gleem

hey, anyone got a good spot for buying a barebones system to do some heavy video rendering?

I already have an extra case and harddrives and win installs, just need motherboard Ram video card and processors.

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borked

apple.com?
;)


seriously, whatever white box it is, have a high interface bus and fast drives

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gleem

I would get a mac (already have 3) if it werent' such a bitch working on WMV's with em.


looking at dual cores, 2 gigs ram, not sure about interface bus, whats a fast one, I assume it's part of the Motherboard? And I have Sata 300 drives.

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Jim_Gunn

I also am looking to build a barebones super-fast system, for hdv video encoding. My one year old 3.0 Ghz dual core pc is too slow, so I am looking at the new 2007 Core Duos or newest Quad Core processors and compatible motherboards, fan and case.

gleem

hey, we live near eachother, we should meet up and go shopping

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ztik

Ive been building these types of systems. For 8 years now. Gaming / Video editing machines. Hit me up and ICQ

I also have very low prices for the quality

Want dual quad (2x4) cores? Quad Sli Video Cards(4 1gig video cards)? No problems...
Hit me up

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borked

Do video cards play a role in video rendering?
Honest Q as I don't know, though I would guess it's all processor

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ztik

No, not really. But it does help with multi-tasking while rendering or playing multipul videos at once.

Its overkill really. People just like it for bragging rights I guess.

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chupacabra

if you already like macs then think about a mac pro if it fits in your budget... i have a dual 3GHz xeon mac pro that i boot into windows using boot camp for .wmv encoding duty, its quite a fast machine..

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L0stMind

The mac pro is nice, but dunno how well it does for encoding. My wife has one but I've only played on it.. nothing serious.

intel e6600 cpu
grab a decent board, gobs of ram. enjoy.

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gleem

here's where I'm the most confused. the processors.

Mac uses Two (2) Dual core Intel Xenon "woodcrest" processors
For PC's I See from Intel " Core Duo's, Dual Cores, quad core"
and then a bunch of gobidlee gook from AMD

Is there a site that benchmarks these with results?

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BitAudioVideo

3 $500 pcs are faster than 1 $2000 pc.

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gleem

ok, but how do you string together 3 PCs to be faster? I see in Sony Vegas the option to use "networked computers" to render videos, but what hardware do you need to sting em together to be fast?

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borked

What software is best to cluster them?

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Masterchief

Grab a dual e5355 box and you're good to go

BitAudioVideo

i dont cluster, atleast not in the way your talking about.. you can build a farm and use vegas and gige network. u can cluster on nix/mac. i just distribute jobs over multiple pcs.

i generally dont have just 1 video to render... who does? if you just want to do 1 vid at a time then yes i suppose 1 badass pc is the way to go.

more than 1gb of ram is not gonna speed you up. faster ram, not more ram. 1066/1333 fsb
core2 duo (overclocked a bit if you like)
min 2 hard drives

i like to buy from newegg, i think your in so fl.. tigerdirect is closeby

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gleem

so 4 gigs of fast ram is no better than 1 gig of fast ram for video rendering?

is an AMD fx 64 with a 64 bit of windows going to be faster then the core2 duo?

why 2 drives? Was gonna do 1 500gig sata 300 and then just use my externals for storage.

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BitAudioVideo

in my personal experience i notice very little speed increase going from 1gb ram to 2gb ram. less than 1fps increase

ive not done much encoding on amd, i have read a ton of reports that show intel is faster rendering video than amd. amd wins on a lot of jobs but video rendering isnt one of them. 64bit vs 32bit.. i had 64bit running for a very short time because it was buggy with a lot of video applications i use.

when your source file is on one drive and your output is on a second drive your not reading and writing to/from the same drive. its not a HUGE increase tho it depends what your doing..

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ElvisManson

I use 3 drives for video machines.

system drive - I use a 10k RPM cheetah
storage drive
scratch drive.

gleem

ok, assuming this is actual data this is exactly what I needed:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

give you benchmarks for each CPU

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Superterrorizer

Wait a few months for the new Core Duo 2s to come out. You'll be glad you did.


And paying apple a premium for their name on the box is just plain stupid. Sure, if you are going to do more than just rendering and want to be super 3r33t like Steve Jobs, buy a mac.

But if you're just rendering, wait for the new CD2s. More cache on some models, and it will drop the price of the existing models. If you're up to it you can overclock the fucking shit out of the 800mhz FSB (4300) model if you're looking to go on the cheap.

