Wait for Bulldozer? Beginner HD video editing, £600 budget & need to buy before October

crackerbear

crackerbear

crackerbear

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You'll have to excuse any dumbness in this post as I've been out of the loop for a while.

As per title, I'm unsure whether to wait for Bulldozer or not as in my limited experience, Intel have always seemed to provide better CPUs for video editing. At the same time, I need to buy before October as it's for a birthday present.

I've specced myself some components that I'm reasonably happy with, but my main worries and confusion lies with the CPU (wait for Bulldozer?) and motherboard (way too many Z68 choices and not entirely sure if Quick Sync is necessary).

  • Intel Core i5 2500K - Overkill for a beginner? Would an i3 be adequate instead?
  • 1GB EVGA GTX 460 SuperClocked - Can get a 1GB XFX HD 6870 Dual Fan for £12 more and I'd prefer it, but Premiere and other Adobe products use CUDA :(
  • 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance LP Cerulean Blue, PC3-12800 (1600), CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V
  • 2TB Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint F4EG - Cheaper than 2x F3. Enough for a beginner video editor? Not really sure how much space HD editing needs.
  • LG, 10x Blu-ray Writer - OEM BH10LS30.AUAU10B
  • Coolermaster CM 690 II Lite (expensive option) or Coolermaster Elite 370 (cheaper option)
Motherboard choices - I'm thinking Z68 is the way to go, but Quick Sync is mainly for converting to H.264. Most of the editing/conversion that will be done is will likely to be from AVCHD to DVD:

  • Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4
  • Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P
  • Asus P8Z68-V
  • Asus P8Z68-V PRO - don't see much benefit to this over the non PRO version.
  • ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 - From what I've read, this seems to be the one to get, but where I'm looking, it's on preorder and possibly overkill? I'd rather just have cheaper and stable.
Totals:
With the cheaper case and Asus P8Z68-V, it comes to £573.66. Adding an extra 1TB Samsung F3 would come to £612.05.

With the cheaper case and ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3, it comes to £599.32

With the more expensive case and Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4, it comes to £612.06

With the more expensive case and Asus P8Z68-V PRO, it comes to £618.06

Notes:
£600 budget, so I've gone over a bit (may just get cheaper case) - the lower the better.

Unlikely to overclock so stock cooling should be enough and yes I've included the 2500K, but it seems somewhat silly not to get the K considering there's only a £5 difference.

Highly unlikely to need/use SLI or crossfire.

This PC is primarily meant to be for some "light" or beginner HD video editing which may or may not manifest into a little more - hence I don't think an i7 2600K is necessary, I'd rather have a reasonably balanced PC.

Already have a 550W Antec TruePower TP-550 PSU, monitor, keyboard and mouse and some old IDE drives.

Any info or suggestions are welcome.
 
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The build looks great, I'd definitely recommend the CM690 II. I have that case and it's certainly worth the premium over the cheaper CM cases. There's loads more space and the cooling options are top notch.

In terms of waiting for BD, I wouldn't bother. For a start any of the release dates you see are purely speculation, even JF-AMD in the the bulldozer thread said that the current rumours of late September was just best-guessing from tech websites.

If I were you, if you have the money I'd go for the i5 now. It'll be more than fast enough for your needs. If you wait for BD now, by the time it arrives you'll be wondering whether it's worth waiting for Ivy Bridge or the BD 2nd gen. It's a never ending cycle that results in you never actually buying any hardware!

Also, get the ASRock board, it's the best of the bunch and stability isn't an issue. They're rock solid.
 
You shouldn't get the 2TB samsung hardrive because it is slower than the 1tb one. You should get the 1tb x2 because they are at 7200rpms while the 2tb is at 5400rpm
 
If you can buy before October, then perhaps I would wait for a couple of weeks for Bulldozer (Unless they delay it further :(). Video editing "should" be an area where you get to see Bulldozer shine.

If the birthday boy/girl doesn't game, then perhaps consider dropping out a discrete card and using the IGP. The 2500K is pretty quick for rendering for 1080p vids.

