Core2Duo

We plan on building a custom PC to handle HDV for about $3000 AUS.(Not including screens/graphics)

The new Core2Duo processors really work well with HDV and even better are the Quads.

WWW.videoguys.com have built a system and we plan to follow what they did making sure the mother board can handle the Quads for a later update.

We also want to build a custom 2T (2000GIG) tower for Sata Storage linked to the computer via eSata or similar. We are not interested in RAID as it will be used to store all our achive so we don't have to spend hours finding the stuff from our logged tapes.

Any input would be good like how fast does the Core2duo's render and best bits to go for.

So should be a great project.

i need a permanent home and stability before i ever tackle something like that..

Good luck, will be nice to have everything in the system thats for sure

Wagsy... sounds like you are building a serious machine... looking at videoguys' build it looks pretty typical. Things I don't like about it... buy better ram, best use 1066(kingston for a build like that is a disgrace, get some nice gskill, mushkin etc..). That way your can run 1:1 cpu/bus. Their powersupply may be a popular buy, but its lightweight. Get a real dual rail supply, such as something from OCZ, Tagan, Sparkle, HIPER etc... gonna need a good 600W supply to ensure a good life with a quad core. Spend that wasted case money on the powersupply instead, a working machine doesnt need a fancy case. A good case can be found for $40-50 anyways. Check out xtremesystems.org, search the forums for good part guides... I'd send some links right now but their site is down for maintenance :-) Anandtech is also a fine review site. Oh and a E6600 will do fine, overclock it or you are wasting money, get your moneys worth!

ps I dont think you need to wear big black gloves when you assemble it either ;-)

Have fun building,

Hi Wags,

Crap & cheap case, plain old black, no flashing lights etc.

580w power supply, made by Hiper

Asus P5W DH Deluxe Wifi motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400

2 x 1Gb PC6400 (800mhz) ram

1 x Seagate SATA 200gb system drive

4 x samsung 400gb SATA drives, 2 set to mirror each other for photo backup and the other 2 as video drives

1 x maxtor 160Gb IDE drive as a scratch disk

Geforce 7600 GT videocard with 256mb ram (dual dvi out)

2 x NEC Multisync 90GX2 19" LCD Monitors. Cheap but still good quality.

This all runs fairly cool, but if i was somewhere a bit warmer than Yorkshire in the winter i might think about getting a special aluminium tower to house it in for good heat dissipation.

The motherboard was a breeze to setup, im not so good with bios and dos etc, but i found this to be pretty simple. And it has great features for the wifi and with a funky little remote to control music/video etc.

If it was a solely editing pc then i might have got a slightly cheaper motherboard, just make sure the board has efficient 'piping' between the north and south bridge. {i do not understand any of that mumbo-jumbo}

I can hammer through premiere rendering of SD incredibly fast, and big multilayer Quark/photoshop/etc files are a breeze to edit. for how much i saved and how much i learned when doing it i strongly recommend it to anyone.

Wos all dat Jibber Jabber

Your not keeping it real Bro.

Damn !!!

Dive safe

Dean(ReeeeSPectaa)B

Dean, remember to take your meds EVERY morning, mmmmkay?!

Cheers guys for that.

Yes Asus make good boards and you can overclock them

I think the Asus P5W board can take the Quads as well.

Might get a water cooled heat unit for the CPU..that will lkeep it cool.

Will check out those links.

Dean are you still on Windows 95 or have you moved to 98 now....

Cheers guys for that.

Yes Asus make good boards and you can overclock them

I think the Asus P5W board can take the Quads as well.

Might get a water cooled heat unit for the CPU..that will lkeep it cool.

 

Will check out those links.

 

Dean are you still on Windows 95 or have you moved to 98 now....

Yep, ASUS p5W DH Deluxe takes dual and quad. But the configuration of the raid controllers is a "challenge". Still haven't found the best solution, but stopped looking because I have to work. Stay away from OCZ memory, stick to Kingston. I'd wish I had. I bought PC6400 but you have to tweak the voltage to get it to run at that speed.

To be honest, don't go for the P5W DH Deluxe because of the "Digital Home" features. They are not worth the extra cost. Lot's of marketing hype, nothing else. There are better boards out there. Have a look at TYAN, MSI or one of the NVidia based ASUS boards.

Shoot me a PM or email if you have specific questions about the P5W DH Denotsolux.

Peter

I just build a new system this pass weekend. Most was carried over from a existing SD editing system. Using a rackmount case to keep everything tidy.

Intel E6600 2.4GHz 4MB

Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional Dual-core and Quad core ready, Dual PCI-E, PCI-X, SATA-Raid 8 ports

Cosair 2GB kit PC-6200 DDR-2 800MHz 2x1024

NVIDIA 7950GT 512MB Dual DVI Fanless PCI-E 16x

ANTEC TP2-550EPS12V 550 Watt EPS

Adaptec PERC 320 PCI-X SCSI Raid Controller

Adaptec 2140 SATA Raid Controller

1 x Seagate 160GB SATA-2 3GB/S Boot

1 x Seagate 160GB SATA-2 3GB/S Scratch

4 x Seagate 250GB SATA 1.5GB/S in Adaptec RAID enclosure (4 drives fit in 2 5 1/4" bays) Raid storage

12 x Seagate 181gb Ultra320 SCA SCSI Raid 0 set Media Compaq/HP StorageWorks Enclosure (EBAY!)

4 x Seagate 141gb Ultra320 SCA SCSI Raid 0 set Render Compaq/HP StorageWorks Enclosure (EBAY!)

WinXP SP2

Avid Liquid Chrome HD 7.1 SP1 - HD-SDI, SDI, Analog, inputs and outputs

I threw in a bunch of test clips and everything went smoothly.

Overclocking it is the next thing once I get everything setup.

Might try to get 2 other StorageWorks Fiber Channel Arrays online but it's only 18gb drives.

All my other systems are linked via Gigabit Ethernet so I can pull clips from other servers. Old servers were turned into a MP3 storage. Another box is Photos/Video storage. One other box is e-mail and general web browsing.

Since most of the hard drives are older, it's cheaper to go full SATA. If you want to build an external SATA enclosure, look into using a InfiniBand 4x cable/transport link. There are RAID controllers with these connectors or if you have spare internal SATA ports, you can get a SATA to SLOT adapter.

Here's an example of how InfiniBand links can be used.

http://www.cooldrives.com/eidrrerasaii.html

Curtis

Hey Curtis...way to go.

Is that 14x 181 GIG drives there

The InfiniBand 4x cable/transport link looks good.

Think this will be the way to go.

Slot in another PCI SATA card for more ports to drive the internal SATA drives as well.

Just need 4 of the new 1 T drives that are coming out. 4 T then everything will fit on

What kind of rendering speed to you get with that setup, like going to MPEG2 for a DVD.

I'll test the rendering speeds later this week. I'm still tweaking all the usual parameters. Since i had a bunch of data on the arrays, I need to move it off somewhere else, reformat and rebuild the arrays, then copy back the data over. I usually reformat the entire render array on the start of a new project. Need to finish editing my wedding video.

We tested a few Hitachi 1TB SATA-2 3GB/S drives. So far so good. They do get quite warm/hot if you don't have enough cooling. More fans = more noise. Just need to wait until the prices drop a bit.

Curtis