Video Card vs. High End Processing

[Img-interactivemediagurus]

Great questions all around! Steve, NP, bro! I wasn’t popping a vein or anything, just thought you either missed the Axio ref, or didn’t think it was up to the task!

Believe it or not, you can get the Axio LE card WITH PPRO 2.0 as a bundle for less than $4500. The upgrade to that for the entire “deluxe” Video Collection is right around $1200 (I checked with a reseller yesterday in Atlanta for current pricing). Now, that is still a wad of cash, but a lot less than the full Axio, which starts at $12k and runs up to $44k! OUCH! That is a large car, or a small house!

Hawley, I think you are right on the money with your comment / question. You seem to have reached the same conclusions that I have discovered during my research towards the next “latest / greatest” rig. For now, I want to run the new Video Collection 2.0, and I can’t feasably do it with my Asus P4800c Mobo, using a P4 3.0 GHz / 800 MHz FSB with 2 GB’s of DDR 400. That was and is certainly enough for PPRO 1.5, especially when paired up with the 1.5 TB of hard disk storage I have on it, but now, I need to look at either a SAN or NAS in the neighborhood of 4-6 TB’s to run HDV projects (as a MINIMUM!).

What do I want? Well, like I said previously, bigger, better, faster, etc. Hell, a quad dual core Xeon mobo would be AWESOME! And PLEASE, give me at LEAST 6 PCI slots, all 64 bit, preferably the PCI-e. And a dozen USB 2.0 ports, and half a dozen Firewire 800 ports to boot. All with built in SATA and IDE 150 support. I need a Blu-ray DVD drive in it to back up my files, while I am off in dreamland, and eventually, I want the new HVD drive (Holographic Versatile Disc), which is supposed to FINALLY debut in September of this year, after 7 years of R&D. The HVD drive will hold 300GB, 500GB and a whopping 1 TB on a single disc! This was initially the brainchild of a company I have been following called Constellation 3D, which is now defunct. Maxell / Hitachi is supposed to spearhead this new effort.

I want my MTV! Oops, I mean, I want my cake and eat it too! I want HD / HDV and SD content to reside all in the same timeline (supposedly PPRO 2.0 can do that), I want massive storage and archiving capabilities, and I want a scraming fast system with no lag or rendering for preview of FX and real time rendering of the final output.

Is that so much to ask? (LoL).

Hey, they dangle the carrot in from of our noses, so let’s all drive the cart a little faster and compel the manufacturers to come up with REAL solutions to all of these real-life issues we are facing!

[Bj Ahlen]

[IMG-INTERACTIVEMEDIAGURUS] “Don’t believe all of the baloney about AMD having better throughput, etc. As a computer tech with 30 years experience, and 10 years in actually building video systems, AMD makes ok stuff for a gaming system, but Intel smokes them for a top of the line NLE box. Fewer technical problems and compatibility issues than AMD, for sure. Better choice of mobos, etc.”

Tell that to Lucasfilm. They have bought many thousands of AMD Opteron systems for reasons of performance with reliability.

Ditto for Google’s servers, in spite of having Intel’s CEO on their board.

Virtually every Hollywood post facility now uses AMD CPUs, because time is money.

Heck, ask the Lindebooms: Creative Cow is running on AMD Opterons too now.

AMD had problems in the past that were caused by VIA’s buggy peripheral chips. Today NVIDIA makes rock solid peripheral chips for AMD CPUs, and the performance exceeds current Intel capability on 100% of NLE-related benchmarks. Opteron vs. Xeo, AMD X2 vs. Intel dual core, same thing everywhere.

Intel will take one step forward this summer/fall, as will AMD.

Next year, Intel may pass AMD. Or not, it’s just too early to tell.

I have been a professional user of Intel CPUs continuously since the 4004, and have always preferred them over the alternatives.

Until now.

The difference is just too great at this time, and even the most conservative outfits have added Opterons to their workstations (and the X2s are just the same CPUs set up for desktop use with non-ECC RAM access, etc.).

Although if you have other reasons for using Intel CPUs, you’ll still be OK for 64-bit, because Intel had to copy AMD’s 64-bit instructions for compatibility, as all the major software vendors refused to provide a separate version for an incompatible Intel 64-bit architecture. They told Intel to use AMD’s instruction set or write their own software.

Funny that some of the most brilliant aspects of the Opteron architecture were created for DEC’s Alpha CPU which was way ahead of its time.

I have no stock (whether financial or psychological) in either of these companies, but I have to reluctantly give credit to AMD for really having moved computing performance forward significantly, and having done it with substantially less power consumption, which means less heat, less noise, and higher reliability.

Let’s give recognition where recognition is due. Next year it may all be back in Intel’s court…

[Justin Hawley]

lol! Yes, you have captured my desire and the reality perfectly. Thanks again for the posts, everyone! As for my decision, I am sticking with a fast single-processer/Matrox RT X100 card with a Pentium D. That is, unless NAB shows me something incredible and reasonably priced that changes my mind. My new system will be based off a Powerboxx model located on this site: https://www.powerboxx.net/customizer/customizer.aspx?systemid=7 The only major chages I’m making are hard drives and dropping the video card.

Let me know if you have any more comments on this system.

Thanks again, all.

Justin.