Martin3

The thing with ram is you can usually get much better timings(faster data transfer) on the smaller sticks. 512 sticks are usually faster then 1+gig sticks.
I'd probably start with 2 512 sticks, you could always add 2 more if needed and have 2gigs, which would be more then plenty.

Intel's Core 2 Duo are the current king of the CPU world.

Graphic card wont matter for video rendering, 3d model rendering yes, but not video.

Fast cpu, ram, and hdd's are all you really need to focus on for video.

If you know how to overclock the 6300 is the best bang for the buck cpu, otherwise the 6600 with it's 4meg L2 cache is a good choice.

Either way you can build a pretty decent barebones rig for around $600-$1000.

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Jim_Gunn

Core Duo 2's are already out, right? I am looking at buying that processor online, and the compatible motherboard and a decent tower that has enough cooling, power supply and expansion slots, and putting that together myself (with some help from a friend) incl. 4Gb of RAM for my encoding machine.

Linkster

The place I like to use is zipzoomfly.com - they are fantastic to work with and they have loads of choices that look to be right up your alley
I recently did the same thing and ended up with a nice system just for rendering for $1400 using parts from them
I would agree that the processors, memory and drives are the three to get the most punch in - also remember that the power supply for the box is going to have to be a lot higher than a standard box

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ungratefulninja

Tomshardware isn't generally considered a reputable review site by a lot of people. They were kinda 1-sided in the whole AMD vs Intel thing for years.

Tat2Jr

Quad Core processors have been rocking the benchmarks for video editing. Check out PCWorld and Cnet. HUGE speed increases when doing video with these chips.

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ungratefulninja

I don't do video rendering, but as far as the ram goes.. the really fast RAM is usually running a bit higher voltage than stock, so you might have some issues running it with whatever motherboard you get unless you're willing to tinker with it. There is going to be a difference in the decisions you make depending on whether you are willing to overclock or not.

I 2nd the vote for Newegg.

gleem

lol, I can't wait, need it now.. anyways, no matter what/when you buy you should have always waited a few months till the next one came out and the one you bought got cheaper.

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gleem

so where is an all in one benchmark result site like his?

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gleem

here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna buy one system with AMD's FX-72, and the other Core2 duo, test it with Sony Vegas video rendering.

I'll keep 1 and sell anyone here the 2nd system at $50 off what I paid for it since it seems like other people are looking for the same... I just want the fastest system for working in Sony Vegas.

Anyone want the 2nd system?

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Jim_Gunn

gleem, I was reading the video encoding tests on TomsHardware and I think I am gonna spend the extra money on the Core 2 Quads. TigerDirect has a procesor/motherboard combo on sale with a rebate http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...M-975X2-QX6700

gwkg

My studio is a few miles from TigerDirect and I wouldn't recommend buying anything outside of a mouse/keyboard/monitor from there. NEVER buy anything based on the price after mail-in rebate.

I can't post urls but search google for Tiger Direct Rebate Scam and you'll get an idea of their history of honoring rebates.

I buy most most of my stuff from Newegg.com or Zipzoomfly.com and couldnt be happier with their prices, shipping, and returns. Other sites I would buy from if they have a lower price are Amazon.com (slow shipping) and Buy.com.

gleem

I bought stuff from Tiger Direct with rebates, got ram for 60% cheaper than any other place from there after rebates, got the rebates in a timely manner.. however I also bought a gift card, and they messed up the address took a week to straighten out cause their customer service is horrible!

I wouldn't buy from there, mostly cause since I live in florida I'm paying shipping AND taxes.

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gleem

yeah, but you are paying 2x as much for the quad just because it's brand new, I always buy the 2nd newest one and save alot..

if you look at the test FX-74 amd's come in 2nd and cost half as much, and the FX-72 is almost the exact speed as the fx-74 in video test and it's another $100 cheaper than the 74... makes sense to get the 72 for about $400 compared to almost $1k for the Intel Quad (at least in my head)

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Jim_Gunn

Check out the video encoding benchmarks- the Quad owns all.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/...ge/page10.html

gleem

here's what I ended up ordering, got it all for $1400:
plan on getting some 10k rpm drives from another place, this place had em overpriced.

and with this motherboard I can pop a Quad chip in when they come down in price, so I think I did pretty good, whaddya think?

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