A new Sandybridge build for Video

cochoc

cochoc

cochoc

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13 Jan 2011
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Hi,

This is my first post on here, so i hope I'm in the right forum!

I want to build a new system to improve on my dual core laptop for editing video with Premiere and After Effects in addition to 3d Studio Max. I don't play too many games, so not one of my biggest priorities, but the software I use seems to rely on most of the things that games rely on anyway.


My first thoughts are as follows:

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Lost Planet 2 PC Game - Retail
£266.99

Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3)
£35.74

Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £139.98

MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £159.98

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8)
£119.99

Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £70.99

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
£51.98

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £33.29

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £33.29

Sub Total : £760.19
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £154.54


I have chosen 2 WD Caviar Blue drives as I was thinking of striping them in a RAID0 configuration. The other option would be to buy a single 1Tb WD Caviar Black, but I would imagine that the RAID array would be much faster?

Other options for RAM are Corsair XMS3 or RipJawX. RipJawX is £20 cheaper, but not much on these forums about this memory and I have concerns with using it with the Sandybridge processor. Will I have problems physically fitting any of these RAM options?

Also not sure about Mobos and wonder if the MSI P67A-GD65 might be a better option (I hear that MSI boards are easier to use for overclocking).

Lastly, for now, will all this fit into an Antec 300 case? I want to fit it into a space that is just 210 mm wide, and the case seems to be 205mm wide, so would be perfect!

Thanks for your thoughts on this spec

cochoc
 
Dont like it.

So have re-done spec for you.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Lost Planet 2 PC Game - Retail £188.99
(£157.49) £188.99
(£157.49)
MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE 3D Mark 11 £119.99
(£99.99) £119.99
(£99.99)
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £107.99
(£89.99) £107.99
(£89.99)
Foxconn P67A-S Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Antec TruePower New Modular 650W Power Supply £73.99
(£61.66) £73.99
(£61.66)
Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £27.98
(£23.32) £55.96
(£46.64)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/939/AM2/AM2+) £26.54
(£22.12) £26.54
(£22.12)
Sub Total : £598.70
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £121.99
Total : £731.94

The 2500K only differs by not having hyper-threading.

The Foxcoon board still does SLI/Crossfire at 8X/8X

modular PSU with four pci-e connectors for two gpu's

and two faster harddrives.

newer case, the antec300 isnt worth £50

saved so much money, you could ditch the two harddrives and put a SSD and a 1TB storage drive in.
 
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HyperThreading is most useful for rendering and encoding (X264 shows at least a 30% improvement for example) so an i7 might be worth it if your budget can stretch that far. Also, is there a reason you need a P8P67 PRO rather than a normal P8P67? The only differences are the extra 16x PCI-E slot and the USB 3.0 front panel.

In regards to the two drives, maybe it'd better to use one as a scratch drive and one as an OS and data drive, rather than putting them into RAID 0? I don't know which configuration is better to be honest but I'm just putting it out there.
 
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stulid said:
links to show this?

And i believe the Nvidia gpu would do most of the rendering using CUDA? making the cpu less important:D
Click to expand...

Don't need links. I'm a 3d artist, and use a renderfarm of i5's and i7's. i7s are pretty much always twice as fast as i5s.

Very little actually uses CUDA at the moment, there are no decent adopted renderers that use the GPU for anything other than preview purposes, and not even Premiere/AfterFX use cuda to encode video yet.
 
Xan_Molbjerg said:
Don't need links. I'm a 3d artist, and use a renderfarm of i5's and i7's. i7s are pretty much always twice as fast as i5s.
Click to expand...

including the new sandy bridge architecture? :D

If your a 3d artist you must have heard of CUDA? and its benefits in rendering times over a cpu?

still waiting for proof for this statement,

Xan_Molbjerg said:
Which mostly doubles performance in 3d Studio Max....
Click to expand...
 
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stulid said:
including the new sandy bridge architecture? :D

If your a 3d artist you must have heard of CUDA? and its benefits in rendering times over a cpu?

still waiting for proof for this statement,
Click to expand...

+1

I think you're talking out your arse here....
 
stulid,

I'm not happy with a non-hyperthreading 2500k against a 2600k. I know that 3ds max will require all the brute force a processor can give and the 2600k is a given for me. Some of the benchmarks coming out suggest a 10-20% speed increase on render times against a 2500k, which is HUGE.

With regards to SLi, Premiere needs a 1gb CUDA enabled card to utilise the Mercury Playback Engine, and there is no benefit in using two cards in SLI for the software I use. Adobe CS5 and 3ds max 2011 will only use 1 card, so this suggestion is way off.

I quite like the styling of the Antec 300 (rather than the 100), and for the extra fiver, I'll go with that if the components (if the cpu cooler and GPU fit).

Corsair seem to come with a good reputation, but if the Antec is modular, then I suppose it is an option.

DragonQ,

I will probably go for the non-PRO version if that is the case.

I'd like some more thoughts on the ram configuration and hard drive in particular.

