]

Obin, what mobo do you use? I'm looking at SuperMicro or Tyan dual xeon setups.

[david farland]

Does Premiere/OS access more than 3.2GB memory?

System would be 2x quad xeons, 2x sas drives (no more) per controller (n number), with software raid across the sas controllers....screams!!!

D

[Pawel Achtel]

Does Premiere/OS access more than 3.2GB memory?


No, it is a 32-bit application. You need an entirely different code to run and use 64 bit addressing space.

[david farland]

Yeah I figured that.
Does any know of any beta CS4 versions of premiere floating rounds?
But then I guess there is also Red's plugin compatibility to consider.
Dave

[Brian Harbauer]

Howdy David, while premiere is 32bit, if you run it on 64bit OS you will then be able to use all 4GB instead of 3xxGB (even if there's 4GB stick in there).

I've been running vista 64bit with 8GB. Yes, premiere can only use 4GB, BUT it's not fighting over it with the OS. The OS can do whatever with the remaining 4GB. So far it's been ROCK SOLID.

[Jay A. Kelley]

I am trying to put a basic system together for editing r3d in premiere pro.

Need some advice on what should I go for. I plan to edit an Indie project shot on RED.

Thanks in advance.

I think you need to wait and see what kind of performance the plugin really offers before you jump into this. It may not be what you expect, or it may be better.. We'll know next week
Jay

[extrabyte]

Hello All. First post, and what a great professional community here.

Regarding the system build, and agreeing with Brian Harbauer, Vista 64 has been very good. It has the most support and compatibility than any of the other 64 bit OS's. I have tried XP 64(useless) and Server 2003 64(mostly useless). I too am running Vista 64 with the latest Intel quad core(Q9450), 8 gb of ram and CS3 Production Premium. Turning off all the eyecandy and a bunch of unnecessary background processes, the OS is actually fairly nimble and stable. I have spent more time in After Effects than in Premiere but I can tell you that After Effects uses all the ram you can give it even though it's not 64 bit. CS2 doesn't. Plus, if you install your plugins into the common Media Core folder, then both After Effects and Premiere see them both. If cost was no object, then of course a dual-socket board, 32 to 64 gb of ram and a big fat Quadro would be really sweet. Then in a year or so, we'll have 8 and 16 core chips and we'll really be in pig-heaven! Unbelievable.

[Ace9]

8 core system with min of 4gb ram, fast as hell HDD and a good graphics card

Obin pretty much hit it right on the head. Here is what I commented in another thread and it pretty much what I use in building a system.

The biggest caveat to system performance, stability is a pc's thru put. I have seen really good system bottle necked by a single item the "puts a kink in the hose"

*A Quad Xeon which carries a 1333mhz FSB paired w/ 4 gigs DDR2-4200, you under utilize the data hand off between Proc and Ram. CPU fsb is quad independent pipes so a multiple of 4, so 1333 equals true FSB of 333. so for 1:1 ratio you'll only need -667 for stock speeds.

RULE = PROC FSB / by 4 = FSB of RAM so 1333 / 4 = 33.25 x 2 = 66.7 so (?)GB DDR-5400 of low latency RAM or higher is what your after

* MOBO Research, Each line of MOBO has there own forums and each one has a wealth of threads that describe pro's and con's. LGA775 in Intel or EVGA mobo was the key for me for PROC>MOBO>MEMORY thru put....

* Soft Raid eats CPU cycles and kills your Read Write for High Data polling. Properly matched HD's on a good hardware SATA controller is your best bet.

* CAREFUL what you install in XP or VISTA. It doesn't take much to start degrading your system performance with most software wanting space in your systems tray.

* A GOOD not great OpenGL Graphics card. GRAPHICS horsepower is not necessarily a direct correlation to better editing performance. I have a 9800 GTx and a 8800 GTS that are pretty much neck in neck for a $200 difference. I only see a big difference when running a 3D animation programs.

The benefit of using 64-bit despite Adobe being 32-bit is a speed increase by around 10% over the 32-bit version, and intensive data read write performance are dramatically better due to advancement in disk indexing under of XP vs VISTA.

Careful choices can lead to something very stable . CS2 with XPro 32 was rock solid with PPRO and AE until my project got really mix heavy on a 77min short. Vista 64 with CS3 on has had its quark or two but nothing really to report. Hope this helps a little...

[Eddie]

I would consider buying an ssd for cs3 and windows. I believe its the acces times, which are choking the system alot. And ssd 15X faster in this regard.
If anyone has experience with SSDs as systemdiscs please chime in..

64GB model from samsung is looking interesting (link) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147054)

[Hrvoje Simic]

64GB model from samsung is looking interesting (link) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147054)


You already have OCZ's new fast 128 GB SSD in the $500 range all over the web.

[Eddie]

You already have OCZ's new fast 128 GB SSD in the $500 range all over the web.

0.35 ms seek time... not bad. fast 10000 rpms hdd is around 5 ms.

thanks for the tip.

