New PC for HDV in Vegas 7

NickHope wrote on 6/7/2007, 11:04 PM

Here's the proposed spec of the machine that I'm about to build for working with HDV in Vegas 7. I'll be running a lot more besides Vegas on it.

CPU
Quite a lot cheaper than the extreme QX6700 or QX6800 but still quad. Seems to be the current price v performance point for a Vegas user. I know there's a further big price cut on July 22 but you've got to jump in at some time.

Motherboard
The Intel D975XBX2 used by JohnnyRoy and John Cline also looks good too but not well supported here in Thailand.

RAM
I don't really like to fill up all four slots but I don't know if 2Gb DIMMS are available. Then again would I seriously ever want to go to 8Gb on this mobo?

Graphics
The cheapest solution I can find giving me 4 x DVI outputs. I will run my 2 x 17" off one card and a 24" LCD off the other as a Windows secondary display. No fans on these which will help keep the noise down.

System Drive
My 36Gb Raptor has done great for the last 3 years and I'm not really into RAID.

Data drives
Not in a RAID. Assets on one (E:), rendering and everything else to the other (D:).

DVD Writer
My Benq 1640 writes great quality DVD+R. These Benq drives are being discontinued so if I can find one then what else? Pioneer 112?

CPU Cooler
Will the 9500 be enough instead of the 9700?

Audio
I already have this and it will sit in one of the regular PCI slots (with breakout box).

Case
My existing Lian Li case has been excellent, although it is a bit noisy. The ThermalTake cases look very nice but the shop building the PC is big on Lian Li.

Power Supply
I want a quieter machine than last time so I don't need to sit in the other room for voiceovers and most of the noise seems to come from my regular Enermax 350W supply. Hopefully this has all the connections I need. Will 600 watts be enough for this new box?

Monitors for XP desktop
- I already have these and run my timeline right across them in a "Span" configuration.

Monitor for video
Run from Vegas as a Windows Secondary Display. No Dell here in Thailand and this is available but doesn't have as many inputs as Dell. But DVI should be enough for what I need.

Keyboard
Same as I have now.

OS
Figured I may as well be ready for getting the most out of Vegas 8.

What do you think? Any comments? Any headaches waiting to happen?

Nick

Comments

blink3times wrote on 6/8/2007, 5:07 AM

I would not go with XP 64 bit.... if you are going 64 then I would cross over to Vista and be done with it. XP was never REALLY built to be 64bits, a bunch of patches and work, fixes it up to handle 64 bits.... but Vista64 is REALLY built to handle 64bits. I think it's still a bit premature to go 64 bit anyway... there is still a HUGE lack of driver support. I just upgraded to get ready for Vista 64 but I'll be 32bits for at least another 8 months or year.

And if you decide to stay 32bit for the moment, then 4 gig of memory is a waste... XP will only use a max of 3gig

Read this:

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

You can also go with a Intel 975XBX2 mobo... that's what I have with my Q6600 and it works well.

The Q6600 does get quite warm when under full load. If you plan on overclocking then you may want to check out liquid cooling. I just upgraded, and overclocked at 3.2Ghz my temps are 28C at idle and 63 at full load... before that I was hitting 75C.

Wes C. Attle wrote on 6/8/2007, 6:24 AM

I disagree with blink3times. x64 Vista is directly pulled from the Windows 2003 Server x64 code base. In other words, it is Windows Server 2003 x64, not a patched Windows XP. And both XP x64 and Server 2003 X64 perform better than Vista x32 or x64 in nearly all benchmarks.

So your choice to go with x64 XP is not a bad one in my opinion. Just check your hardware selection carefully, make sure each component has x64 drivers. But realize that you won't see any benefits for the next year or two unless you use native 64-bit software. Vegas is old and stale 32-bit for the moment.

NickHope wrote on 6/20/2007, 10:03 AM

Interesting difference in opinion guys, thanks.

Well, I went for Windows XP Professional x64 with 4Gb RAM in the end.

Couldn't get those MSI graphics cards in Bangkok so I've gone for 2 x Gigabyte Geforce 8600GT with 2 x DVI on each. They have big heatsinks, not fans. A little higher spec than the MSI ones I wanted but at least that should be useful for running Bluff Titler.

No special "quiet" power supplies available here either so I went for the Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT (620W).

Benq DVD drives have also dried up so I've gone for the Pioneer DVR-212BK which is a SATA 18x18 drive.

