Building a new "Ultimate PC" for Adobe 5K editing! (circa Oct 2011)

[Tom Lowe]

I wanted to post the specs of a new PC I am building to edit my debut film at 4K, online, before I pull the trigger and order it. What do you guys think?

The only major drawback is that I will have no room for Red Rocket (not enough PCI). It's either that, or switch to the EVGA motherboard and lose 48GB of RAM! BTW, I am hoping to edit this film without transcoding!



http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/5161/avaxu.jpg

WORKSTATION PC, Dual Six-Core Xeon® 5600 / 5500 SATA CrossFire™ Graphics Computer Workstation 1 $13188.66 $13188.66
SUPERMICRO, X8DAi, LGA1366 /2, Intel® 5520, 6.4 GT/s QPI, DDR3-1333MHz ECC/UECC 192GB/48GB /12, PCIe x16 CF /2, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /6, HDA, GbLAN /2, EATX, Retail

INTEL, 2 x Xeon® X5690 Six-Core Processor 3.46GHz, LGA1366, 6.4 GT/s QPI, 12MB L3 Cache, HT EIST EM64T TB VT-x XD, 32nm, 130W, Retail w/o Fan

NOCTUA, NH-U12DX 1366, Socket 1366 Active 4U CPU Cooler, 1300 RPM, Copper/Aluminum

NOCTUA, NH-U12DX 1366, Socket 1366 Active 4U CPU Cooler, 1300 RPM, Copper/Aluminum

INNOVATION COOLING, Diamond 7 Carat Thermal Compound

KINGSTON, 96GB (6 x 16GB) ValueRAM™ Quad-Rank PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz CL7 SDRAM DIMM, ECC Registered

EVGA, GeForce® GTX 580 772MHz, 3072MB GDDR5 4008MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI+mini-HDMI, Retail

OCZ, 480GB Vertex 3 SSD, MLC SandForce SF-2281, 530/450 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 6 Gb/s, Retail

HITACHI, 3TB Ultrastar™ 7K3000 (HUA723030ALA640), SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, OEM

HITACHI, 3TB Ultrastar™ 7K3000 (HUA723030ALA640), SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, OEM

HITACHI, 3TB Ultrastar™ 7K3000 (HUA723030ALA640), SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, OEM

HITACHI, 3TB Ultrastar™ 7K3000 (HUA723030ALA640), SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, OEM

HITACHI, 3TB Ultrastar™ 7K3000 (HUA723030ALA640), SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, OEM

RAID, RAID 5 (fault tolerance), min 3 hard drives and RAID controller required

ARECA, ARC-1880i SAS/SATA RAID Controller, 12 ports (2 x SFF-8087), 6 Gb/s, Levels 0/1/3/10/5/6/10/30/50/60, DDR2 512MB cache, PCIe x8, Full-height/Low-profile, Retail

LG ELECTRONICS, WH12LS38 Black 12x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, w/ Software, OEM

ROSEWILL, RCR-AK-IM5002 Black/Silver 72-in-1 Card Reader/Writer Drive, 3.5" Bay, USB 2.0

LIAN LI, Armorsuit PC-P80 Black Tower Case, EATX, 10 slots, No PSU, Aluminum

THERMALTAKE, TP-1500M Toughpower™ 1500W Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 80 PLUS® Silver, 24-pin ATX12V v2.3 EPS12V v2.92, 8x 8/6-pin PCIe, Retail

MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM

APC, SUA3000 Smart-UPS 3000VA, 3000VA/2700W, 120V, USB, RS-232, Black

WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, Life-Time Labor Warranty)

Oops.. sorry the RAM is wrong here. It's 96GB Crucial 1333mhz DD3.

[Sean McAllister]

I would really try to get a Red Rocket in there. Also I would upgrade the Areca card to one of their 1880ix. I have the 1880ix-12 with 4GB of cache and it's really nice. A Decklink would also be nice.

[John Allardice]

Looks like a really sweet system, definitely fast enough for a full project with no transcoding, the only thing you might consider is adding a second GTX 580, although I dunno if that'll entail changing the motherboard...of course it all depends on your monitor setup, I use one card for a dual-screen UI and the second card goes to a 46" LED.
You should get 1/2 res at 23.98 no problem, and I find a larger screen at a slightly longer viewing distance gives you a better feel for framing & shot length on the edit.