I have read somewhere that much of the disappointment wit raid systems comes from the fact that they only improve reads and writes, but does little for program-handling as such. For me personally it is much more important to have a good feeling during editing, than a fast final dpx output... thats why I contemplated an ssd as system boot disc. Btw, the ocz is MLC, you might want to check that before buying. The samsung I referred to is SLC, which is faster and more reliable. 64gb is more than enough for programs and os..

all the best eddie

[Ace9]

SSD I can see as a primary OS drive. This helps with OS and Application load times. Even dropping prices per GB in the SSD are still pretty unpractical for the average user to entertain the idea SSD as a storage medium. Hard drives are still at a unprecedented price point per Gigabyte and speeds are quick enough for now for most production houses. For the price of 1 128GB SSD can get you a decent 3 x 500 GB with an introductory Hardware SATA Controller and there you go. BUT don't get me wrong, im excited to see where SSD takes us. BUT buyer beware with some of the price breaking SSD's that are being offered these days. To many forums show dependency issues of some of those lower price point SSD's that put you at risk.

DOESN'T MEAN IM NOT GETTING ONE

I wouldn't mind taking using a SSD as a primary and running SAS raid 0 as a storage secondary.

[Gian Joon]

8 core system with min of 4gb ram, fast as hell HDD and a good graphics card

Thanks guys for your input. I am definitely going with 8 Core System and 8 GB of RAM.

I am looking at Dual Quad core system with Intel Xeon processors. But not able to decide on processor speed (GHz). I don't have lot of money spend.

[Paolo Tinari]

I don't have lot of money spend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8rYl6K2STc&feature=related

[DaveC]

I just built a new editing station and I'm pretty happy with it. It didn't cost to much and is rather fast:

Asus Dual socket 771 MoBo 5100 Chip (accepts normal DDR2 reg. ecc)
2x Intel Xeon Quad 2,33Ghz
4x 2GB DDR2 reg. ecc 533Mhz

As HDDs I still had a Raid0 with two Raptors and a Raid10 with normal Sata HDDs. I think there are some new Raptor HDDs (Velociraptor or something like that) which are supposed to be really fast and much cheaper than SSDs.

If you're also looking for a cheap Monitor, I would recomend the new Lenovo 22" with 1920x1200. It has a S-PVA panel and cost only 360€. But if you buy it, you should also get a good colorimeter (I'm using a Spyder Elite 3).

As OS, I would recomend Windows Server 2008 x64 over Vista. It's more stable and faster!

[Joe Carney]

I'm setting up a pc with Quad 9450, Intel X38 mobo (Bonetrail), 8 gigs of DDR3 and a new ATI 4870 gpu. What I like about the Intel mobo is you can put non graphics cards (ie Raid card) into any of the PCIe slots including the 16x2 one. I verified that with intel support when I found out Gigabyte doesn't allow that on their systems. That means I have one 4x and one 16x, with on 16x for the graphics card... for adding a capture card and Raid without having to go with a more expensive workstation system.


I'm wondering just how fast the new Nehalam based Xeons are going to be.

[Gian Joon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8rYl6K2STc&feature=related

Paolo, thank you for standing by.

[Lachlan Ward]

You don't need an 8 core system. PP can't even use all the cores. Its a waist of money ATM.

At any rate, you should wait and see what it actually takes to natively crunch the .R3Ds in PP. I've seen Scratch running really well on Quad Core rigs. And don't forget the PC nuts best friend, 'over clocking'. Some guys at Atomic got a Quad Core 2.4GHZ up to 4GHZ with full stability. That's 16GHZ of power, being accessed. I get the feeling that, that would slap the 8 core systems in the face (not in true balls power, but in actual used power). And if you are going for, "Future proofing", don't.
Only a fool future proofs there computer tech. Next year when CS4 is everywhere like a rash, a whole smack of newer faster hardware will be on the ground, and you would have spent all your money on a system that looks like a snail in comparison. Why do that when you can make a fast enough rig for under $1000???

It makes no economic sense.

And if you want to go over board with power. There is a 4 processor AMD board, I've forgotten the name of it but you can stick AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Cores in it. That gives you... a 16 core system. Hurrah!

Also if you need to render, there are these great things called blade servers, and they aren't that expensive.

But like I yelled, SAVE YOUR CASH! The best is yet to come.

[Tom Lowe]

Best bet is always to wait until the last possible moment before getting the system. Four months later something 50% faster might come out.

For Premiere, the CPU seems to be everything. For AE, RAM is the issue. This 3GB limit on RAM with 32-bit applications and systems totally sucks. Hopefully CS4 + Vista 64 will open things up in terms of RAM.

[Adam Glick]

"...I'm wondering just how fast the new Nehalam based Xeons are going to be...."

30% - 80% faster than current Xeon architecture per clock cycle depending on the application.

We have some Nehalem engineering samples here in the lab and they are fast. Very fast. That's about all I can say at the moment...

Adam
BOXXlabs

[Jason Rivera]

You already have OCZ's new fast 128 GB SSD in the $500 range all over the web.

Glad you brought that up. I just saw this link (http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_core_series_v2_sata_ii_2_5-ssd) for a Core V2 up to 250GB capacity and faster Read/Write times.

Can't wait for the $/GB on these drives to drop to like $1. No more spinning disks.