The case is a pretty basic Lian Li PC-7.

Finally the other difference from the above spec is that the CPU cooler is the larger Zalman CNPS9700NT.

Unfortunately I've got off to the worst possible start. I downloaded the latest motherboard BIOS (because it seemed like a good idea to update) and "Asus Update" and attempted to flash the BIOS from Windows. This is something I've done a couple of times before on my previous machine but this time the program crashed before finishing and the BIOS is totally dead and cannot be recovered. So now the machine has gone back hopefully for a repair under warranty. Won't be in a hurry to try that one again or if I do need a BIOS update I'll do it from their DOS updater.

Before I fried the motherboard I did notice that the BIOS had the clock speed set to 2.66GHz and the CPU was running at a whopping 95 degrees C (and highlighted red) even just running the BIOS setup. After I set the speed to 2.40GHz which is what the Q6600 is rated to it cooled down to about 83 degrees C and no red highlighting. How hot can these processors run? 83 degrees sounds very hot to me.

As for fans, I have the power supply fan, the case rear fan, the case front fan and the Zalman cooler fan. I also have a small fan blowing out of the top of the case and I'm wondering if this might be stealing airflow from the Zalman.

Will report on how the XP x64 performs and do some render speed tests when I've got it back.

4eyes wrote on 6/20/2007, 11:39 AM

I learned the hard way that updating the ASUS Bios isn't as easy as older Asus MB's.
Many persons do exactly what you have done (including myself) and rendered the MB useless.
It's a real chore to get it back up and running, it's possible but you need another original bios chip.

Unless your having problems updating the bios usually isn't necessary, I needed to upgrade in order for the MB to recognize one of the new intel chips.

Nice machine specs, good luck with the new one.

blink3times wrote on 6/20/2007, 11:41 AM

" Before I fried the motherboard I did notice that the BIOS had the clock speed set to 2.66GHz and the CPU was running at a whopping 95 degrees C (and highlighted red) even just running the BIOS setup."
==============================================================

You do have to watch the 6600 temps... it's quite a bit different from anything I have seen before. The temps can skyrocket to unbelievable numbers if things are not just right. I was playing around with overclocking one day... checked the temp which was running around 50C.... made an adjustment and a second or 2 later I was looking at core temps of 100C!!!! I didn't even bother with a shut down... just grabbed the power cord and pulled hard and fast! Scared the crap out of me. It's something I have never seen before from a cpu. If you think about it... 100C is the boiling point of water!

I now have a temp gage installed on XP start up... and I check it OFTEN!

NickHope wrote on 6/20/2007, 3:04 PM

I've got Asus Probe running on my older machine occasionally but it's overkill to run all the time.

Can anyone recommend a small lightweight temperature monitoring program that I can keep running on the new machine? What are you running blink3times?

blink3times wrote on 6/20/2007, 7:02 PM

I've got a very tiny and simple gage called Core Temp... it's simple, works good and takes up very little memory. Throw it in your start up folder and it will show the temps on your task bar..... and it's free!

http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/

douglas_clark wrote on 6/21/2007, 2:06 AM

If you mounted your CPU and heat-sink yourself, you might want to try re-mounting the heat sink. The slightest irregularity in the heat sink paste spread, or sitting uneven on the CPU, might account for high CPU temps. I've done quite a few...but I did have to re-do one once due to high temps like you describe.

Douglas

ushere wrote on 6/21/2007, 2:56 AM

in passing....

about to upgrade for hdv. looking at e6600, but have been offer a xeon 3050 2.13ghz as an alternative.

i was under the impression that xeon's were best suited to server / office work? i stand to be corrected and pointed in the right direction.

leslie

blink3times wrote on 6/21/2007, 7:15 AM

"in passing....

about to upgrade for hdv. looking at e6600, but have been offer a xeon 3050 2.13ghz as an alternative."
=============================================================

I wouldn't bother with the dual cores. I would just skip right over them and jump into the quad cores... As far as Vegas goes the quads are literally twice as fast at rendering. Contrary to what is being said, there are MANY programs that do go well with the quad (including Vegas). The worst you can say is that there are programs that are not as well tuned for a quad as they can be.... but that will change in a pretty short period of time.

If you can't afford a quad now then I would put off your re-build for another month or 2 because the quad pricing is supposed to go down.

