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New CS4 Machine Question
First off, I know this is a hardware question but I wanted to ask the opinion of those using the software I will be using.
I’m currently using a 5 yr old Boxx machine with 2 Xeon 3.06 CPUs. And we have a dual quad core Xeon HP XW8400. The XW8400 far outperforms the Boxx as you would expect. Both machines run XP Pro SP3.
Planning to purchase a new system for running CS4 Production Premium, Trapcode Suite and Lightwave 3D. I have been looking at dual quad core Xeon vs single quad core i7 machines. All things being equal in terms of RAM and graphics card, can you give me pros and cons of the two? I’ve heard that for multithreaded apps, the dual socket machine will out perform a single but for apps that are not multithreaded, the single will out perform the dual. Also, will CS4 make good use of a 64bit OS?
I used to keep up with the latest technologies but since becoming a one man show, it’s all I can do to make deadlines. Thus, the need for a faster machine.
Peace,
Mark -
5 Replies
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I forgot to mention, I will be using Nucleo Pro 2 with AE.
Peace,
Mark -
> Also, will CS4 make good use of a 64bit OS?
Yes.
“CS4 Production Premium on 64-bit operating systems”
“The future of After Effects is 64-bit native”
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment. -
Mark –
This is from a previous post, but it will give you my input to other users on the Vista 64 advantages:Here are the specs on my machine that I configured (with help from the Cow members) about 6 months ago:
Intel Motherboard – DP45SG – this has an ESATA connector for a RAID
Quad Core2 Q9550, 2.83GHz, 1333MHz, L2 12M
8GB of PC3-10600 CL9 DDR3 240p DIMM RAM
GEForce GTX 260 – EVGA graphics card
2 – 500GB Seagate SATA2 7200rpm hard disks – one for OS, one for Applications
2 – 750GB 7200rpm 32mb SATA2 hard drives – for media files – this is NOT striped – at some point I will probably add a RAID array for doing HD – I haven’t tried editing true HD on this pup yet
600watt silent fan power supply – this thing is really quiet – I can probably do audio recording in the same room with this running.
Case – X-Cruiser Black system chassis – this is a gamer case with plenty of room for expansion.That’s about it, other than that it’s running Vista Business 64-bit. I was originally going to go with XP Pro 64-bit, but I think the upgrade path to Win7 will be smoother, plus Adobe recommends Vista 64 for the CS4 production bundle, and so far, I can see why. This thing screams! I just loaded 40 minutes of cloud footage I shot yesterday in 1080i; it loaded fine in .mts (Canon native format) format into AE, and I was able to speed it up 2000 times, giving me a really nice, smooth time-lapse effect, without the usual light stutter you get when you use the intervalometer setting on a camera. It will render about one and a half minutes or better to RAM with the current 8MB of RAM.
UPDATE: I have finished a three minute HD project in Premiere CS4 working with HVC200 P2 footage, shot at 1920 x 1080. Working from my single 500gb media drive (no RAID), I have had absolutely no problems handling the footage at full res. That said, I do have to render a few things here and there for realtime playback, but I’m very happy so far, and it rendered for distribution sizes in no time. And this machine cost me 1600 dollars! Next on the docket is a RAID array.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
The more cores you get, the more RAM you’ll need to properly take advantage of them with AE in CS4. You should aim for 2-4 GB per core for best performance with multi-processing.
You will need a 64-bit operating system to take advantage of that much RAM.
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 -
just in case you didn’t read all of todd’s second link…
from Michael Coleman: “the next version of After Effects will only support 64-bit operating systems.”
so i would be planning for the future and get a 64-bit os, plus it will help you now with cs4.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
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