[John Bannister]

Holly Crap Tom! The specs on that thing could run a nuclear power-station lol. Nice Rig mate LOVE IT!

[Tom Lowe]

John, I talked to Adobe and they assured me that their software cannot take advantage of multiple CUDA cards in SLI, which includes the fact that the GTX 590 is apparently an "SLI" card, meaning that it uses SLI technology to link two onboard GPU cores.

[John Bannister]

John, I talked to Adobe and they assured me that their software cannot take advantage of multiple CUDA cards in SLI, which includes the fact that the GTX 590 is apparently an "SLI" card, meaning that it uses SLI technology to link two onboard GPU cores.

Correct. Adobe does however support OpenGL that takes advantage of the GPU speed for some instructions so it can pay to have an approved OpenGL card. But Adobe current versions of software do not currently support muti/GPU's

[Daniel Macleod]

Hey Tom, Great system you have built there! But I know for a fact you can do every thing you want and more for about half that price, if you are willing to put together the system your self, because why pay some one else to do some thing you can do for free easily (building a computer is alot easier then it sounds). There are some expensive items in your cart you could switch out! All items could be purchased from NewEgg, here is what I would build:
2x Intel Xeon X5675 Westmere-EP 3.06GHz LGA 1366 95W Six-Core Server Processor
1x (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117254)SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAH+-F-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 Enhanced Extended ATX Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series Server Motherboard
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182177)2x Noctua NH-U9DX 1366 Dual Heat-pipe SSO Bearing Quiet CPU Cooler (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608021)
4x Wintec 24GB (3 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) ECC Registered Server Memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161379)( 96 gigs total)
1xMSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 3072MB 384-bit GDDR5 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127589)
2x Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe MKNSSDCR60GB-DX 2.5" 60GB SATA III Synchronous MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226246)4x Western Digital RE4-GP WD2002FYPS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136365)The SSD's would be in raid 0, have a total compacity of 120Gigs (enough for OS and Adobe) and be alot faster then the one 480gig Vertex 3, The four 2 TB drives you could place in raid 10 because it is fast and reliable, giving you a total cap of just over 4TB.
Built in raid controller is fine......
1x LG Black Super Multi SATA WH12LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136226)2x Sunbeam PL-AIO-BK All-in-one USB 2.0 3.5" Drive Bay Card Reader (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820601002) (they are free with the heatsinks)
1x LIAN LI PC-90 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112338)1x Antec High Current Pro HCP-1200 1200W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371043)1x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992)(ultimate is no better at all....)
1x Any decent UPS you can get your hands on for a low price.
The total comes to $7,017.83!!!! And as for a warranty, most individual computer parts come with at least a two or 3 year warranty. As for hard drive space, fill up the 4TB, then go buy some more drives. Because computer parts like hard drives, memory and graphics processing units, prices halve every year so, what will cost you $800 this year will likely cost you about $400 next year. :) Feel free to ask about any of the changes I made and why I made them!

[paulherrin]

tom, i agree with daniel on putting your own together. hardest piece is deciding which parts you want and making sure they are all compatible, but that's not really that hard.

[Daniel Macleod]

Well savings would be the biggest reason I would do it, $13188.66-7017.83 = $6170.83 (that's enough to buy to buy almost another system or a bunch of Redcessories!)

[Kacey Baker]

This is a great thread, my new Mac was priced in at just under $15k, which is is simply just not an option. I too am getting a PC custom built, so Tom when you finalize your future proof Godzilla (they name I gave my 2008 future proof mac.. yet here we are in the future) I'd love to know your specs :)

[Tom Lowe]

Guys, I'm not skilled enough to put it together. So far, the dudes at AVADirect have been pretty cool with me. Plus there is a warranty, etc.

Let me check with some friends to see if anyone can build it.

[Erich Ocean]

Tom, I'd be happy to spend an afternoon putting your PC together for you, if you're in Southern California. It's really not difficult and nothing to be concerned about.

