I'm heading down the i7 path as well.

Any early adopters out there blazing the "beta testing" trail :)

Costco has 3 new i7 computers. 2 cost $1599 the other is I think $2200.
One is built by cyberpower computers and the other is by Ibuypower.
I am keeping my eye at the Ibuypower one to go down a few hundred before I buy.

The 750 Watt PC Power & Cooling power supply sounds like a good idea. Any particular model?

And the Asus P6T looks like another possible Core i7 motherboard candidate.

This is the supply I went with on my last four system builds. I use them in my render farm. Ok, so it is only 4 computers, but it sure beats only using one.

The NVidia video card you are contemplating is a power hungry beast.

This is the main part of my configuration (after reading tons of reviews):

Case: Antec Performance One P182 Gun Metal
Power Supply: Corsair / MIST PSU 750W / 650w
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58-UD5
Processor : Intel Core i7 920 2,66Ghz
Video: Nvidia GTX-260 Core 216 or AMD HD 4850
Memory: 6 GB DDR3

OS: Vista Ultimate 64 bit

The i7-940 2.93 GHz processor is not worth the prize premium and you can easily over clock the i7-920 processor. My impression is that Gigabyte GA-X58-UD5 is an excellent motherboard (and better than the Asus P6T). I will wait until I can get a GTX-260 Core 216 or I will purchase an HD 4850 card. But be aware that both cards get very hot, so you need a card with extra cooling or an extra GPU cooler.

Jøran Toresen

I, too, think you should look at a bigger power supply.

I would also possibly look at more than one hard disk. I am a big fan of a separate system drive. Disk I/O should not be underestimated as a potential bottle neck, especially when the CPU is a screamer. Also, separation of system data and user data mean you don't lose all your data if/when you have to re-install windows.

My AUS$0.02.

Ciao,

marks

Have any of you had a complicated project that would put rendering to the test? I've had terrible experiences rending with recent versions of Vegas, both on my Core 2 duo, my more recent quad core Q6600, and even on my old P4 on an Intel motherboard, not overclocked in the slightest. So I'm looking for a super stable motherboard that can handle long-form projects with lots of masks & effects. . .

Have any of you had a complicated project that would put rendering to the test? I've had terrible experiences rending with recent versions of Vegas, both on my Core 2 duo, my more recent quad core Q6600, and even on my old P4 on an Intel motherboard, not overclocked in the slightest. So I'm looking for a super stable motherboard that can handle long-form projects with lots of masks & effects. . .

I just completed a dance recital -- 3 cameras (HDV - Sony Z1) x 2 performances = 6 video tracks + another camera (pd150) capturing audio off the mixing board.

Edited each item as individual projects (2 acts x approx 18 items) as 6 video track multi-camera, including color correction on one camera (my bad), levels and curves (me and the lighting guy saw the world very differently, but i'm over that now ... ).

One specific concert item needed a lot of audio work as it was live singing and not captured well (despite the feed off the board); so i ended up duplicating this audio 6 times to get decent levels out of them, and then ducking around pre-recorded tracks.

All items also had original CD tracks included as audio tracks, as well as 1 or more audio tracks from the cameras for some ambiance.

Each sub-project was then pulled into a master project (Acts I & II), levels adjusted a little bit, added titles and lower-thirds, and then rendered out to MPEG2 for DVD (DVD Architect template). Each took about 4hrs 30 min for video, 25 min for audio.

Worked a treat. The multi-cam edit, i was getting acceptable frame rates (+/-18) when previewing in "Preview->half" showing 6 cameras; 25 pfs when review the final track (dunno what mode this is called -- where you see what the final edit will look like). Once FX were added this faded, but that was done last anyway.

I did suffer the occasional crash -- annoying but not devastating. And one act did somehow switch itself to a surround sound mix which led to the DVD audio all coming out of one channel. But I tracked down the issue, re-rendered just the audio, replaced it into DVD Architect, and all was good.

Overall I couldn't ask for anything more than what Vegas delivered.

Very happy with the results

The engine room is :

CPU: stock Phenom 9500
MOBO: Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe
RAM: 4Gb RAM (DDR2 800 6400PC - upgraded from 2 to 4 during the process -- made no difference to the performance of Vegas).

Lots of disk (though never enough)
Shuttle Pro
Logitech G15 keyboard (I love programmable G -keys, esp. for in and out of multi-cam display)
2 x 22" monitors
XFX GT8600 graphics card

Think that is all i can tell you.

I love Vegas.

marks

The Sapphire 4850 Toxic video card comes with a Zalman cooler on it and it runs quieter (92mm fan) and much cooler than the ATI reference cards. It also happens to be clocked higher than the standard 4850 reference cards. Please note ATI has announced price cuts for the 4800 series of video cards. $200 will soon get you a 4870.