Laurence wrote on 6/21/2007, 7:55 AM

I agree. Go for a quad core and do a 64 bit version of XP or Vista so as to take advantage of the upcoming 64 bit version of Vegas.

blink3times wrote on 6/21/2007, 8:38 AM

"I agree. Go for a quad core and do a 64 bit version of XP or Vista so as to take advantage of the upcoming 64 bit version of Vegas."

========================================================

Speaking of which... sorry, don't mean to highjack the thread but has anybody tried vista 64 yet? That's my next step, but there is no sense in doing so right away if things aren't ready for it yet.

Jøran Toresen wrote on 6/21/2007, 9:04 AM

Simple question: aren’t the Intel quad core processors 32 bit? If so, can I use the 64 bit version of XP / Vista with such a processor?

Jøran Toresen

DataMeister wrote on 6/21/2007, 9:50 AM

Nope. The Intel Quad Core processors are 64 bit, and you can use the 64 bit version of XP or Vista or the 32 bit version of XP or Vista. Take your pick.

For more reading...
http://www.intel.com/quad-core/

riredale wrote on 6/21/2007, 2:10 PM

MotherBoardMonitor is a free download and very sophisticated.

Jøran Toresen wrote on 6/21/2007, 4:59 PM

Thank you for your reply. Another question: Are ALL Core 2 Duo processors also 64 bit?

Jøran Toresen

blink3times wrote on 6/21/2007, 5:21 PM

I believe it works like this:

core duo = 32bit
core 2 duo = 64 bit

NickHope wrote on 6/25/2007, 11:35 PM

The vendor just told me they toasted another P564 WS Pro motherboard trying to update the BIOS to 0704. Looks like a bad idea to update the BIOS on this board unless you really really need to.

Vidmar wrote on 6/27/2007, 7:29 PM

My Pentium D 940 can run XP 64 and Vista 64 as well. Its not as clear cut as you may think. It all depends on the instruction set that the processor was given when it was manufactured.

Any Intel EM64T or any AMD64 capable processor can run XP64 and Vista64.

• AMD Opteron processor for servers and workstations
• AMD Athlon 64 processor for desktops and notebooks
• AMD Turion 64 mobile technology for notebooks
• Intel Pentium D processor
• Intel Pentium processor Extreme Edition
• Intel Xeon processor

NickHope wrote on 7/8/2007, 2:59 PM

Thanks for the tips. MotherBoardMonitor does not support my P5W64WS board. Will try Core Temp for constant monitoring but for occasional use PC Wizard 2007 shows the temperatures of all 4 cores, plus the temperatures of your motherboard and drives and just about any other piece of info you'd like to know about your PC.

It looks like the extreme 95C temperature I saw was because the Q6600 wasn't properly supported by the 0304 BIOS firmware that shipped with the Asus P5W64WS Pro motherboard. Now that it's been updated to 0704 the CPU is running at 50-55C which is much better. I haven't really stressed it yet though. I'll run the Vegas render test tomorrow and see how it goes.

Anyway if you need to update the firmware on this board then do not update with Asus Update, use one of the other methods before the machine boots into Windows.

blink3times wrote on 7/8/2007, 7:37 PM

"Anyway if you need to update the firmware on this board then do not update with Asus Update, use one of the other methods before the machine boots into Windows."
====================================================
I have the Intel 975XbX2 mobo.... good board. You can update or downdate the bios as you please... thay make it pretty easy.

blink3times wrote on 7/8/2007, 7:39 PM

"My Pentium D 940 can run XP 64 and Vista 64 as well."

=================================================

If I am not mistaken, the entire D900 series is 64 bit capable. I have a D950 on my other machine and it's 64 bit capable as well.

Added note.... Sorry... I just read your cpu list and it appears you already know!

xberk wrote on 7/27/2007, 8:27 PM

Nick - can you give us an update on how the Q6600 is doing for you? I was interested in your spec as I will soon be building a new box primarily with Vegas in mind.

Any problems with 64 bit XP with other software of hardware?

NickHope wrote on 7/28/2007, 10:48 AM

Since building and configuring the machine I've been mostly away so I haven't done a great deal of work with it, but so far so good and most of the above info in this thread still stands.

If you can get the Intel board it's probably a safer bet than the Asus. Also I think the price of the faster quad core processors such as the QX6700 has just come down so you might want to go for one of them.

I'm still waiting for my 24" LCD so I can't tell you how that works out.

You can read about how my various hardward and software got along with XP x64 in this thread: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=535427