Hi all, I need some help building 3 video editing PCs...

capri_stylee

capri_stylee

capri_stylee

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I was hoping someone could help me out, I will be building 3 editing stations over the summer, the budget is not much more than £3000 for all three + monitor & peripherals, i've a rough list of requirements, but honestly i'm a bit out of my depth. Some of the things required...
Tower; cheap, durable and functional are important, size and looks aren't.
HDD; at least 2tb in each machine, I've heard very good things about SSDs, but i'm still not convinced of the cost/benefit. If its possible within budget i'd take it of course. :)
Ram; 8gb minimum, 16 if its possible within budget.
DVD burner; A decent DVD burner for one of the machines is a must, the others can go budget
Monitor; 3 x 22" IPS if possible (one each, not 3 each :( )?

Would like windows 7 64bit, and the CS master collection will be the weapon of choice for software.

As for the Processor and graphics card, i'm not sure so any advice is welcome. Do I need a separate sound card?
 
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Thats a good task you have.

What sort of work do you do, is it photo editing or video?

This is a brief spec i put together.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Dell UltraSharp U2212HM 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Grey £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £173.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £99.98
1 x OCZ Agility 4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT4-25SAT3-128G) £99.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £77.99
1 x MSI GeForce GT 430 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £49.99
2 x Kingston HyperX RED Limited Edition 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3B1RK2/8GX) £43.99 (87.98)
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £952.34 (includes shipping : £13.75).




SSD's are well worth it, with a 120GB SSD you install windows 7 and the whole CS master package. These will open really quickly and still leave a full 2TB to store your files.

I think an i5 will be fine for the CPU, for the GPU i went for the gt 430 as it's a fair margin better than on-boards and for that type of work it's CUDA technology and CUDA cores will come in handy.

You won't need a seperate sound card, as on-board is great now-a-days. That is unless you need absolutely flawless sound.

What do you think?
 
I'm going to assume you already have the software as 3 x CS master suite is ~ all your budget.

OKUk don't sell the Quadro range of cards which adobe supports/recommends and the cheepest i could find from a lazy google were around £250 so you may wish to drop a bit of ram.

Tbh SSD's rock but I'm not sure you would see performance in day to day use worthy of the extra pennies over say a better GPU/more RAM.

hopefully someone can suggest a GPU suitable for the task from OKUk but not being a user of Adobe i wouldn't want to just guess.

CPU cooler is mainly to reduce noise level but could take a small OC if you fancy it and the RAM is supposed to be nice for high speeds.

Peripherals you get a mechanical keyboard and a generic mouse as all the nice ones are out of stock.

So basically 3x this list should do you + appropriate GPU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £173.99
1 x Iiyama Prolite X2377HDS 23" Premium IPS Panel Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £85.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £77.99
2 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £59.99 (£119.98)
1 x Cooler Master GX Lite 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £35.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black/Silver/Biege) - Retail £19.99
1 x Cherry Black CyMotion Expert (USB/PS2) Keyboard - Black £19.99
1 x OcUK Tsunami Gaming Case - Black £19.99
1 x Xigmatek Gaia CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM2/AM3/FM1) £17.99
1 x Microsoft Ready Basic Optical Mouse Black - Retail (3EG-00003) £10.99
Total : £826.36 (includes shipping : £11.25).

 
If its video editing you may need a graphics card with more CUDA cores and a better memory interface.
Also would be worth thinking about the future and will you need more RAM some day. Win 7 HP only goes up to 16GB of RAM.
 
Thanks for the responses :)
Doomedspeed said:
Thats a good task you have.

What sort of work do you do, is it photo editing or video?

This is a brief spec i put together.

...


SSD's are well worth it, with a 120GB SSD you install windows 7 and the whole CS master package. These will open really quickly and still leave a full 2TB to store your files.

I think an i5 will be fine for the CPU, for the GPU i went for the gt 430 as it's a fair margin better than on-boards and for that type of work it's CUDA technology and CUDA cores will come in handy.

You won't need a seperate sound card, as on-board is great now-a-days. That is unless you need absolutely flawless sound.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

There's 3 of us in the co-op, we cover graphic design, web design, photography and video. We've come the conclusion that the mac g5's we're currently rocking need replaced, think i'll miss FCP, but i've tried Premier at home and it looks good so far.

That monitor has USB ports, I'm sold, you can never have enough USB. I forgot to mention that I'll also need a firewire port, the macs had them built in :confused:
I'd be tempted to drop the SSD for more RAM and/or a better GFX card, in my uninformed opinion that card looks a bit lightweight for HD editing.
Since any open programmes will stay open for hours, startup times are not an issue. More important is the ability to run multiple programmes smoothly. For example PS, Illustrator and Bridge, or Premier and AE, along with firefox, MS office etc...
The case looks like a great deal, but i'm not sure it'd take a larger graphics card?