Was about to spec cheaper RAM but I don't remember the Vengence kit being that cheap... :p.

I would go for the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P, it comes with Lucid Virtu so QuickSync will always be there if he/she decides to ever use it. It's also PCI-E 3.0 ready hence you can upgrade to Ivy Bridge if needed.
 
daveash said:
I'd definitely recommend the CM690 II. I have that case and it's certainly worth the premium over the cheaper CM cases. There's loads more space and the cooling options are top notch.

Also, get the ASRock board, it's the best of the bunch and stability isn't an issue. They're rock solid.
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The CM 690II does look good, but it's a nicety and in my mind, one of the things I can skimp on. A cheaper case means I could get better components or if I go with the cheap route, I could add another 1TB F3. I'm a bit undecided really as the extra space and cooling aren't really major issues for me, especially since I doubt any overclocking will be done.

The PC cycle is annoying as you're either going to be continuously sitting on the fence or possibly will regret paying x amount when you could've waited 2 weeks for something potentially better/cheaper. Someone build me a time machine? :)

I've been hearing a lot of praise for the ASRock, but I don't think I need all the bells and whistles and it's very likely this PC won't be upgraded in the near future (i.e. at least 5 years+), by which time everything will probably be outdated anyway. So stuff like PCI-E 3.0 and whatnot doesn't really matter, I don't think.

CreMafia said:
You shouldn't get the 2TB samsung hardrive because it is slower than the 1tb one. You should get the 1tb x2 because they are at 7200rpms while the 2tb is at 5400rpm
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Yeah I'm aware the F4 is 5400rpm, but I already have some HDD, albeit, old IDE ones. Specifically a Seagate 120GB ST3120026A and a Western Digital 80GB WD800JB-00JJA0.

As mentioned above, I could go with the Asus P8Z68-V and therefore have enough left over to add an additional F3 - 1TB F3 as main, 2TB F4 as storage perhaps.

Or possibly drop to a slower i5 or even an i3 and get more HDD. I'm not sure if 2TB is enough for a beginner HD video editing.

Orcvader said:
If the birthday boy/girl doesn't game, then perhaps consider dropping out a discrete card and using the IGP. The 2500K is pretty quick for rendering for 1080p vids.

Was about to spec cheaper RAM but I don't remember the Vengence kit being that cheap... :p.

I would go for the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P, it comes with Lucid Virtu so QuickSync will always be there if he/she decides to ever use it. It's also PCI-E 3.0 ready hence you can upgrade to Ivy Bridge if needed.
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Gaming isn't a priority (although I may use it from time to time :D), but the key thing is that Adobe Premiere (which will most likely be used for editing) uses CUDA, specifically for the Mercury Playback Engine and from what I've seen, it's definitely worth it.

The RAM was the cheapest branded 8GB I could find and I know it's naughty of me, but the prices aren't from OcUK.

I initially specced up a Z68 board as everyone said it's "best for video editing" but having read a few reviews, it seems the main reason, Quick Sync, is only used (or at least will gain the most benefit from) in very specific occasions namely converting to H.264 (usually for portable devices).

Unless more applications use QS or it branches out into other codecs, I'm not sure if it'll actually be used since the primary conversion will be from AVCHD to DVD. Also I've read that for best quality, CPU rendering is always best. QS and CUDA are good for speed, but are poor for final output. I don't know how true that is though.

As I've already mentioned in my reply to Daveash, I'm not too fussed about PCI-E 3.0 as I doubt this PC will be updated any time soon, if at all.
 
Honestly even 1tb is enough for a beginner. I've only seen people using more when they're really serious about it, and it's always easy to add more space in the future, especially when bigger spaces are getting cheaper (I remember 1tb being £90... now look at them :p)

Fair enough, keep the 460 if you plan to game a little on it ;). It has 336 cores so that's more than enough for his work.

Another reason to get a Z68 board is also if he/she requires extra CPU power (which they may as they get more into editing) some Z68 will be able to take the next gen Ivy Bridge CPUs. More processing power is always welcome for video editing :D.
 
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