[Daniel Macleod]

If you can put together a camera system, you can put together a computer..... Plus you could just get NewEgg's warranty. You would still be saving like 5 grand....

[Subhadip Sen]

Solid rig all around. 48GB 1600 MHz RAM will get you better performance, however, as 1066 MHz causes a bit of a memory bandwidth bottleneck and it is very unlikely you will use more than 48GB of RAM anyway. RAID 5 offers superb redundancy but write performance can be very erratic. Check out BAARF (battle against RAID Five [performance]) for more information for problems, solutions and options. Read performance also isn't good enough to handle low compression (i.e. 3:1 or os) 5K R3Ds and definitely not multiple streams. Writing 4K masters in whatever codec will be very high bitrate and could cause severe bottlenecks as well. My personal choice is RAID 10 w/ 4 HDDs.

As for RED Rocket, you will need 2 RED Rockets to deliver real-time performance at 5K whereas dropping to 1/2 res (or 2.5K or the resolution most displays top out at today anyway) will get you real-time performance from your CPU/GPU alone. So, in my opinion, Rockets are fairly useless today. If you are planning to work with 10-bit monitors, go for Quadro GPUs.

Lastly, as many have suggested, you will be able to get a more optimum blend of performance, price and flexibility by configuring and assembling yourself. See if you can get someone to do it for you. In case you do, you should also consider 16-core or 20-core Xeon E7 CPUs which will fit within $15k and get you 5K real-time performance (assuming no bottlenecks). Now that would make an "Ultimate PC".

[Eric Z]

Tom,

This is a great setup for sure.
But you're forgetting one very important thing:
GeForce cards do NOT support 10bit color due to driver limitation!!

I seriously suggest you stick a Quadro 5000 in there instead of of those GTX580s, and connect your monitors through its DP ports.
If you wanna go all out, then a Quadro 6000 is also available.
Then enable 10bit color (NVIDIA refers to it as 30bit Deep Color) in the driver interface.
Finally, enable GPU acceleration inside of Adobe's products, or any other professional software you use.

The bonus is, of course, you'll have room for a RED Rocket.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Tom, if you are not overclocking it is the easiest thing. Plug update and play. Don't pay for putting it together.

[Eric Z]

I would also suggest a PCIe-based SSD solution instead of 2.5" SATA drives.
Something like an OCZ Z-drive or fusionIO ioDrive.
Those are super speedy, giving you around 4 times the performance of a regular 2.5" SATA6 SSD.
Oh, and the OCZ Z-drive is even bootable, so you can install Windows on it.

I suggest you look at the new OCZ Z-Drive R4 RM88 800GB model.
It's got plenty of storage, it's bootable, it's powered only by the PCIe slot and it is the fastest storage solution available today.
And it costs roughly $7/GB, which means $5600. A bit expensive, yes, but nothing comes close.

Here are a couple of reviews of the 1.6TB model:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4879/ocz-zdrive-r4-cm88-16tb-pcie-ssd-review/1
http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_zdrive_r4_ssd_review

[John Bellari]

Guys, I'm not skilled enough to put it together. So far, the dudes at AVADirect have been pretty cool with me. Plus there is a warranty, etc.

Let me check with some friends to see if anyone can build it.

+1. Pay a friend that's done it before to build you one, and refer to

http://ppbm5.com/index.html

for other custom built machines.

You probably want a Quadro 4000 or above for 10 bit display,
but as you see on that benchmark, Quadro cards are not necessarily fast at all.

[Vico Martin]

+1. Pay a friend that's done it before to build you one, and refer to

http://ppbm5.com/index.html

for other custom built machines.

You probably want a Quadro 4000 or above for 10 bit display,
but as you see on that benchmark, Quadro cards are not necessarily fast at all.

Wow, what a test!, thanks for share.

[John Bellari]

Wow, what a test!, thanks for share.

Yeah, the guys that run the website are nice enough to give a standard benchmark that Adobe does not.
You would think by now Adobe would have a simple performance test for realtime 4K editing and certifying all
cuda cards.

The amazing thing was I was going to buy an HP Z800 workstation with Quadro 4000 until I saw those benchmark results.
Quite eye-opening the difference between what Adobe says and reality.