Gav_881 said:
I'm going to assume you already have the software as 3 x CS master suite is ~ all your budget.

OKUk don't sell the Quadro range of cards which adobe supports/recommends and the cheepest i could find from a lazy google were around £250 so you may wish to drop a bit of ram.

Tbh SSD's rock but I'm not sure you would see performance in day to day use worthy of the extra pennies over say a better GPU/more RAM.

hopefully someone can suggest a GPU suitable for the task from OKUk but not being a user of Adobe i wouldn't want to just guess.

CPU cooler is mainly to reduce noise level but could take a small OC if you fancy it and the RAM is supposed to be nice for high speeds.

Peripherals you get a mechanical keyboard and a generic mouse as all the nice ones are out of stock.

So basically 3x this list should do you + appropriate GPU.
Click to expand...

Just noticed this monitor is cheaper and larger than the Dell, with the same ports, whats the catch?
The reviews of this HDD are much more convincing than the previous one, will it be fast enough as a primary drive?

I've noticed no one is recommending an i7, is the i5 preferred or is the i7 over budget?

R088ieS86 said:
If its video editing you may need a graphics card with more CUDA cores and a better memory interface.
Also would be worth thinking about the future and will you need more RAM some day. Win 7 HP only goes up to 16GB of RAM.
Click to expand...

I don't know what CUDA cores are?

16gb RAM should be enough for now, my g5 has 2gb :D
 
i7 would stretch your budget a little bit:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £268.99
1 x Dell UltraSharp U2212HM 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Grey £179.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £129.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £99.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £77.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi "Core" USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £46.98
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £41.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £39.95
2 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £37.99 (£75.98)
1 x Startech 2 Port PCI Express FireWire Card (PEX1394A2) £19.99
Total : £1,078.27 (includes shipping : £13.75).



I would go for the Dell because of their fantasty warranty. 1 dead pixel and they will change it out for you :)

The 560 has 336 CUDA cores (what nvidia now call their processing units) and a 256bit GDDR5 memory interface which will help when using adobes murcury engine (especially in teh export process) If video editing isn't going to be a common occurancy then grab any nvidia card with CUDA support. (as long as it has more than 896GB of VRAM)

The motherboards RAM slots will be completely full, but because of the limit on Windows 7 HP this isn't an issue.
Added a firewire card because it tends to be only the higher end boards which have firewire ports on them.
 
5UB said:
Is it for a company purchase? :)
Click to expand...

Yeah its a small startup media cooperative, there's 3 of us involved full time, with a 4th web developer working part time. Our registration with Companies House will be going through in the next week or 2.

Zswizzy said:
Dedicate another £500 to each machine and then you can really future proof them.
Click to expand...

Thats stretching the budget somewhat, what would you suggest? We've also to budget for more camera equipment, so i'm not sure thats an option :(
 
capri_stylee said:
Yeah its a small startup media cooperative, there's 3 of us involved full time, with a 4th web developer working part time. Our registration with Companies House will be going through in the next week or 2.
Click to expand...

Will be worth contacting our B2B team when ordering then, their line is: 0871 200 5058 might be able to do something for you. :)
 
I wouldn't bother with an i7. The i5 is within 10% for video rendering at the same clock speed - you won't notice the difference. If you're doing video editing in CS, a decent Nvidia graphics card is a must it's way faster than the processor - even a 450GT (which I have) makes an overclocked i7-2600K look like a toy....

You can overclock the xxxxK processors on the Z77 boards. This is VERY easy to do. I'd also want to overspec the power supply. Nothing like having a PSU go down whilst you're doing something important.

Also, have you thought about backups? This will be critical for a business...
 
I've speced my own PC on OCUK, how do I post it? Here's an image of teh checkout if that helps...

khgbd.png
 
If you want to use that dvd drive in that case then you will need an adapter.
Have a look from this range instead.
I'd recommend this cheaper and more robust PSU: XFX Pro 450W The OcUK ones can be from any brand, best to be certain.
That sound card won't be much better than the outputs from the motherboard.
And you don't have windows in there.
Might also be worth using this cooler: Thermalright True Spirit 120 CPU Cooler
 
R088ieS86 can I just ask would 450W be enough for a PC with overclocking credentials and to power a medium graphics card?? I always thought 550W was the sort of min but it would be great to know if I am wrong :)
 
Have a look @ the reviews for the GTX560 (non ti) and you will see most of them use a more power hungry CPU overclocked and still only pull around a max of about 300W all in all.
Considering its XFX (Seasonic) it will be more than up to the task :)
 
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