Let's say under $4,000 including any peripherals.

Check out the system specs for the system that Christian de Godzinsky built in this thread:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=526098&Replies=146

His system is the current leader in the RENDERTEST-HDV speed tests.

John

My biggest concern for the moment is with After Effects rendering times.

Adobe recommends 2GB per core for multicore rendering, and I'd like 8 cores total, so I need 16GB RAM. The new Mac Pro handles this easily (it does up to 32GB), but Apple seems to have bought up all the FB-DIMM RAM sticks on the market and is selling them at Whole Foods prices.

I have After Effects Pro licenses for both Mac and PC, so I'm open to building a new PC for this, if the motherboard exists to do this.

Somebody mentioned an Asus mobo here a month ago, but the accompanying "photo" turned out to be an "artist's rendering of a future product," and a server board at that.

Is it possible to build a 16GB RAM 8-core Windows machine that can run After Effects CS3 properly today?

Sean,

Don't buy the processor until April when Intel lowers the prices. They do it pretty much every year. You will get much more for your money if you wait.

Actually, I posted this as a separate topic a few weeks ago, but here is the link to the price cut schedule. The Q6700 will be the best value in a Quad if a Quad is what you are interested in.

John

I couldn't find mention of what Christian had to pay for that obviously elite custom setup. Any idea?

"Is it possible to build a 16GB RAM 8-core Windows machine that can run After Effects CS3 properly today?"

Yes, and it could be based on a motherboard from SuperMicro. They make some heavy duty, industrial strength stuff. Intel also has a new two quad-core processor server board that can be configured for workstation use. I can't remember, it's the skull-something. I'm late for an appointment, otherwise I'd look it up for you.

John

If you don't mind waiting and have deep pockets then the Skulltrail looks promising:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_3725951__1

Some caution is needed, depending on the task and how the code is written as the test results show you could spend a lot of monsy and achieve nothing.

Bob.

"The Q6700 will be the best value in a Quad if a Quad is what you are interested in."

Thanks, John. Quite a price drop from the Extreme to the quads, huh? I haven't been following the CPU wars lately---is the Q6700 a proven performer with Vegas?

is the Q6700 a proven performer with Vegas?

Absolutely!! There are several of us here using it, me included, and I'm VERY happy with it, especially with render times and real-time playback.

Mike

Skull Trail. There's a review of it over on the Anandtech site. Actually doesn't look good for Vegas but might be useful for 3D rendering. I'm not sure I'd go down an 8-core path with Vegas at the moment, at least until I stop hearing screaming from certain Quad Core users. And after that I'd still let someone else be the guinea pig with 8-core machines. Maybe if I had several systems and needed an 8-core for a 3D app, I might test Vegas on it, but I wouldn't spend that kind of cash just to experiment.

Rob Mack

John, thanks for the SuperMicro reminder.

I'm entering this post on my SuperMicro uncompressed workstation that I've been using for four years now. Industrial indeed. Next earthquake here? I'll be inside the case, next to the mobo :O).

I'm a bit concerned that it seems that SuperMicro seems to have given up on the workstation market to focus on servers instead. Although it is perhaps natural, considering that they couldn't market themselves out of a paper bag.

So is it 100% clear then that After Effects CS3 can actually run in 16GB RAM under Win XP x64 or worst case Vista 64?

I am using AE CS3 with Vista 64 HP on a Pentium 840D 3.2 GHz. With that kind of horse-power, Vista is bound to be the better choice. However, AE is still a 32 bit app, so doubt it can take advantage of all that memory. I don't recall maxing out my 4GB yet.

The AE FAQ at the adobe site says:

"Will After Effects run on a 64-bit version of Windows Vista?
While After Effects is not a 64-bit application, it will run on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista as a 32-bit application."

So, it sounds to me like your 2GB per core info is suspect. Could this number actually be for a rendering plugin? I can't remember the name of it but I think there is some sort of rendering accelerator plugin.

Rob Mack

Well, 32-bit on Windows, that blows my idea.

Adobe's instructions for multicore-rendering AE on Mac Pro says to use 16GB RAM on 8-core Mac Pro machines, or for those who don't have that much RAM, to tell AE to not use so many cores.

They had to do a beefy rewrite of AE for Mac Universal code. Could they have made at least the renderer full 64-bit at the same time, considering that all OS X (even the GUI) is full 64-bit today?

If the above limitation is confirmed, many heavy AE users will have to sell their PC workstations and switch to Mac Pro instead. Inexpensive machines, but God save their wallets if they can't get 3rd party RAM sticks!

Rob, you're probably thinking of Nucleo Pro, a speculative pre-renderer and more. Not something that works in isolation though.

Yes, Nucleo Pro was what I was thinking of.

I wouldn't be surprised to see 64-bit versions of AEFX and PPro this year for the Windows platform.

I've been reading through Stu Maschwitz' DV Rebel book, which lays a lot of focus on AfterEffects as a finishing tool. It's gotten me a bit more interested in ubgrading my copy of AEFX5.

A lot of his general advice applies quite well to Vegas, btw.

Rob

Mac and 64bit is seriously FUBAR'd as they changed a lot of it at the last minute. Many app' devs have been very inconvenienced by this..

Well, not After Effects, because it flies on an 8-core Mac Pro with 16GB RAM.

Seems it would take a corridor render farm to replace that on the PC side at this time.

I really hope that Ballmer can get his thumbs out of Storage Area B and put a fire under 64-bit adoption everywhere.

