"Bob, did you build your own?"

Yes and no. I chose the parts but let my supplier put it all togther. No charge and that way if there's any problem with the parts fitting they deal with it or ring to recommend different parts. Just as well as there was a minor tussle between the RAM and the H60 cooler.

"If so what mobo did you end up using?"

Asus P9X79-Pro LGA2011 X79

with 16GB of Corsair Vengeance Gold 240-pin DDR3 1600Mhz PC-12800

And a 240GB Intel SSD and a GTX 570 GPU. GPU isn't exactly bleeding edge but it was cheap and the bleeding edge video cards are expensive :(

"I just got done messing with V11 as it decided to crash each time I rendered to any of the ac3 audio renders for my blu ray I am working on."

It's not just the stability that puts me off. Only today I tried using V11 on another machine. Invoked the 3 way Colour Corrector and OMG, what have they done to it. Just about everything in V11 takes more mouse clicks than V9. I might as well use Ppro :)

Bob.

ah bob, i got got caught with that 3 way, but there's a tab option to go back to the old way....

and, touch wood, 11's behaving itself so far with this mass of interviews i've got to edit (3 cam each interview) x 6 x 1/2 hour

I too hate the way the new color FX look too. In Vegas 11 I have to select "custom" to get the color wheels to align horizonally rather than vertically. If I apply the color correction (secondary) FX to an entire clip, and then cut that clip into smaller portions, when I bring-up the CC (secondarfy) FX in one of the newly cut clips it forgets my display settings and I have to check the triangle or the "custom" tab again to get to the color wheel.

Very annoying. I'm not liking doing color work in V11. For now I am starting-out all projects in V9 where I do my cuts & color work. I then skip ahead to V11 when I am ready to add 3rd party FX or render. The good thing is that I have the bulk of my work done in V9 so I can always go back to an earlier save if V11 hangs. However, after the last V11 update I have experienced very few glitches.

UPDATE: Well... I ordered the parts and built my new system yesterday. Went with the Carbide 500D case with the Noctua NF-P12 fans on the H100 and WOW is this thing quiet! Thanks for that recommendation.

Unfortunately, what was to be a 2 hr build turned into an all day affair. I had a LOT of problems with the motherboard to the point of almost sending it back and getting the Intel.

On first boot it took a long time to get to the ASUS Logo where you can hit DEL to get into the BIOS. I restarted a few times and finally I got to the BIOS, looked around a bit and then decided to install Windows 7 64-bit. At the end of the install everything came up fine. So I pop in the ASUS drivers DVD and proceed to install the Intel chipset drivers. At the end, it recommends that I reboot and that's when the fun started. The system would not come back up! It got stuck at different Q-Codes each time (mostly AE) I even disconnected the hard drive but I couldn't even get the BIOS screen to appear. No amount of pressing the DEL key made it work. At this point I was really frustrated (this thing was just working!)

After several retries I got it boot and checked the BIOS date and saw that it was 3 versions old so I flashed the BIOS to the latest version. Then I reset to the defaults and saw that the memory timings were 11-11-11-28 instead of the published 9-10-9-28 so I overrode them. Then I rebooted to a Linux Live CD and ran memtest86+ through a few times and everything seemed stable. I reconnected the hard drive and everything booted.

Now I believe the system boots fine every time but I don't have the "warm fuzzies" about this system yet. :( I'm going to add the firewire card and other peripherals and see if it stays stable before transferring over my work.

Did those of you who also built this ASUS P9X79 Pro + Intel i7-3930K system have similar problems?

Is there something else I should be checking or doing?

I was really reluctant to go with ASUS and I'm still not sure I made the right choice over sticking with Intel. Thoughts?

~jr

On an old system you need to download the latest bios & drivers for your new motherboard and save them to a USB stick. Next you should update to the latest bios BEFORE doing anything else. You can install it directly from the USB stick. This allows the bios to recognize the correct processor, etc. & makes the install go much faster. You should then always match your bios memory timings to the RAM you installed. The bios does not always automatically set the correct timings depending on the RAM installed.

Once your system readily cycles through the bios sequence a few times you can start installing your OS. If Win 7 asks for drivers during install, point it to your USB stick with the latest drivers you downloaded earlier. At this point I typically make a backup image of the boot drive. Once you are within Win 7, check to see that your motherboard, SATA controller, GPU drivers, etc. are all of the latest. If not, update all of the Windows Drivers from your USB stick. If your SSD requires any additional maintenance utilities, install those...

Once you have established access to the Internet, you should allow Windows to install all of the Win updates. This can take a while. After this is done I always make another image of my final updated Win 7 OS drive. This way I have a point of return in case a program I install later really messes things.

I always install my must-have programs first and verify that the are working properly. After all of these programs are installed & updated, including any FX etc. for Vegas I make another image of the boot & program drive. Again, a point of return in case something I install later goofs things up. I also save my work & data files on another drive (RAID1). If my SSD fails, I can re-install the last image & my work is safely stored on another drive.

"

No but I had my supplier flash the BIOS to the lates version, screw all the of the system together and install Win 7/64 on the SSD.

I've installed CS5.5 and it works very well.