[Tom.Wong]

sacrifice the extra ram, and get the rocket. the rocket is more important for all around playback, and when you export. you won't regret a moment of it. if you have 2 gb of ram per core you have, you'll be solid. 96 gb won't be completely utilized unless you are doing some insane after effects stuff too. that's more ram hungry than premiere. premiere uses ram on export, but relies a on cuda, processor, and drive speed for general playback and effects. combo with RR, cutting in 4k should be a breeze.

[James Drake]

I agree with Tom Wong, Red Rocket will save you time!!! Either way, that's a flocking fast system. I'd also recommend a quadro card over GTX, ESPECIALLY if you'll be working on this system for years to come. In a nutshell, Quadro are specifically built and designed for video rendering, so they'll last longer, be more reliable, etc etc. Check out this great article on GPUS... http://blogs.adobe.com/genesisproject/2011/10/diving-into-nvidia-gpus-and-what-they-mean-for-premiere-pro.html

[Tim Sutherland]

When Resolve for PC was announced I went to new egg and priced out a 12 core system for about $4000 with 24 gb ram, blu ray burner, 3 cud a video cards, and 8 tb of internal raided storage in a rack mounted case. Didn't pull the trigger due to purchasing a house with that system you could add a decklink and a rocket and lose one video card and have more power than I currently have in my Mac pro that does 4k debayer in real time in resolve.

I would look at building yourself, the key is The motherboard. I priced it out with this one, has 2 pcie 16 lane slots, the one in the build you posted above only has x8 slots and is a discontinued board.

I also priced a build with only one CPU, doing a 6 core build for about $3200 with 7 x16 slots (although you could only use 3double width cards).

[Subhadip Sen]

Once again, I strongly recommend thinking twice before investing in RED Rocket. It was a great investment back in the Core 2 and non-native workflow days, but I am not sure today. One Rocket simply isn't sufficient for 5K EPIC playback so you would want to default back to CPU/GPU and 1/2 res, leaving the Rocket sitting idle. Two Rockets will drive 5K playback real time but think about this - for the same price you can upgrade to a top Xeon E7 20-core system which not only does 5K R3D debayering in real time, like the 2 Rockets, but also handle millions of other workloads.

That is, until a Rocket II comes along designed for EPIC workloads.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Here's my $5 worth of advice...

You don't want the X8DAi motherboard! Get the Supermicro MBD-X8DAH+F-O that Daniel Macleod recommended above. It's probably the best dual Xeon board going right now. It has a dual south-bridge configuration with more PCIe slots and supports more RAM at higher speed. The X8DAi has a few shortcomings -- namely, your RAM is throttled back when you install more than 48GB on it (read fine print) and it has old PCI slots on there -- WTF? There is no PCI card out there deserving of being connected to this system. Some people see this as a problem if they're still trying to drag along legacy hardware with them -- some do it. Personally, I haven't needed a standard PCI 133MHz slot since 2005. Going with the MBD-X8DAH+-F-O motherboard let's you have your RAM and your Rocket.

Daniel also made the point of going with the 3.06GHz CPUs. Yes, they are slower, but also significantly cheaper for not much speed reduction. Depending on budget, you may want to give that some serious consideration.

I disagree with Daniel's SSD recommendation, not in terms of the brand, but capacity and his take on speed/ reliability. First off, the Mushkin SSD's are using the same Sandforce-2281 controller that the OCZ Vertex-3 is using. Performance is roughly the same between the two, I've tested both. I would still recommend the Mushkin, first off they're HQ is located a short 12 minute commute from me and I have to give props to my local boys. They also have much better support if the product does fail. Personally, I think the best Sandforce-based SSD out there at the moment is the OWC 6Gbps / SATA III ones. But once again, they're using the same chipset. Using two of them in a RAID can make for some very fast performance, especially for read times. Like I said, the biggest point I disagree on is the capacity. 120GB isn't enough. It's enough for the OS and some scratch space, but you'll run out of room fast if you put a decent compliment of apps on the system -- I also don't recommend you run the SSDs more than 65% full as it will help maximize performance. I would recommend dual 240GB in a RAID. The 240GB Mushkin's are about $420 each.

