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I have a Mercury playback card. Now should I buy an i7 or Xeon machine?
Hi there.
I recently bought an NVidia FX5000 at Siggraph and I find it’s chugging with Premiere CS5 in my old 2.66Ghz Core2 Quad.
So I’m looking at buying a new machine to get the most out of the FX5000. Should I buy an i7 based machine or a Xeon based machine?
I’m looking at getting a machine with 16-24GB of RAM.
I also use After Effects CS5 heavily and it occurs to me that I might be better with fewer cores rather than more. I noticed in store that an i7-980X shows 12 CPUs in the Windows Task Manager! To use these in AE they each require at least 3/4GB of RAM just to render because AE starts a separate task for each – that’s 9GB of RAM dedicated just to the CPUs!
Would I be better off with a single or dual Xeon instead? How many cores does a Xeon show under Task Manager? But would an i7 perform better with Mercury Playback on my FX5000? Is Xeon older and less efficient with a CUDA card?
I use both AE and Premiere but my primary concern is getting the most out of the FX5000 CUDA for Mercury Playback card in Premiere CS5.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
John -
3 Replies
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It all depends if you need a system that is A) 25% faster or B) 50% faster or C) 100-150% faster. A=i7 950; B=i7 980x (6-core); C=dual 6-core Xeon. I have both an A and a C and I also use AE quite a bit. For performance per dollar, you can’t go wrong with an i7-980x and 24GB of ram. However, if you have clients sitting over your shoulder, then I highly recommend a dual 6-core PC.
On a side note: can you try selling your Quadro 5000 because neither Premiere nor AE can leverage more power than a $200 GTX 460 can provide. Unless you happen to use a 3D program such as C4D, Maya, etc…
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Here is a great performance/price comparison chart for Premiere CS5 users:
https://ppbm5.com/Benchmark5.html
Unless you have money to burn, I would go with a 980X based system with RAM slots maxed out with 4GB modules = 24GB. As you can see by the chart, the Xeon based systems cost a LOT more and are not faster enough to justify the price difference. The guys in the Adobe forum are liking the new GTX 580 because it’s a little faster than the 480 and a lot quieter:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/750054?tstart=0It’s been noted that maxing your RAM provides a HUGE performance advantage.
For Premiere CS5, the GTX cards are a much better value than the Quadros related to performance with the Mercury Playback Engine. That high end card you bought may be advantageous for other video related work though.
Chuck
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Is there a Tier 1 (HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple) Core i7 system optimized for PP CS5, i.e. with enough power to handle a GTX470 and a few hard drives? I see Xeon systems but not i7.
700W seems to be the minimum for a stable system with i7-960 or higher, a GTX-470 and a few hard drives and none of their i7 systems have that much power.
If there is no Tier 1 Core i7 system, what other manufacturer would you suggest, within the following criteria:
– nationwide on-site service
– enough power
– clean, professional non-gaming design (e.g. no Alienware or other over the top designs)(I am a system integrator and have no problem configuring custom systems – some clients prefer to have Tier 1 based systems vs. custom.)
Thanks!
Alex
DV411
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