$5,000 Video Editing Rig - First Build - Suggestions and Advice

[Gangifilms]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first ever build, I will be editing a lot of footage on Adobe Premiere and After Effects. I will eventually get quadro cards for this system and my main priority is to future proof as much as possible.

Please comment on the build, I will be air cooling for now then moving onto water cooling in the future. Also when I hit the big one I will make a real workstation PC with dual Xeons and make this my gaming PC, but for now this will do.

Title: Super Kickass Air Cooling Machine? What? Air cooling?

Budget: $5,000...No need for monitor, mouse, keyboard, sound card, router.

Case: LIAN LI PC-P80 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD9 LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 XL ATX Intel Motherboard

GPU: EVGA 015-P3-1482-AR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) SuperClocked 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI

PSU: SILVERSTONE ST1500 1500W ATX 12V 2.3 & EPS 12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Active PFC Power Supply

CPU: Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor Model BX80613I7980X

Heatsink: Lapped Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

Thermal Paste: IC-7 Diamond

SSD OS/APPS: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

RAM: 2 Sets of G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000)

HDD: 4 HDD's in Raid 5 for Scratch Disk when editing: Samsung Spinpoint F3

Blu-ray:Pioneer Black Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD Writer SATA Model

DVD Lightscribe: PLEXTOR 24X DVD/CD Writer Black SATA Model PX-880SA LightScribe Support

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders

Random: Kingston FCR-HS219/1 19-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader

Cords: Nippon Labs Premium 6 ft. HDMI to mini HDMI cable with metal hood & gold-plated connectors Model MHDMI-6

Thermal Remover: Arctic Silver ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET) Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier

SSD Mount: LIAN LI HD-321 Internal 2.5" HDD / SSD Mounting Kit

Accessories: COOLMAX ThumbScrew SILV 10PK Thumb Screw (10 screws in a bag), SILVER Anodized

Fans: Antec SpotCool 0761345-75018-9 Blue LED Case Fan

Accessories 2: LIAN LI PT-CL01 Cable-management Kit

Fan Controller: Scythe KQ01-BK-3.5 "KAZE Q" Fan Controller


Questions:

1. How is the support on the Gigabyte UD9?

2. Does the UD9 NB overheat?

3. I am really worried about the Noctua colliding with the ram or the optional Gigabyte heatsink for the NB....

4. I can't find any info on where I can add more fans to my Lian Li...

5. If I were to find fans, which 120mm and 140mm fans do you suggest?

6. Another Question on RAM:

If I am loading up all 6 dimms with ripjaws, with they be clocked at 1600 Mhz not 2,000 mhz? If this is the case, should I go with 1600 mhz memory with lower cas like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820226124

Thanks for your posts.

[Mohammed El Sharqawy]

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD9 LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 XL ATX Intel Motherboard

(unless you'll be using the 4-SLI config,, I don't think you will, till now adobe didn't plan on supporting SLI.. there is no need for the UD9,, UD7 is fine and will save you some $$$)

GPU: EVGA 015-P3-1482-AR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) SuperClocked 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI

(I prefere PNY, then we get to choose better brand or more clock??)

Heatsink: Lapped Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

(I would prefere Thermalright Venomous X with dual 120mm fans setup)

SSD OS/APPS: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

(get two of those SSDs and put them in raid 0 config on the 6Gbps channel that way you can hit 500+ MB/s)

RAM: 2 Sets of G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000)

(more RAM is more important than faster RAM get 1333Mhz 4GB per chip x6 chips this way you hit 24 GB of total system memory and for the speed the dual SSDs will handle the rest of the job)

HDD: 4 HDD's in Raid 5 for Scratch Disk when editing: Samsung Spinpoint F3

(my experience always tells me not to use any Hard drives except from western digital,, black edition rocks.. the good thing about WD is that they warn you before they fail, and not easily affected by electricity problems, of course getting a ups for this machine is essential)


Questions:

2. Does the UD9 NB overheat?

(never seen a gigabyte overheated even under overclocking)

3. I am really worried about the Noctua colliding with the ram or the optional Gigabyte heatsink for the NB....

(Thermalright Venomous X would help while its not only better in heat desperation but also smaller in size..)