I'm hopeful that 2008 is the year of mass 64bit adoption...
lol

"I'm hopeful that 2008 is the year of mass 64bit adoption..."

Well, when the 64bit version of Vegas comes out, there will certainly be a "mass adoption" around here. I'm already running Vista64 on my Quad-core with 4gig of RAM. So far, I'm liking it alot. There have been a couple of minor issues, but I've read the release notes for SP1 and it will take care of them when SP1 is released to the public in a week or so.

John

Re SP1. I hope I'm wrong - but it looks like we'll be seeing it nearer end of march. It's being slowly roleld out via update at that time, due to some hardware glitch that has recently been found (apparently)

Check out the system specs for the system that Christian de Godzinsky built in this thread:

For the money he spent on that QX9650 processor ($1,050) and 4 GB of DDR3 memory ($800) I could buy 4 of my processors and 8 times the amount of my memory (not including rebates). On top of that his MB costs $200 more than mine.

So basically just comparing the cost of the CPU, memory, and MB.

His costs: $2200
My costs: $470

My system details below.

Now given that fact, my times in John's updated HD render test are *faster* than Christian's at the same clock speed.

Mine 94secs vs His 97secs, both CPUs clocked at the same 3.2Ghz.

Granted he may have more headroom with his CPU, due to the 45nm technology, but again for the money I don't see how you can justify it. Intel will be releasing "normal" 45nm quads by ?June? If you can wait till then I would do so. If not, I don't suggest buying a QX9650 right now especially not with DDR3 memory.

My two cents.
Alan

=============================================
MB: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P Rev 2.0
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, G0, @3.2Ghz
Heatsink: Thermalright ULTIMA-90
Video: XFX 7800GT, 256MB, NV Silencer 5 (Rev. 3)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 4GB (4x1GB) DDR2 800 (BL2KIT12864AA804) (4-4-4-12, 2.2V)
RAID: LSI MegaRAID SCSI 320-2E 8x PCIe
Disk0: 144GB (5) Maxtor Atlas 15K II 36GB in Raid 5(StripSz:64KB,WrPolicy:WriteBack,RdAhead:Adaptive)
Disk1: 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS
CD/DVD1: NEC 3550A
CD/DVD2: Samsung SH-S203B
CD/DVD3: Samsung SH-S203B
PS1: SeaSonic S12 II 500W
Case: Cooler Master STC-T01 Stacker-Black
Frnt Fan: Scythe SY1225SL12SL, 120x25mm, 3-PIN, 800 RPM, 11.0dBA, 40CFM
Frnt Fan: Scythe SY1225SL12SL, 120x25mm, 3-PIN, 800 RPM, 11.0dBA, 40CFM
Rear Fan: Scythe SY1225SL12M, 120x25mm, 3-PIN, 1200 RPM, 24.0dBA, 69CFM
CPU Fan: Scythe SY1225SL12M, 120x25mm, 3-PIN, 1200 RPM, 24.0dBA, 69CFM
Top Fan: Sunon KD1208PTB2 80x25mm, @5V, 1248RPM, 13dBA, 16CFM
Bttm Fan: Zalman PS92252H, 92X25mm, @5V, 1176RPM, 15.1dBA, 22CFM

Hi,

Here below is my hardware list for achieving the 82-second render test. I am running Vegas Pro 8b on XP x64, and the processor runs smoothly at 3,84GHz.

Please note that I wanted to invest in new technology, not buying the cheapest possible bang for the buck. I wanted the best quality components (no shortcuts here). System reliability ispriority #1 for me.

Importantly - I wanted to invest in the Qx9650, since soon there will be support for the new SSE instructions that will further dramatically shorten the render times:

GPU: ASUS EN8800GT/G/HTDP/512M PCI-E
CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.00Ghz (running at 3,84GHz)
MOBO: ASUS MB P5E3 Deluxe/Wifi-AP X38 S775 ATX
CASE: Nexus Caterpillar Silent Case
PSU: Seasonic M12-600, ATX 600W
COOLER: Zalman CNPS9700 NT
HDD: 2 x Samsung T166 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3,0 Gbps
DVD: Samsung SH-S203B/BEBE 20X DVD+/-RW SATA
DRAM: Corsair XMS3 DHX TwinX 4GB Kit (2x2GB) PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz 7-7-7-20 718.90

This setup set me back about 2400 EUR (including taxes). Probably that is around the same in dollars - also including taxes. You might get some components cheaper by doing some "deeper" shopping. I did not have time or nerves for that.

I know that you could get much more DDR2 memory for the same price as my 4 GB DDR3, or even 4 processors for the same price of one Qx9650. However, Vegas only supports 1GB (or was it max. 2GB) of memory, and at maximum 4 threads. The amount of memory ( if at least 4 gigs) would not make Vegas faster for now, but the memory speed certainly does. I run the memory at 1600MHz, so the memory bandwith is something like 8,5GByte/s!!!

An important factor for me was that the power consumption in DDR3 at these speeds is just a fraction of similar DDR2 memory(would fry eggs at these speeds). Again, an good investment in reliability, I think.

The system is whisper silent and also very reliable. I have been running continuous burn-in tests for more that 128 hours at 4GHz. Settled finally at 3,84 GHz to leave some headroom. Temperatures are well within safety limits. CPU runs maximum utilisation at 58 degrees centigrade, memory 15 degrees below that. And with a lot of less fans required... ;)

These are personal preferences, but I opted for lower power consumption, lowest possible noise, reliability, and future proof processor with the new SSE instructions ideal for speeding the rendering in the future.

Regards,

Christian