Other than that, most everything looks pretty good. I would go for Corsair, Mushkin or G.Skill RAM as opposed to the Kingston ValueCRAP.

I prefer the EVGA GTX580 cards over all the others. Personal preference, but their OC version is killer and they have a single-wide water-cooled version too.

I'm kinda confused on the USB2.0 card readers and why you guys are spec-ing them... But that's OK, if you want to wait around for USB2.0 speed downloads of CF cards or whatnot... I guess it's about the best option at the moment for SDHC/SDXC cards. I just don't think of them, I only have two DSLRs that use them and my Dell monitors have readers built in anyway. Like Daniel says, you can get the all in one reader free, so hey, why not...

Also agree with Daniel on these points too...
Go for Win7 Pro 64bit. Save a bit of money. The only extra stuff in the Ultimate edition is fluff and bloat you don't need or want. ...Unless you want to use it for a home entertainment PC/Console system too.

A good UPS is a great thing to have. Make sure you get one big enough to supply your system / PSU at PEAK output for at least 5 minutes or long enough to comfortably shut everything down.

The WD 2TB RE4 hard drives are hard to beat. They're currently my preferred drives for just about everything. The 3TB units from Hitachi and WD haven't been out long enough to really prove themselves and not that it means a whole lot, but I haven't lost a 2TB RE4 drive yet. I have had one Hitachi 3TB go bad on me, but it was suspect from the start (sounded different the others I bought), so I threw it in a single-drive enclosure for general use -- it lasted all of about 40 hours of run time before it seized up. Hitachi replaced it and that new one has seen at least 200 hours now in the same enclosure and all seems well. You have spec'd the Ultrastars, which are preferred for RAID use and have the full 5 year warranty. I was using the Deskstar series... Mechanically they're the same, but the firmware on the Ultrastars is different -- firmware is tuned for faster time-outs and cache response that better fits with more intense usage for databases, RAIDs, etc..

Make sure you have a good backup system in place. :) Sometimes that "RAID-5 fault tolerance" isn't all that it's cracked up to be. In fact, if you're running 4 drives or less, I would recommend RAID-0 for the capacity and speed and leave the fault tolerance to a good backup strategy.

Seen a couple offers in this thread already from people willing to build the system for you. No disrespect meant to any of those, but beware the ones who will build and deliver it in a day. It typically takes 24 to 48 hours to properly burn-in and test a system like this. If I built it, I do at least 48 hours of intense burn-in and testing before I put it to work on anything real.

I'd offer to build, but I'm swamped the next several weeks and honestly don't know when I could do it. I will be building a couple workstations like this after the first of the year, when the new multi-proc capable SandyBridge Xeon CPUs are shipping. I would definitely build a few extra of those at that time, if anyone is interested.


Once again, I strongly recommend thinking twice before investing in RED Rocket. It was a great investment back in the Core 2 and non-native workflow days, but I am not sure today. One Rocket simply isn't sufficient for 5K EPIC playback so you would want to default back to CPU/GPU and 1/2 res, leaving the Rocket sitting idle. Two Rockets will drive 5K playback real time but think about this - for the same price you can upgrade to a top Xeon E7 20-core system which not only does 5K R3D debayering in real time, like the 2 Rockets, but also handle millions of other workloads.

Why do you say the Rocket is insufficient for 5K EPIC playback? It does choke on HDRx where it has to handle two 5K streams simultaneously. However, it handles a single stream of 5KFF at 5:1 just fine, up to 25fps. I can get 30fps just fine out of it too for shorter periods -- RED needs to open up the cache a bit, IMO. They have RC-X's cache loading built as if we're all running on systems with 8GB of RAM or less. Dual Rockets solves that, but even buying the Battle-Tested ones (if available) it's a $6K purchase. Ouch.


That is, until a Rocket II comes along designed for EPIC workloads.

As of 30 days ago, no Rocket II was in the works... But I think you're right in that the Rocket days are numbered. Within the next 18 months, most new performance workstations should be able to handle 5K playback at half rez or better just fine without a Rocket.