In using Seagate SATA drives, you might want to use the 'NS" versions of the drives. They are rated for 24x7 operation. Seagate considers then suitable for servers. Ignore the marketing about the "SV" drives. Those are just "AS" drives with firmware that uses the cache in a linear fashion, instead of using a segmented cache architecture like the "NS" drives.

I like using 3 hard drives. Once for the OS/programs, once for temp folder duties (I also keep all the patches for the various applications I use on this one too), and the other for video/audio files.

I also have a small 4 system render farm, so my times for rendering a project are going to be skewed, but all my projects require rendering some 3D animation as well, which takes a bit of time depending on the accuracy of the lighting.

I've had a couple of comments about my choice of the Nvidia GTX-260. Actually I really only picked it because it is the latest and (almost) greatest from Nvidia and I really want to stick with Nvidia. I'm certainly not a gamer but I do need a card good enough for Vegas, capable of running two monitors and with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 for the 30" HP LP3065.

I will look into the alternatives so recommendations would be appreciated.

On the issue of the number of drives, my intention is to go with external e-SATA drives perhaps in a RAID configuration - but I really haven't thought that one through yet. In any case, the e-SATA drives would be used for data/rendering and the C:/ drive would be system only.

As to motherboards I'm really just starting to look. The Gigabyte GA-X58-UD5 was mentioned as a possible alternative. I'll look into that one. I'm hoping that there are reasonably unbiased reviews of these very new Core i7 boards.

Whatever the GTX-260 will do the 4870 will do as well. They are both in the same ball park, as far as performance goes.

I am not married to either brand. I have used both and seems each has its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

I am concerned about the longevity of NVidia's product today, as it seems they are going through some very rough times, with having to eat a substantial number of GPU's, due to premature failures.

There has been a ton of speculation, on that subject, all over the net and some darts thrown by AMD/ATI as well.

Despite being a long-time user of NVIDIA products and a believer in the company, I bought first ATI card *ever* this year, the Radeon 3870. I've had experience with the poor drivers from ATI from many years ago, and I don't think things have changed much. The card's performance is good, but I'm still disappointed with the software, the installation & uninstallation glitches, the online registration snafus,etc. I'm going to keep the card now, but my next purchase will surely be an NVIDIA.

Here are the power specs on the current generation of Nvidia graphics cards that are applicable to my two monitor setup with one monitor running 2560 x 1600:

GeForce GTX-260 - 500 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 - 580 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX - 500 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT - 450 Watts

So these puppies all run hotter than a firecracker so good cooling and good thermal monitoring seems like a must have . Right now I'm sticking with the GTX-260 but the 9800 GTX or even the 9600 GTX are still candidates. The GX2 is really for gamers, is a real power hog and is very pricey to boot.

Some other things that may be of interest in the motherboard area. Techreport.com has two articles where they have evaluated the ASUS P6T vs. the Intel DX58SO and a second article where they ran the Gigabyte GA-X58-UD5 against the MSI X58 Eclipse. In the second article there are some benchmarks that cover all 4 boards although it doesn't look to me like they are particularly applicable to video editing.

The P6T versus DX58SO article does have a number of rendering benchmarks that show the P6t to definitely outperform the Intel DX58SO and by pretty good margins.

Here are the links:

Techreport Core i7 Motherboards - Asus vs. Intel
Techreport Core i7 Motherboards - Gigabyte vs. MSI

First of all nice monitor selection. S-IPS is the way to go.

I'd reconsider that graphics card if quiet is really important to you. A power hungry (hot) graphics cards puts a big load on the power supply, making the fan spin up and be audible. In addition the card puts out a lot of heat in the case, this time making the case fans spin up. As you know the graphics power will do NOTHING to speed up Vegas. I guess you are going to do a lot of gaming.

Also before buying a 750W power supply I'd make sure your system will actually use that much power. For example my system, a core 2 duo overclocked to 3.2GHz with 3 drives, ATI X1950 graphics care, etc... by calculation of devices should draw nearly 500Watts. But you know what? Using Kill-A-Watt metering it shows only 189Watts under full 100% render load in Vegas. That's right, 189Watts! Even if I fire up a game it stays well below 300Watts. Power requirements for most computer hardware are taken as an absolute worst case scenario.

The downside of having too large a power supply, besides wasting money at the outset with the purchase is that if not run at about 75% or so of capacity efficiency is much lower. So if you get a 750W power supply and run it at 300Watts most of the time you will not be getting the 80 or 85% efficiency most power supplies (good ones) will do these days. It will be much lower.

