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Buying a new PC for Premiere CS6
I need to buy a new PC for Premiere and AE CS6. I will eventually use it for color grading too. Anyways, any suggestions as to custom built or go with the Z420 / Z620 or Z820 ?
I’ve used a Z800 for two years before i sold it. It was a good machine but i expected much more from such an expensive beast. So this time around i thought i built one myself. Anyways, suggestions are welcome Thx
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16 Replies
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[Anhtu Vu] “I need to buy a new PC for Premiere and AE CS6. I will eventually use it for color grading too. Anyways, any suggestions as to custom built or go with the Z420 / Z620 or Z820 ? “
HP sent me a system to evaluate, and I liked it enough that I became an HP customer. You do pay a bit of a premium over a self-build, but I find it worthwhile for their testing, build quality and support. I like that if I have a problem, I can pick up the phone and HP will send a technician to my office to make on-site repairs. (This is way better than when I had to lug my Mac Pro to the mall so the Apple store could send it out for repairs, and I also think it’s better than me guessing at what the problem might be, placing Newegg orders, and spending my own swapping parts.)
If you go the HP route and you’re serious about Ae, I’d avoid the Z420 and stick with a Z620/Z820 so you can get a dual-processor machine.
Alex Gerulaitis is a frequent poster here, and he runs DV411 — a systems integrator specializing in HP. You might consider talking with him.
[Anhtu Vu] “I’ve used a Z800 for two years before i sold it. It was a good machine but i expected much more from such an expensive beast. So this time around i thought i built one myself.”
What were your expectations before, and what were your results?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
I’ve just built myself a “cheap” editing workstation. AMD FX-8350 8-core, 32GB 2133 Geil RAM, Samsung 830 SSD 256GB boot, 1TB and 2TB 7200rpm drives, bluray burner, and a ATI W5000 video card (workstation graphics). Put it in with a 1200watt p/s and a the H100 water cooler in an Antec case with 7 fans. Little loud, but nothing I am not used to after a day of use.
Total cost was about $1600 or so.
I will add one very cool add that I found.. given that I plan to buy the BMCC 4K Camera, and also have their Shuttle 2 SSD recorder for my canon T2i HDMI out, I wanted the ability to work with SSD drives quickly. There is a known problem for many SSDs though, the issue of “trim” that happens to render the SSD useless (loses frames badly while recording) after you fill it up once and delete the files via a USB 2/3 dock. The problem is that the TRIM command can’t be issued via USB. It only works via SATA.. or as I found out, esata. So I found some nice esata capable docks for $40 or so, the problem is, they were only 3gbps, basically sata2, not the 6gbps sata3. Just so happens the only dock I could find that supported HD/SSD sata 1/2/3 drives that had esata 6gbps is this one called RocketStor 5322 (I think that’s it). It has dual drive bays, with dual 6gbps esata connectors.. so you can effectively mount two hot-swap drives at a time. They even have an add-in card for about $150 that would allow you to do Raid with the dock and 2 drives.
Another bonus.. my beefy system I want to use for potential virtual machine use (my day job is a software developer and I use virtual machines to mimic how our software will run in the cloud). With this dock, I can throw in any HD or SSD with any OS I want, a quick switch in the bios and it boots right from the external drive, full speed as if it were internal. Not bad for a $120 dock.
Anyway..thought I’d share.
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If you go to the videoguys website they list a bunch of integrators for PC workstations.
These guys are on that list and often contribute on this forum:
https://www.adkvideoediting.com/
These guys I met at an Adobe demo and I would also give consideration to:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/genesis.php
I have not worked with any of them so I can’t vouch for them, but they do come recommended by others.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
another company I have heard lots of rave reviews about (at the Adobe PrP site) is ADK.
https://www.adkvideoediting.com/
Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com -
[Tom Daigon] “another company I have heard lots of rave reviews about (at the Adobe PrP site) is ADK.”
That’s why I listed them.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Hey, just reaffirming them as a good choice!
(Oooops. I guess I’ll have that cup of coffee now.)
Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com -
Been editing away on a Z420 and Z820 for the past couple of days. Both were equipped with one hex core running at 3.2 Ghz with 48 GB ram and a Gtx580, They both performed fine and i did not notice any improvement the Z820 had over the Z420. I guess if one does not need all the expansions the Z420 is a good buy.
I’m aware that the Z420 does not come with dual processors but from past experience, i’ve always found that single processor at higher speed performed almost as well, and in some cases even better, than dual processors at lower speed. The Z420 mentioned above was faster that my 12 cores Z800 @ 2.4 Ghz for some tasks. Anyways, i need to spend a few more days with both machines but i’m very impressed with the Z420 so far.
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Whatever you get, make sure you get a decent video card, preferably a GTX670 or GTX680. With Mercury playback in Premiere, the graphics card is probably more important than your processors.
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I’ve been testing the Z420 and Z820 with a Quadro 4000 and GTX580. The GTX is as fast or even faster for some tasks. I still don’t understand why so many software developer still recommend the Quadro 4000 when there are much cheaper alternatives that actually performs better.
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GTX cards are definitely the way to go for Premiere. To get a Quadro card with the same performance as a GTX680 you’d have to spend thousands.
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