Thanks.
 
cochoc said:
stulid,

I'm not happy with a non-hyperthreading 2500k against a 2600k. I know that 3ds max will require all the brute force a processor can give and the 2600k is a given for me. Some of the benchmarks coming out suggest a 10-20% speed increase on render times against a 2500k, which is HUGE.

With regards to SLi, Premiere needs a 1gb CUDA enabled card to utilise the Mercury Playback Engine, and there is no benefit in using two cards in SLI for the software I use. Adobe CS5 and 3ds max 2011 will only use 1 card, so this suggestion is way off.

I quite like the styling of the Antec 300 (rather than the 100), and for the extra fiver, I'll go with that if the components (if the cpu cooler and GPU fit).

Corsair seem to come with a good reputation, but if the Antec is modular, then I suppose it is an option.

DragonQ,

I will probably go for the non-PRO version if that is the case.

I'd like some more thoughts on the ram configuration and hard drive in particular.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Antec 100 is cheaper, cooling is better, as is cable management. Just makes more sense than the 300 to me.
Both cases will fit the components without a sweat.

Well, the fastest and generally regarded as the best HDD are the Samsung F3s click here for 1TB

The Corsair XMS3 ram will be more than adequate, and due to smaller heatsinks will easily fit beneath all coolers - click here
 
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cochoc said:
stulid,

I'm not happy with a non-hyperthreading 2500k against a 2600k. I know that 3ds max will require all the brute force a processor can give and the 2600k is a given for me. Some of the benchmarks coming out suggest a 10-20% speed increase on render times against a 2500k, which is HUGE.
Click to expand...

not really when taking into account £££ difference, also downloading a certain renderer(think its called mental ray) will use the CUDA cores of the nvidia gpu, seriously cutting times compared to what a cpu can do.

theres a huge number of youtube clips showing it,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zVAR_l2w8k

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

--------------------------

The Antec psu is made by Seasonic just like a lot of Corsair psu's are - http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/psus/2010/02/22/600-700w-psu-review-round-up/7

--------------------------

And the Antec300 is now an old case, with many newer competitors on the market, it was £35-40 late last year, now at £50 you would actually have to have a screw lose to pick it.

£2 more can get this - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-000-XG&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1572
 
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stulid said:
not really when taking into account £££ difference, also downloading a certain renderer(think its called mental ray) will use the CUDA cores of the nvidia gpu, seriously cutting times compared to what a cpu can do.
Click to expand...

Knocking two hours off 10 hours of rendering is a BIG deal, so I'll take the 10-20% for £70.

The 768mb GPU you specced is not compatible with Premiere's MPE, so it's completely useless to me. I must have a 1gb GPU, so it's back to a 1gb GTX 460.

I do accept your point that GPU's are starting to make inroads into more software, but the current state of play draws me to a 2600k and a single GPU (1gb). If I feel that I could use a second GPU, I can upgrade in a year's time.

I'll definitely look at the alternative PSU from Antec, but my screw-limited brain likes the look of the Antec 300 (I just want something plain and simple) without graphics/lights/faff! :)
 
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I am not on about using a second gpu, use the one gpu to display the image and assign CUDA cores to the rendering which will be done automatically with the programmable shaders/cores and the right renderer.

A modern graphics card is mathematically in a different league to a cpu, its like comparing a abacus to a calculator, thats what will get your times down.
 
I have no interest into getting into some nerdy benchmark ****ing contest, I'm simply saying that on average machines in my farm with hyper threading render scenes twice as fast as those without. And even a 25% difference if rendering is an issue is massive.

People who whine about multi cores and threads simply do not use them.

And I addressed the CUDA issue. Also, openCL will probably destroy CUDA soon.

Cookeh, are you saying I'm talking out of my behind?
 
stulid said:
I am not on about using a second gpu, use the one gpu to display the image and assign CUDA cores to the rendering which will be done automatically with the programmable shaders/cores and the right renderer.

A modern graphics card is mathematically in a different league to a cpu, its like comparing a abacus to a calculator, thats what will get your times down.
Click to expand...

Stulid,

I have already chosen a 1gb GPU which will work with Adobe Premiere's MPE.

You suggested a 768mb GPU. That GPU will NOT work, so it is useless.

stulid said:
modular PSU with four pci-e connectors for two gpu's
Click to expand...

This is why I assumed that you were compensating for the lack of RAM on the GPU by suggesting that I use two GPU's in SLi.
 
cochoc said:
Stulid,

I have already chosen a 1gb GPU which will work with Adobe Premiere's MPE.

You suggested a 768mb GPU. That GPU will NOT work, so it is useless.



This is why I assumed that you were compensating for the lack of RAM on the GPU by suggesting that I use two GPU's in SLi.
Click to expand...

I suggested a psu with four pci-e connectors, because you have specced a motherboard that does SLI/Crossfire at 8X/8X when all the other cheaper ones do it at 16X for the first slot and 4X for the second.

thats why I thought you may of been wanting dual gpus down the road;!!!!!!!!!!!!

But you are not, so get a cheaper P67 motherboard.


And I didn't know a 768MB card was useless until you mentioned it!!!!

so stick with a 1GB version then, the 768MB vs 1Gb debate has been done to death, http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18196022 thats why I selected it.
 
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