Review Video Editing Enthusiast PC Build for PowerDirector (with some component questions)

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metazone21

Newbie Joined: Aug 19, 2012 00:15 Messages: 22 Offline

Solved by

Dec 27, 2012 21:35

Approximate Purchase Date: by mid jan 2013
Budget Range: <= $2500
System Usage: Video editing - Enthusiast (not pro; maybe prosumer), adding transitions, captions, and some special effects from multiple video sources that will currently be captured from Canon HV20 (HDV) and then copied from Hard Drive / Flash camcorder as Full HD (AVCHD, 1080i) and then exported/rendered in original source ( H.264 1920 x 1080/60i 24 Mbps). I plan on saving the original footage (before editing) on DVDs, etc. and bringing in source files for editing onto external hard drives. Intended NLE: Cyberlink PowerDirector 11 Ultra but I want to make sure the computer can handle it if I switch to a different prosumer / enthusiast NLE (I know that the NLE has to be specifically written to leverage CPU cores/multiple CPUs and Multiple GPUs/CUDA cores).

Note: Storage configuration was distributed into 3 drives using following recs:Click - Video Guys Storage FAQ and Click - 2010 post showing storage distribution (w/o RAID)
SPECS:
OS: Win-7 Pro Should I get Win 8?
Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V Pro; (Click - ASUS Specs) Cons: only 4 SATA III, no firewire, expansion not as good as Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H
CPU: Core i7-3770K w/ HD4000; Reasons: fast (Click - Current CPU benchmarks/ratings), has integrated HD4000 graphics controller that performed well in testing with PowerDirector (see GPU)
Power Supply: CORSAIR Pro Gold (CMPSU-850AX) 850W (Click - CORSAIR Pro Gold Details)
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32 GB (8x4GB) DDR3 1600; (Click - G.SKILL Memory) Reasons: G.SKILL recommended; above 1600 MHz not needed?
CPU Cooling (all-in-one - cools only the CPU): Which one? All-in-one Corsair Hydro Series H100 (Click - H100) or Noctua NH-D14 Processor cooler (Click - Noctua) or Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo RR-212E-20PK-R2 (Click - Hyper 212);
Boot drive (OS and programs): Which one? Internal SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SSD (Click - 840 Pro 256GB) or Mushkin MKNSSDCR240GB-DX: 240 GB, SATA 6Gb/s (Click - Mushkin 240GB); Reasons: fast OS and NLE bootup (won’t speed rendering/editing); 256GB b/c PD needs 100 GB of free space (WinOS + PD size < 100 GB); Connection: SATA III. Reasons: 6 Gb/s for SSD
Export/Render Drive: Internal SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 128GB SSD (Click - 840 Pro 128 GB); Reasons: Faster video rendering/exporting; Connection : SATA III Reasons: 6 Gb/s for SSD
Video Storage (including source files for editing): One or two 2TB external 7200 RPM WD RE4 WD2003FYYS 2000 drives (CLick - WD RE4) Reasons: SSD and 10000 RPM HDDs too expensive, >=7200 RPM HD for higher video formats, >= 32MB cache; fast: (Click - Internal HD Tests) If I don't put them into RAID0, I should just get one for now or two and have write/read on separate drives?
Case: Which one? COOLER MASTER, HAF 932 Advanced (RC-932-KKN5-GP) (Click - HAF 932) or Cooler Master Storm Enforcer SGC-1000-KWN1 (Click - Storm Enforcer); Reasons: HAF 932 has recommended fan locations: front, back, and on top; fits at least 4 HDs and SSDs, good cable management
GPU: Which one? 2 x MSI R7970-2PMD3GD5/OC: Radeon HD 7970 3 GB (Click - Radeon HD 7970) In CrossFire (Toms Hardware - see below) or GTX 580 (Click - GTX580). Do I need to use SLI/Crossfire? Do I even need an extra GPU given the HD4000 on the CPU? 2 tests w/ PowerDirector Ultra 11 show HD4000 is sufficient: Click - PowerDirector test with AMD HD 7750 GPU and HD4000 and Click - PowerDirector testing with HD4000 and EVGA GTX470 PDF )
Display: ASUS, VW246H Black LCD Monitor, 24" TFT Full HD, 1920x1080, w/ Speakers (Click - ASUS Display)
Blu-Ray: Pioneer BDR-207 (Click - BDR-207)