Currently the Rocket is still the only way to work with R3D footage in some applications -- take After Effects as an example. It is, IMO, unusable for 4K / 5K R3D workflow without the Rocket. Same with Nuke. I want to be able to have decently fast response while working at high resolution on composites and AE doesn't have the multiprocessor support at this time to plow through R3D frames like Premiere does. On the other hand, Premiere doesn't really benefit from the Rocket while editing. It actually becomes a bottleneck. CS5.5 is better at dealing with that issue, so you don't have to disable your Rocket as you did in CS5. But the Rocket picks up the slack when rendering out... But like you say, building a fast E7 20-core or similar system can process those frames just as fast for rendering too. So yeah, comes down to what you need in a workflow. If AE and Nuke were multithreaded for frame generation right in the GUI and timeline and gave better performance without the Rocket, I would probably sell my two Rockets. I may do just that once I find out more about what CS6 will bring and depending on the systems I build here in another 3 to 4 months.

I would like to see a price adjustment on the current Rocket... I think the days of $4750 new / $3K "battle-tested" are about done. RED has sold a ton of these cards and the better part of their lifespan has already passed.

We'll have to see what November 3rd brings, but I think if Scarlet is still 3K, there should be no reason to buy a Rocket for Scarlet footage.

[Daniel Macleod]

Here's my $5 worth of advice...

You don't want the X8DAi motherboard! Get the Supermicro MBD-X8DAH+F-O that Daniel Macleod recommended above. It's probably the best dual Xeon board going right now. It has a dual south-bridge configuration with more PCIe slots and supports more RAM at higher speed. The X8DAi has a few shortcomings -- namely, your RAM is throttled back when you install more than 48GB on it (read fine print) and it has old PCI slots on there -- WTF? There is no PCI card out there deserving of being connected to this system. Some people see this as a problem if they're still trying to drag along legacy hardware with them -- some do it. Personally, I haven't needed a standard PCI 133MHz slot since 2005. Going with the MBD-X8DAH+-F-O motherboard let's you have your RAM and your Rocket.

Daniel also made the point of going with the 3.06GHz CPUs. Yes, they are slower, but also significantly cheaper for not much speed reduction. Depending on budget, you may want to give that some serious consideration.

I disagree with Daniel's SSD recommendation, not in terms of the brand, but capacity and his take on speed/ reliability. First off, the Mushkin SSD's are using the same Sandforce-2281 controller that the OCZ Vertex-3 is using. Performance is roughly the same between the two, I've tested both. I would still recommend the Mushkin, first off they're HQ is located a short 12 minute commute from me and I have to give props to my local boys. They also have much better support if the product does fail. Personally, I think the best Sandforce-based SSD out there at the moment is the OWC 6Gbps / SATA III ones. But once again, they're using the same chipset. Using two of them in a RAID can make for some very fast performance, especially for read times. Like I said, the biggest point I disagree on is the capacity. 120GB isn't enough. It's enough for the OS and some scratch space, but you'll run out of room fast if you put a decent compliment of apps on the system -- I also don't recommend you run the SSDs more than 65% full as it will help maximize performance. I would recommend dual 240GB in a RAID. The 240GB Mushkin's are about $420 each.

Other than that, most everything looks pretty good. I would go for Corsair, Mushkin or G.Skill RAM as opposed to the Kingston ValueCRAP.

I prefer the EVGA GTX580 cards over all the others. Personal preference, but their OC version is killer and they have a single-wide water-cooled version too.

I'm kinda confused on the USB2.0 card readers and why you guys are spec-ing them... But that's OK, if you want to wait around for USB2.0 speed downloads of CF cards or whatnot... I guess it's about the best option at the moment for SDHC/SDXC cards. I just don't think of them, I only have two DSLRs that use them and my Dell monitors have readers built in anyway. Like Daniel says, you can get the all in one reader free, so hey, why not...

Also agree with Daniel on these points too...
Go for Win7 Pro 64bit. Save a bit of money. The only extra stuff in the Ultimate edition is fluff and bloat you don't need or want. ...Unless you want to use it for a home entertainment PC/Console system too.