I did try doing a basic overclock using the Asus utility, what could go wrong?
That got me to 3.8GHz, a very mild OC.
Well next time I booted the system I got a nasty message saying the OC had failed and was being undone. So like you not 101% all is well but so far so good.

One thing to be aware of, this mobo takes 8 sticks of RAM and getting that to work reliably is a known issue with any mobo and CPU. It does push the limit on bus timing and you made need to slacken it off a bit.

If I had the money I would have down the Xeon path. Being able to use buffered ECC RAM is a huge step towards having a rock solid system.

Bob.

I too would like to add a dual 8-core Xeon to the fleet but that would cost 5X the price to achieve 2X the speed. What we need is the rumored 4+ghz 8-core I7-3980K to be released. Although just a rumor, and likely not available in 2012, I think it would sell well at $1000 per cpu without competing with Intel's Xeon market.

I als flashed to the latest Bios prior to loading any OS.
This ASUS board has a nice feature where you can do it by sticking in a USB stick (in a special USB port) without the power being turned on (power supply does need to be connected)

I am running ALL 8 mem slots (32Gig) and OC'd to 4.6Ghz I am having 0 issues with that.

The one issue that is puzzling me is the boot time seems excessive.
It will sit on the ASUS boot up screen (the one with the press DEL button message) for several minutes.

I tried to do some googling on this and found some posts regarding the SATA drivers perhaps not being up to date. After I searched and installed the latest Intel SATA drivers, it still has this issue.
I need to do more investigating as I do not like this delayed POST of the board esspecialy with a SSD as a bootdrive.

Farrs: "Well next time I booted the system I got a nasty message saying the OC had failed and was being undone. So like you not 101% all is well but so far so good."

Bob what kind of CPU cooler do you have?

Ted

> "I also flashed to the latest Bios prior to loading any OS."

It seems like most of you did that. I like to err on the side of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but it was definitely broke and the BIOS flash and adjusting the memory timings has seemed to fix it for now.

> "The one issue that is puzzling me is the boot time seems excessive."

That's my concern as well. In fact, mine takes excessively long before it even gets to the ASUS Logo screen. We'll see where it ends up after I install a firewire card and the other hard drives.

Oh... and a $320 motherboard doesn't even come with a speaker??? WOW! No wonder I can't here any beeps. lol. :) I'm ordering a $5 speaker from NewEgg. You think ASUS could have thrown that in (or at least warned people to buy one)

~jr

Jr,
I think the i7-3930 got added CPU support in one of the last BIOS updates, so I made sure I flashed it before I continued. Could be why you had issues initially.

I always had the aditude of don't fix what's not broke, but lately, even with Vegas they tell you to always make sure you have the latest drivers....., although once I get a stable system I never update the bios any longer in fear of breaking things.

Yeah, this boot time to get to POST is really strange, I still think it is some sort of SATA conflict and I plan on doing more research on it over the weekend and will report if I find out anything interesting.

Jr, you are so 1999...... lol, they have not been supplying speakers for my last 4 builds on any of the MB's. But I'm with you, when you spend over $300 for a board, I think they could sure add a $1 speaker

Ted

> "Jr, you are so 1999...... lol, "

Close... my last build was 2005! It still had a floppy drive... say no more. :)

~jr

"Bob what kind of CPU cooler do you have?"
Corsair H60. Temps are fine so I doubt that has anything to do with it plus it failed on boot i.e. within seconds of the CPU being powered.

What JR is saying about boot time is true now I think about it.
That PC with a SSD in it is no faster to boot than this office PC with a 5200RPM drive to boot from

Maybe the issue here is the number of things the BIOS supports that it has to look out for before it gets around to booting..

Bob.

I appreciate you all sharing your war stories about living on the bleeding edge.

Over the past 10 months, I've become somewhat functional with 3DS Max, After Effects, Twixtor, Optical Flares, Trapcode Suite 11, etc. Lots of hours. My comfort zone, for the most part, is in the Vegas environment, though. Anyway, lot's to juggle. After spending a lot of hours rendering and previewing, I feel the need; the need, for speed.

For the first time, I have just stepped to the edge...or rather have had CyberPower take the steps. I'm nowhere near the wiz you all are, but am learning quickly.
I've ordered a new beast; a Zeus Thunder 3000 with several modifications.
Some of the ingredients are:

- 3930K (OC'd 30% - 4.2GHz)
- ASUS (basic?) P9X79 MB. May be the same one mentioned above.
- CyberPower Xtreme Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit 360MM w/ Triple Fan (rated at 18dBA)
- 32GB DDR3 RAM (8 ea 4GB, 1600MHz, quad channel Corsair XMS3 with heat spreaders)
- A 240GB Intel 520 SSD for the system/programs (speed, reliability, 5-yr warranty)
- 3 ea 2TB Seagate 7200rpm source and render drives (may set up a RAID zero with two of them for source and project files)
- 1,000w PS
- EVGA Superclocked GTX 670 (2GB)
- Cooler Master HAF-X Full Tower Case (don't need a flashy case, but their 360mm radiator apparently fits very well in it)


CyberPower had issues with the Gigabyte MB I originally chose; GA-X79-UD5. After checking back, I see they've dropped that motherboard from their selection list.
I had originally selected Azza Hurrican 2000 Full Tower Case which, as it turns out, is not sufficient to house the radiator.