Additional Questions:
1) Should I instead just go for Toms Hardware configuration: Click - System Builder Marathon, Q4 2012: $2,000 Performance PC
2) Is this system overkill for what I explained my usage is?
3) Use RAID0 for speed? One site recommended configuring the two 7200 RPMs in RAID0 for speed - if I use a h/w RAID controller (to avoid load on CPU for RAID), should I or is this overkill?
4) Should I overclock the cpu? If so, should I wait until the next stepping of Ivy Bridge in hopes that the heat issue will be resolved? Click - Ivy Bridge runs hotter when overclocked
5) Are the fans sufficient to cool the other components (not the CPU)? Should I use a fan controller?

Thanks -
Bill

pvrvideoman

Newbie Joined: Nov 26, 2012 21:03 Messages: 20 Offline

Dec 28, 2012 09:05

As far as I'm aware:

No you should not get Windows 8. If you want to get it, then contact customer support for installation verification.

Above 1600mhz on the RAM not needed.

Check this article for performance and noise comparisons between coolers of this type - http://www.anandtech.com/show/6530/closing-the-loop-contained-liquidcoolers-from-corsair-and-nzxt-compared

Samsung 840 for the boot drive. Make sure you have the latest firmware.

If you have that much video to store, get 2 x 2TB HD's and put them into RAID 1. RAID 0 seems useless and wasteful in this scenario. Your render/export drive is an SSD. The HD's are for storage only.

If you are building this system for gaming, the choice is yours as far as the cards go. They are overkill as far as PD is concerned. In fact, PD doesn't seem to benefit from fast GPU's. Even though they advertise support for CUDA, Open CL, True VELOCITY, and all that jazz, the CPU seems to be the most important piece in the equation. Quick Sync might be the best option.

You might want to look at Sony Vegas, or another program to truly leverage the power of the hardware in your machine. Seriously. PD was created for people with minimal hardware to be able to create nice videos. I'm learning that right now. I just spent $275 on upgrades that did not change editing or rendering performance. Check this link: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/26161.page

Hope this helps a bit.

metazone21

Newbie Joined: Aug 19, 2012 00:15 Messages: 22 Offline

Dec 28, 2012 13:35

Thanks - I read your scenario ... it was helpful.

BTW, 2 of those links in the GPU area show some strong improvement w/ h/w - e.g. BeFe was able to cut his rendering time to what looks like about 35% of his original, benchmarked time before his tweaks (e.g. went from 7 minutes to 2.5 minutes). However, his and JL's testing make a case to not have the extra GPU (rely on HD4000 only). Note that I've read that Sony Vegas doesn't leverage the GPU either (its 'parallelized' code leverages the processing part as opposed to the video). As an aside, I don't know if the s/w has to be specifically written to leverage SLI/CrossFire (or whether that parallel activity occurs independent of how the code is structured).

I was looking at RAID0 (don't care about RAID1 for data redundancy) b/c of speed of the HDs b/c these will contain the source video for the project (therefore, during rendering, the project reads these sources, applies codecs, etc. and outputs results to export drive). From my limited understanding, what goes against the idea of a fast export drive would be what someone said about the CPU and GPU being the primary bottlenecks during rendering. That even w/ smart rendering (like PD's SVRT) that results in less rendering and less load on CPU and GPU, there's still not a big load on the export storage drive. I don't know...

What I'll do is:
Download a trial of PD Ultra 11 and another NLE onto my laptop and get a feeling of what I need - see where the bottlenecks are.
Buy a system w/ my specs but only the CPU's HD4000 (no extra GPU - will upgrade to another GPU and determine if SLI/CrossFire is needed).
Get just the 1TB WD 7200 RPM and hold off on RAID0 (but i did read an article that said a BIOS variable ('Intel SATA') needs to be set for ASUS mobo before installing Windows (!) -
Click here - BIOS for RAID on ASUS mobo