So try to match your system actual power consumption with your PS rating. I am using a 430Watt Season Power Supply and absolutely love it. Seasonic power supplies are among the best in my opinion and are dead quiet. Most people building silent PC's like myself use them exclusively. They are well built and use 120mm fans that operate at low RPM unless really driven hard. I've never gotten my PS fan to spool up to where it was louder than case/cpu fans.

So I would think about it you really need that video card. If you do then do a little research and see if people that have built a similar system are seeing such high power figures.

Here is a i920 Nehalem review with a GTX 280 video card. Playing Crysis, which loads the cpu and video card, only shows 230Watts in actual power usage!!! Like I said do a little research before falling in the NEED A BIG POWER SUPPLY myth. In my opinion, looking at actual power requirements of actual systems your money is better spend on a high quality smaller unit. Plus your electric bill will be lower.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=9

Finally, the yields on Nehalem are so good that I'd just buy an i920 and overclock it to 3.2GHz or so. All reports I hear is that the chip will easily do this on stock voltage. Going to 2.93GHz would be really easy and save you a couple hundred bucks. You a bit of that money into a good cpu cooler.

Okay those are my thoughts! Good luck with your build.

- Mark

The graphics card advice I'm getting from one of the candidate builders of my new machine is that I might be better off with a Quadro FX. The Quadro FX 570 has the necessary two Dual-Link DVI connectors and only draws 38 watts. Less than $200 at Amazon.

The same guy told me that if I wanted to stick with the high power consumption GeForce cards that he would recommend only the GTX-260 or the 9800 GTX for a dual display setup. I'm not sure I believe that but that was his input.

Color me confused but based on Hulk's and the other inputs above I'm starting to think twice about the power hungry cards.

Anybody using the FX570?

Unless you need the 3D capability of one of the more muscular cards for gaming or some other application that requires it then it will do you no good in Vegas. Except to drain your wallet.

All you need is a solid card with good drivers that can do the resolution that you require for your monitor.

*If* on the other hand you plan to game then you will need some serious graphics power to get decent frame rates at the native resolution of your 30" display.

I'm going be building a i7 system in the near future and will definitely overclock the 920 part. Probably to a nice safe 3.2GHz at stock voltage. That'll save me about $800 from buying the top of the line part.

My current rig with Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard, DDR2 1600 4-4-4-12 RAM, and E6400 CPU o/c to 3.2 is and has been rock solid for two years now. Rock solid like NO restarts or other weird problems. Rock solid like going to be with Vegas cranking both cores loaded 100% and waking up the next morning to see the project rendered or still going.

As I said, you need a good motherboard (I love Asus), good memory, good power supply and the right cpu, like the i7 920. And a good CPU cooler. There is no magic. Just solid components and a CPU with lots of headroom. People are getting 3.8GHz to 4GHz with air cooling on these 920's. 3.2GHz is a very mild overclock. Many of these "binned" parts could easily be 3.2GHz parts if Intel had any real pressure from AMD to release faster parts.

From what I have seen most people that have problems with overclocked systems have either cheap power supplies, pushing memory past specs and cranking voltage, poor cooing on the CPU, or a low end motherboard. Or a combination of all of the above. Or they're just going for an insane overclock.

And I wouldn't worry about your hard drive being a bottleneck. You think ANY CPU these days can render faster than your hard drive can put down the bits? No way. Most any new drive can do 50MB/sec. No way any CPU can render that fast. No way. I've said this before but I used to run a NLE benchmarking website. I NEVER saw a difference in rendering speeds due to hard drive bottlenecks. Only if you are regularly going to be working with uncompressed video and a very deep timeline could you ever see an impact. That being said you should always run video off the second har

you should always run your video projects from a secondary hard drive to avoid cluttering up the primary.

Hulk: Thanks for your well thought out replies.

Video card: Remember that I have to have a 2x Dual-Link card and I want to stick with Nvidia. I'm not a big game player but I do a little CAD, Photoshop and After Effects where the OpenGL support from the Quadro cards offers some advantage. In any case, what would you recommend for a video card for a 30" plus 21" dual monitor system?

SATA Drives. I always use a separate drive for data. Right now I'm trying to decide whether to put the drives into the case or get a separate e-SATA enclosure and run them external. I have one Samsung 1TB SATA drive that I'm using right now (via USB on my old machine) and It seems fine. Any recommendations in this area?

Enclosure. I'm totally lost here. Too many options. What do you like?

Motherboard: The ASUS P6T is my leading candidate for the motherboard. It edges out the Intel board by several percent in rendering tests. The Gigabyte board has a digital audio INPUT which is missing from most if not all of the competition. That's a nice feature. I wish could have that on P6T.