4. I can't find any info on where I can add more fans to my Lian Li...

5. If I were to find fans, which 120mm and 140mm fans do you suggest?

(check FrozenCPU you may find the best stuff there)

[Gangifilms]

Damnit, already ordered everything :-P I was in a rush for this PC was pretty urgent.

On a side note I will add another Crucial SSD for raid 0, however I have read that 1 is plenty enough.

On a side note on the ram, is 12GB going to really limit me when compositing and rendering? Going to 24GB really a huge difference?

Hopefully my 12GB serves me well..

[Gangifilms]

Also the Noctua seems to be raved about, neck to neck with the venomous. But I opted for the noctua since it already comes with fans.

[Anthony O]

I was browsing and i saw this post. Ill com back and go into more detail later, but dude if your budget is $5000 then look into the EVGA Classified SR-2 motherboard, it supports dual xeons, and 4-Way SLI. My budget is about $3500 and this is gonna be the centerpiece to my creation.

http://www.evga.com/articles/00537/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/17/e...eads-exemplif/

[Graham_C]

Multiple gpu`s seem to be the way to go..if they can be made to work..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOpBlYx2H1o

[Gangifilms]

Only reason I did not go with the SR-2 dual socket now is because I will be waiting next year for the new chipsets coming out, this PC will do for my editing purposes for now then when I have like $10,000 I'll dump it into a full work station PC.

[Gangifilms]

You also have to take into account it's double the amount of parts, double xeons (1,500 each if your going with the new 32nm die shrink ones, double heatsinks, double cooling, ram ram ram.)

That computer could go to 20,000 dollars quick.

[Anthony O]

You actually do not have to get double everything you can just put 1 CPU or GPU in then add another one later for an added boost.

Case: Still Looking
$200

Mobo: eVGA Classified SR2 LGA 1366 Intel SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HPTX Motherboard
$600

GPU: EVGA 015-P3-1482-AR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) SuperClocked 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI (i like this card)
$529

PSU: SILVERSTONE ST1500 1500W ATX 12V 2.3 & EPS 12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Active PFC Power Supply
$380

CPU: Intel Xeon X5650 Westmere 2.66GHz 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 95W Six-Core Processor
$1024.71 (usually on sale for $999)

HDD-1: Western Digital 600GB VelociRaptor VR200M RAID
$559.98 ($279.99$279.99x2)

or

HDD-1: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive RAID
$748 ($374x2)

HDD-2: Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB 6Gbps SATA-III HDD RAID
$399.98 ($199.99x2)

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory w/ Green LEDs Model BL3KIT25664TG1608 - OEM
$201.99

Blu-ray: Pioneer Black Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD Writer SATA Model BDR-205BKS - OEM
$179.99

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
$200


200+600+529+380+1024.71+559.98+399.98+201.99+179.9 9+200= $4275.65 give or take due to whats on sale and ssds. And i am still under budget, i could also drop a hard drive or two to or go with a lower capacity hard drive to lower the overall cost.

This would be my Editing, Compositing, 3D Animation, Graphic Design and Web Design rig, and yes i do all of those things. Check out my full wish list (http://theojo.com/2010/05/wanted-hardware/)

[Gangifilms]

My concern is whether you would water cool that build or air cool, if air cooling I believe the hot air from the right cpu will hit the left cpu heatsink decreasing performance. Also the xeon is no faster than the 980X unless it is paired with another xeon. As for your ram if you are thinking about filling up all channels eventually you want to get some cheaper 1333 ram so you can fill them all up. I would start with 12GB

Also the Crucials in raid 0 decrease performance over time since stripping SSD causes more harm then good because of all the writes and reads. One is enough here.

I would save the rest of the money and get a good water cooling rig or another 480 GTX

For the case you could go with HAF X or the Lian Li PC-P80...

HAF X is a better air cooler.