The computer is on a truck and on it's way to me as I type. Due 10 Jul (as is my CS6 Production Premium box). I'll try to contribute/report back as to whether CyberPower "Quality Control" is what it's supposed to be.

"

You may not get instant gratification with your video card. Read This.

Mikeof7 wrote: "3 ea 2TB Seagate 7200rpm source and render drives (may set up a RAID zero with two of them for source and project files)"

If you are going to go the way of the RAID, let me suggest you go with the ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard. It is built for that kind of thing. I originally made the mistake of buying a PRO version. But it turns out that ASUS places all its resources behind the WS mobo to make sure it is a true WorkStation mobo.

They constantly tweak the BIOS here and there to ensure maximum compatibility with workstation parts such as RAID cards. I am telling you, it made a huge difference with my machine.

Mikeof7 wrote "For the first time, I have just stepped to the edge..."

Looks like a very nice system, please let us know how well it performs for you.



Ted

Unfortunately, for now, I'm locked into the basic ASUS P9X79 MB. Perhaps instead of a Raid 0 with the mechanical drives, I may use some memory as a RAM disk, or use a 60GB-90GB SSD as a source or render disk, then move renders to a storage disk.

Thanks, again, for the tips.

> "Unfortunately, for now, I'm locked into the basic ASUS P9X79 MB."

I don't know what the issues were, but Videoguys.com recommended against the basic board in their DIY9 and said it was worth it to upgrade to the Pro. Since the builder will obviously stand behind this I think you can't go wrong. I looked at the WS board but it doesn't have external eSata ports which are critical for me for attaching external storage.

~jr

JohnnyRoy wrote: "I looked at the WS board but it doesn't have external eSata ports which are critical for me for attaching external storage."

Actually, eSata ports are not all that necessary. USB 3 ports are supposed to be just as fast, if not faster than eSATA.

> "Actually, eSata ports are not all that necessary. USB 3 ports are supposed to be just as fast, if not faster than eSATA."

Except if you have a bunch of external eSata enclosures that don't support USB 3.0. Then the USB 3.0ports are useless to you. ;-)

~jr

PERFORMANCE UPDATE

WOW... I did some tests against my new Core i7 3930K 3.2GHhz Sandy Bridge-E and my old Core 2 Quad (QX6700) 2.66Ghz and all I can say is WOW!!! (Did I say that already?) ;-)

Here are the tests for both the RenderTest-HDV and the RenderTest-2010 on both machines using Vegas Pro 11.0:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

| Test              Core 2 Quad    Core i7 3930K    Improvement |

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

| RenderTest-HDV       01:52          00:19            5.8x     |

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

| RenderTest-2010      07:03          01:01            6.9x     |

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

I got between a 6x - 7x improvement in render speed (or to put it another way 600% to 700% boost!!!) I realize that most of you may have upgraded to the original Core i7 a year or two ago while I stayed with the older Core 2 Quad technology so it wasn't as much of a boost for you but I couldn't be happier with my new workstation.

I'm also seeing a difference in playback speed in the render tests. I can play the RenderTest-2010 back at full frame rate using Best(Half) while on my old Quad Core, Best(Half) would only yield 12 - 15fps.

While I realized that upgrading after 5 years with the same technology was going to be a boost, I never imaged it would be a ~7x improvement. This upgrade was worth every penny. I did try some real-world renders and my hard drive light was on solid and my CPU's were not all busy. I did not use a RAID 0 for my render drive this time because all of my previous renders were CPU bound. I'm beginning to think that perhaps I have enough CPU/GPU muscle now that I should reconsider that decision and create a RAID 0 again. More testing is definitely needed.

Thanks to all those who helped me with recommendations. My final build contains (some of it taken from my old PC):

Case: Corsair Carbide Series 500R Black Steel
Power Supply:  CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850
Motherboard:  ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 ATX Intel
CPU:  Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo)
CPU Cooling: CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Liquid CPU Cooler w/Noctua NF-P12-1300 120mm CPU Cooler Fan
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
HardDrive1 (boot): Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SATA III Solid State Drive (SSD)
HardDrive2 (media):  3TB Western Digital SATA2 5400-7200
HardDrive3 (video):  2TB Western Digital WDC WD20 01FASS-00W2B0
Media Reader:  Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader
Blu-ray/DVD:  Pioneer Blu-ray BD-RW BDR-207
Graphics Card: PNY NVIDIA Quadro 4000
Video Monitors: 2x ASUS ProArt PA246Q (1920x1200 Widescreen)
Video Capture: Canopus ADVC-300 / Rosewill PCIE FireWire 1394a Card 2+1 Ports Model RC-504
Sound:  M-Audio Firewire 410
Speakers: M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 System + LX4 5.1 Expander System
Keyboard:  Logitech Illuminated Keyboard
Mouse:  Logitech MX510 Optical Mouse
Operating Sys: Microsoft Windows 7 64 Home Premium

... and no floppy drive :'(

~jr