Okay here are my recommendations. I'll tackle this easiest to most difficult...

Motherboard - No doubt P6T. I personally don't worry much about motherboard benchmark performance since they are all generally very close. What I do look at is how tight timings a given mobo can do while still remaining stable, layers of the pcb, voltage regulation for the cpu, etc.. The top of the line Asus boards like the P6T are always great in this regard. Fast AND stable. Plus bios revisions will fly out like mad in the beginning to quickly fix any nagging issues.

Enclosure - I love Lian Li enclosures. I like that they are Al, and the general quality of their cases. Here is my current case and my favorite: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112099 Not too huge but large enough to fit all I need. Two large 120mm fans that can be controlled from the mobo to be virtually silent. Good air flow, quiet, easy to work on, and not flashy.

Drives - I used to get external drives and never had a reason to do so. Now it's internal all the way. Drives today are fast, quiet, huge, and energy efficient. I would pick one near the top of this chart in the capacity and price that fits you. http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php The newest screamer (outside of the 10k models) is the Hitachi e7K1000 they are just hitting the shelves.

Power supply - As I said before I like Seasonic. This is my current PS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151033 If you are type A about cables then you can get one with modular cables. I like the "S12" models as I know they are quiet and reliable.

I will not claim to be up on running dual monitors with one of them being a 30 incher so I can't make a specific recommendation there. I would buy the one that meets your dual display and resolution requirements with the weakest GPU you require. More GPU is more up front cost and more heat and noise.

- Mark

Below are the components of the Core i7 build I just completed. I went with Vista Home Premium. I reused my existing monitors. Purchased from NewEgg for a total cost of about $1750 after various rebates.

So far so good. No compatibility issues with the components listed below. I have not looked at overclocking yet, as I am still benchmarking the system (and probably will need to upgrade the CPU cooler of overclocking).

Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe
Case: Antec P182 Computer Case
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 (w/ stock cooler) 2.66GHz,
Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W modular power supply
Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) TR3X6G1333C9,
Video Card: EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB (PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video)
Blu-Ray Burner: LG GGW-H20LK Blu-ray Disc Burner
HDD: 2 Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS Hard Drives
OS: Vista 64-Bit Home Premium

Hulk, while I agree with most of your information, you failed to mention that it is not the total power capacity that is the issue for any power supply, it is the individual rail capacity that is what is critical.

Also note, you are supplying the numbers based on steady loads and not the actual power up load of a system, which is quite a bit higher.

Another note about switching power supplies. You take the individual rail ratings and the goal is to never exceed 80% of the rating. Once you get passed 80% of the rail rating, the power starts becoming dirty in virtually any switching power supply.

A 280W video card gets its power from the 12V rail. That is roughly 23A of current., so the 12V rail must be rated at no lower than 30A just to carry the video card. Just an example.

During power up, you want clean power as that is where 99% of damage to components will occur. The power supply must deliver that surge cleanly.

You are quite right that a 750W power is not needed to *run* the system, but it does have ample overhead for handling the startup operations. If a power supply uses an active PFC circuit, then supplying clean power at lighter loads is not an issue at all. In a high end system you really do not want to use a power supply that does not have an active PFC circuit for all rails.

In an ideal environment it would be nice to keep the load on a switching supply at about 75%. This allows enough load to keep the power smooth and also allows for small transient load changes.

That is why active PFC circuits became so important in switching supplies. High end systems do have a substantial power up surge requirement. Now we look to purchase power supplies that can handle the power up surge cleanly, while supplying power at lower load percentages cleanly as well.

Just keep in mind, it is not the total load that is as critical as the individual rail load when determining which power supply to use. If a lower power video card is considered, then I would also say the 750W PS is way overkill.

The engineeer in me does not care for modular cables. If they were using a higher quality connector, then I would have less issue with them.

I do agree high end video cards are a waste of money if all you do is 2D work in Windows. Most of the money in a high end video card is in the 3D circuits.

You guys are really helpful. I think this thread is going to be very valuable to those who are looking to build a new Core i7 machine.

A couple of questions for rtbond:

Are you running multiple monitors?
What graphics card are you using?
How confident are you that you will need to upgrade the CPU fan in order overclock the 920? I'm going to overclock my 920 and was hoping to do it with the stock CPU fan.

And for Skuzzy:

I assume that PFC is Power Factor Correction. Is PFC pretty much standard in the higher end PC supplies or do we have to go hunting for those that have this feature?
What would you recommend for an Nvidia graphics card to drive two monitors, one at 2560 x 1600?