A good UPS is a great thing to have. Make sure you get one big enough to supply your system / PSU at PEAK output for at least 5 minutes or long enough to comfortably shut everything down.

The WD 2TB RE4 hard drives are hard to beat. They're currently my preferred drives for just about everything. The 3TB units from Hitachi and WD haven't been out long enough to really prove themselves and not that it means a whole lot, but I haven't lost a 2TB RE4 drive yet. I have had one Hitachi 3TB go bad on me, but it was suspect from the start (sounded different the others I bought), so I threw it in a single-drive enclosure for general use -- it lasted all of about 40 hours of run time before it seized up. Hitachi replaced it and that new one has seen at least 200 hours now in the same enclosure and all seems well. You have spec'd the Ultrastars, which are preferred for RAID use and have the full 5 year warranty. I was using the Deskstar series... Mechanically they're the same, but the firmware on the Ultrastars is different -- firmware is tuned for faster time-outs and cache response that better fits with more intense usage for databases, RAIDs, etc..

Make sure you have a good backup system in place. :) Sometimes that "RAID-5 fault tolerance" isn't all that it's cracked up to be. In fact, if you're running 4 drives or less, I would recommend RAID-0 for the capacity and speed and leave the fault tolerance to a good backup strategy.

Seen a couple offers in this thread already from people willing to build the system for you. No disrespect meant to any of those, but beware the ones who will build and deliver it in a day. It typically takes 24 to 48 hours to properly burn-in and test a system like this. If I built it, I do at least 48 hours of intense burn-in and testing before I put it to work on anything real.

I'd offer to build, but I'm swamped the next several weeks and honestly don't know when I could do it. I will be building a couple workstations like this after the first of the year, when the new multi-proc capable SandyBridge Xeon CPUs are shipping. I would definitely build a few extra of those at that time, if anyone is interested.



Why do you say the Rocket is insufficient for 5K EPIC playback? It does choke on HDRx where it has to handle two 5K streams simultaneously. However, it handles a single stream of 5KFF at 5:1 just fine, up to 25fps. I can get 30fps just fine out of it too for shorter periods -- RED needs to open up the cache a bit, IMO. They have RC-X's cache loading built as if we're all running on systems with 8GB of RAM or less. Dual Rockets solves that, but even buying the Battle-Tested ones (if available) it's a $6K purchase. Ouch.



As of 30 days ago, no Rocket II was in the works... But I think you're right in that the Rocket days are numbered. Within the next 18 months, most new performance workstations should be able to handle 5K playback at half rez or better just fine without a Rocket.

Currently the Rocket is still the only way to work with R3D footage in some applications -- take After Effects as an example. It is, IMO, unusable for 4K / 5K R3D workflow without the Rocket. Same with Nuke. I want to be able to have decently fast response while working at high resolution on composites and AE doesn't have the multiprocessor support at this time to plow through R3D frames like Premiere does. On the other hand, Premiere doesn't really benefit from the Rocket while editing. It actually becomes a bottleneck. CS5.5 is better at dealing with that issue, so you don't have to disable your Rocket as you did in CS5. But the Rocket picks up the slack when rendering out... But like you say, building a fast E7 20-core or similar system can process those frames just as fast for rendering too. So yeah, comes down to what you need in a workflow. If AE and Nuke were multithreaded for frame generation right in the GUI and timeline and gave better performance without the Rocket, I would probably sell my two Rockets. I may do just that once I find out more about what CS6 will bring and depending on the systems I build here in another 3 to 4 months.

I would like to see a price adjustment on the current Rocket... I think the days of $4750 new / $3K "battle-tested" are about done. RED has sold a ton of these cards and the better part of their lifespan has already passed.

We'll have to see what November 3rd brings, but I think if Scarlet is still 3K, there should be no reason to buy a Rocket for Scarlet footage.
+1! I would really suggesting reading what Jeff has to say sending in your order to AVA!

[Roberto Lequeux]

I agree about the burn in period. A new system is a great number of new pieces of equipment, so you need to make sure you don't have any lemons and that they play nice. All you need to do is to make each part work at full speed for a few days, torture testing. These are simple things to do, though time consuming if you are not into building stuff.