New PC for Adobe Production Suite CS5.5

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I would say so, I’m running an i7 2600 with 32gigs of Corsair 1600 Ram, SSD drive and so forth.

The SSD in and of itself doesn’t help terribly with performance but if you use your computer as a DIT station, the multiple restarts or hiccups that we face on-set from dirty power or other issues, then at least you’re restarted quickly.

Adobe products will utilize all the RAM, but Premiere is pretty good about things. After Effects is the program that will eat all your RAM and ask for more (I’m doing some RED color grading in 4K in AE with 32gigs and it performs respectably).

[Aaron Cadieux]

I guess the other question would be am I better off with dual quad core Xeons, or a single i7 processor?

[Tom Daigon]

It depends how much “heavy lifting” you are doing with your system. If you need to deal with formats like Red , Epic or high resolution 4444 files as well as the basic stuff (P2, AVCHD, XDCam, H.264, Prores, DNxHD, etc) My research with leading computer makers suggest the new xeons are the way to go. This is even more reinforced if you are doing long form and / or lots of motion graphics in the larger formats. Thats the direction I would like to go when I move on from my Mac Pro.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[Joseph W. bourke]

Aaron –

I wish you well with your build – I am 6 or months or so away from taking the DIY plunge and building my next graphics box, so I’ll look with interest on any follow ups you post. You may want to check out these guys:
https://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+DIY9+Sneak+Peek+Its+Time+for+Sandy+Bridge+E/0xe9b142f408a2b03ab88144a434e88de7.aspx

They seem to know what they’re talking about, and, more importantly, they don’t seem to be trying to sell the hardware they are suggesting for the machines. I’ve learned a fair amount from their testing. Good luck!

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Tom Daigon] “My research with leading computer makers suggest the new xeons are the way to go. This is even more reinforced if you are doing long form and / or lots of motion graphics in the larger formats.”

My work is mostly large format animation and motion graphics, and I’d agree with Tom.

i7 is perfectly suitable for straight editorial, but effects, graphics, compositing and grading all benefit from more power.

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

[Tom Daigon]

Eric Bowen at ADK is a fount of knowledge. I will most likely get my machine from him. His ability to listen to your workflow and design a system to your needs is awesome.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[Derek Andonian]

You may want to hold off on your new Adobe purchase. CS6 is just around the corner

______________________________________________
“THAT’S our fail-safe point. Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Herb Sevush]

[Aaron Cadieux] “Blackmagic Decklink SDI – $295”

Do you realize this card doesn’t handle HD?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Colin Lamb]

Aaron

I have been building PC’s for myself and friends to use as edit stations for over 15 years.

I usually ask them a series of questions about what they actually want to use it for (Premiere, AE, p/shop, animation etc, also source footage: – AVCHD, DSLR vid, P2, SD etc) and taylor a solution to fulfill their needs.

For P5.5 your system will blow it out of the water but at a cost.

If you can expand upon the source material you want to use now and in the future we can advise better.

Col Lamb
UK
Own build custom PC ASUS x58 MOBO, 12Gb RAM, GTX 580 GPU, RAID 1 and RAID 0 in PC + Store HD, Boot and store in trayless caddies for easy swap, Synology network RAID storage

[Aaron Cadieux]

Herb,

I think you might be mistaken. This is taken directly off of the Blackmagic page.

DeckLink SDI – $295

DeckLink SDI is perfect when you need an SDI only solution but demand high quality 10 bit 4:2:2 based SDI capture and playback. DeckLink SDI plugs into Windows, Mac OS X and Linux computers and features HD/SD-SDI capture and playback combined with tri-sync/black burst reference input and RS-422 deck control. Media Express software is included so you get capture and playback for AVI, QuickTime and DPX on Mac, Windows and Linux. DeckLink SDI is a perfect choice when all your connections are SDI and you don’t need analog connections.