New system for HD video editing in M-ATX

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Fri May 14, 2010 12:35 pm

Hey guys, this is the first time I've decided to ask for suggestions regarding a new system build.

As usual, I've been out of the computer building scene for 5 years. So I'm not sure where to start.

I need a new system that I want to use for editing HD videos, but I'd also like to keep it in a M-ATX format. The videos will be AVCHD, and I'll be using After Effects CS4/CS5 and Premiere Pro CS4/CS5.

My budget is $1,000 - $1,500. Of course the cheaper the better.

So what about this as a starting point?

Gigabyte H57M-USB3 mATX
Intel Core i7 860

Gigabyte H55M-USB3 mATX
Intel Core I5 750

ASUS M4A88TD-M AM3 DDR3 AMD 880G SB850
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T

I'll need suggestions for Ram and Video Card

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Fri May 14, 2010 4:12 pm

avchd?

what editing software?

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Sat May 15, 2010 7:47 am

Sorry,

yes AVCHD.

And I will be using After Effects CS4 and Premiere Pro CS4.

protellect · Post by **protellect** » Sat May 15, 2010 8:08 am

Should actually be just fine. I'd say some of the new H55 or P55 MATX motherboards might work great for you.

You might even look into ITX, they have a couple high-end chipset ITX motherboards that would work well too.

I put together workstations at work for about $1k, they generally consist of

- Intel i5-750 2.66ghz quad-core
- Artic Cooler freezer pro rev2
- ASUS P7P55D [not MATX
- 2x2 GB GEIL memory, DDR3
- 400W Corsair PS
- Either an ATI 4670 or a Nvidia GT240 DDR5 [whatever i get a free game out of

- 640GB Western Digital HD, blue
- Antec Solo Case [which is not MATX, so we're going to have to change that], 2 scythe 92mm fans
- dvd burner
- Win7 x64 pro

These are workstation I expect for the next three years, and are able to run CS5, 3d studio max, etc, with no problems. They are very fast, reliable machines with high quality components. [I feel really good about the corsair supplies, and the 2 scythe's in the front, and the 120mm antec in the back, and the corsair fan in the back, they are redundantly cooled for intake and exhaust.]

For your MATX *wants*, i'd say replace the motherboard with a similiar ASUS P7H55 motherboard, and get a different case like a Antec NSK3480. This comes with a decent antec earthwatts power supply already, so you're good to go.

If you flip to a dual-core i5, you don't even need to buy a video card, just use the onboard DVI/hdmi. The dual cores i3/i5 is newer and has a GPU built onto the chip. They only work in H55/H57 motherboards, though.

ilovejedd · Post by **ilovejedd** » Sat May 15, 2010 8:27 am

protellect wrote:If you flip to a dual-core i5, you don't even need to buy a video card, just use the onboard DVI/hdmi. The dual cores i3/i5 is newer and has a GPU built onto the chip. They only work in H55/H57 motherboards, though.

But since the op is doing video editing, probably better off sticking with the Core i5-750.

There's also the AMD option. Just yesterday, I got a Phenom II X6 1055T+MSI 890GXM-G65 CPU/MB combo from Fry's for $225 ($210 if I ever receive the $15MIR). Pretty good deal, I'd say.

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Sat May 15, 2010 10:33 am

Thanks for the system suggestion.

A question regarding the suggestion to go with an AMD platform.

Is it something I should even consider if I plan on doing lots of work with After Effects and Premiere Pro work?

BlackWhizz · Post by **BlackWhizz** » Sat May 15, 2010 10:57 am

buddhafest wrote:Thanks for the system suggestion.

A question regarding the suggestion to go with an AMD platform.

Is it something I should even consider if I plan on doing lots of work with After Effects and Premiere Pro work?

Yup 6 cores, and i can reccomend you a Nvidia card because it has Cuda cores.

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Sat May 15, 2010 12:34 pm

i think that cs4 can't take full advantage of cuda(?), you'd have to upgrade to cs5 for that... and even with cs5, video acceleration only really works when you are doing color correcting, titles, etc.

since cuda is reputed to not help much with standard playback off of the timeline, you are going to want the most cpu horsepower you can get, because avchd decoding is cpu-dependant... so an overclocked i7 is the way to go... 8 cores will also come in handy for rendering purposes, if the app can take advantage of all 8 virtual cores.

i edit 24mbps avchd with sony vegas 9, on a 4ghz i7 920, msi x58 matx mb.

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Mon May 17, 2010 8:27 am

Hey guys,

So what about this as a starting point?

Gigabyte H57M-USB3 mATX
Intel Core i7 860

Gigabyte H55M-USB3 mATX
Intel Core I5 750

ASUS M4A88TD-M AM3 DDR3 AMD 880G SB850
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Mon May 17, 2010 3:31 pm

Just so you know, the H55 and H57 motherboards need Clarkdale i3/i5 CPUs (model nos i3 5xx or i5 6xx IIRC) to use the integrated graphics (which are actually built onto these CPUs, with the outputs on the motherboard).

While the i5 750 and i7 860 use the same socket 1156, they are actually a different model of CPU (Lynnfield) without integrated graphics on the CPU.

You would need a discrete graphics card to use either of the Intel CPUs you mentioned.

I can't really help with the video processing side of things, but I just wanted to point that out for you.

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Mon May 17, 2010 4:56 pm

buddhafest wrote:Hey guys,

So what about this as a starting point?

at the risk of repeating myself... it's not enough horsepower and/or not enough ram capability:

"During several test encodes, I noticed that Premiere Pro, or PProHeadless, the program that renders Premiere Pro projects when the namesake program isnâ€™t running, grabbed as much as 13GB of working room. You can see PProHeadless consuming 10.2GB in Figure 3 (below). Iâ€™m sure the magic number varies by format and project type. But to be safe, you probably need at least 16GB of RAM for HD formats, perhaps even the 24GB that I had configured in my Z800."
http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/News/Fe ... -66511.htm

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Tue May 18, 2010 9:15 am

JamieG wrote:Just so you know, the H55 and H57 motherboards need Clarkdale i3/i5 CPUs (model nos i3 5xx or i5 6xx IIRC) to use the integrated graphics (which are actually built onto these CPUs, with the outputs on the motherboard).

While the i5 750 and i7 860 use the same socket 1156, they are actually a different model of CPU (Lynnfield) without integrated graphics on the CPU.

You would need a discrete graphics card to use either of the Intel CPUs you mentioned.

I can't really help with the video processing side of things, but I just wanted to point that out for you.

I plan on using a dedicated video card. I just haven't researched which videocard to use yet. But am open to suggestions for videocards

danimal wrote:
buddhafest wrote:Hey guys,

So what about this as a starting point?
at the risk of repeating myself... it's not enough horsepower and/or not enough ram capability:

"During several test encodes, I noticed that Premiere Pro, or PProHeadless, the program that renders Premiere Pro projects when the namesake program isnâ€™t running, grabbed as much as 13GB of working room. You can see PProHeadless consuming 10.2GB in Figure 3 (below). Iâ€™m sure the magic number varies by format and project type. But to be safe, you probably need at least 16GB of RAM for HD formats, perhaps even the 24GB that I had configured in my Z800."
http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/News/Fe ... -66511.htm

Holy crapola. At least 16GB of ram? Guess HD video editing is out of the question for me. What about if I want to do 720p video than?