Video Editing PC

I'm looking into an HD Video editing PC. My system is antiquated, lacks RAM, and really hurts when it tries to render/preview/edit some videos in Premiere and After Effects.

I have the following Dell system lined up

Dell Studio XPS 9100
Intel® Core™i7-930 processor(8MB L2 Cache, 2.80GHz)
12GB Tri Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 6 DIMMs
23.0" Dell ST2310 Full HD Monitor
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 (will likely swap this out for an Adobe CS5 supported nVidia GPU)
1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
Blu-ray Combo Drive (8X BD-R, DVD+/-RW) with DVD+R double layer write capability
THX® TruStudio PC™

Total: $1500


What do you guys think about this as far as performance and value?

OR

Dell Studio XPS 8100 (Outlet)
Intel Core i7-870 Processor (8MB Cache, 2.93GHz)
640 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
8X BD Writer (BD Read/ Write + DVDRW)
1024MB nVidia GeForce GTS 240 (will hack the CS5 file to get this to run Mercury engine)
Thermal Module Heatsink,95W
Hauppauge HVR1250 Hybrid TV Tuner
No Monitor (Could use my current Samsung 2220WM monitor)

Total $1100

I have two 1TB 7200 RPM drives in my current (slow) machine that will swap over, so the difference comes down to RAM, monitor, and CPU... and GPU to an extent. Ideally I'd like to get a nVidia GTX 470 in either machine. I'm hoping to future proof my setup for the next 3-4 years.

Dell studio xps 8100
8GB RAM sounds more reasonable. 12gb is too much. I run vegas, architect, and after effects but never gotten over 5GB of RAM

if you can use that vid card for your Mercury engine playback, go for it. I don't like the idea of buying stuff and have to replace it immediately.

Go w/ dual monitor.

definitely go dual monitor. And I agree with going for one of the nVidia cards that supports the new CS5 playback engine.

I would also say (depending on how savvy you are) you might want to look into building your own. I have built two so far and it is really fairly simple. Plus I just hate Dell :P

also, depending on what you are doing video-wise (i.e. for pay or not) think about setting up a RAID 1 set-up with your TB drives. Redundancy on data, especially if paid is very, very important.

Thanks, everyone. I looked into piecing together a similarly spec'd PC and the cost just kept getting higher than going the Dell route. Plus, I don't really feel like dealing with possible busted/DOA RAM/Mobo/etc and warranty issues (I've had headaches doing this in the past).

The other Dell Outlet deal expired, so I was able to configure this for $1273 including Tax/Shipping

Dell Studio XPS 9100
Intel® Core™i7-930 processor(8MB L2 Cache, 2.80GHz)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 6 DIMMs
23.0" Dell ST2310 Full HD Monitor
nVidia GeForce G310 512MB (will likely swap this out for an Adobe CS5 supported nVidia GPU later)
1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
16X DVD+/-RW
THX® TruStudio PC™
2 year Warranty included.

I'll use the 23" LCD for a dual monitor setup, and saved myself about $500 over building my own. The only downside to this PC I can see is lack of SLI support and a 575watt power supply.

Add to that my current 1TB drives (will set them up in RAID 1), my Samsung 2220WM, and I'm set for several years of Photo/Video editing.


PS, I think it would be great for others to post their editing PC specs. It took me hours to scour the net for what's adequate and what's overkill when I realized I needed to upgrade.

I built my own about 6 months ago, it was my first time builing and was building in anticipation of my first camera, a Canon vixia HF200. My specs are

Intel i7 860
4GB of DDR3 RAM
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD
ATI Radeon 5850

As well as my PSU, MOBO, Card readers, etc. My build came out to about $1350 with my monitor, which is a 23" HP monitor that was $200. I got the processor and motherboard for a steal at a Fry's store. Biostar TP55 mobo for free when buying the i7 860 for $20 off. Not bad.

It has been holding up REALLY well. I use an Antec 300 case which is large enough to fit the gigantic 5850. I do some gaming, but I wish I would have gone Nvidia. I have been thinking about picking up a lesser expesnive Nvidia GTX card and using the firmware hack to enable the mercury engine to work on it, so having two GPU's. I honostly dont know how possible that is though, heh. Oh yeah, I am on Windows 7.

I used to use Vegas 9. But then CS5 came out. Vegas is no longer on my computer. Real time editing within Premiere is fantastic even without an Nvidia card. For a recent video I made I loaded all of my t2i's video files in their .mov h.264 format, I had about 40 clips in the media bin through out the whole project and most of it was just sequencing the clips and shortening them, and adding music. No color grading was done. I did create some titles in After Effects, and when they played back, they got choppy. The integration of AE in Premiere is super, I must say. Render times are very acceptable as well.

More and more support is made w/ Nvidia graphic cards. I recommend ppl to go w/ Nvidia.

Agree with Trey, go with nVidia video card, and also try to add a faster main HDD. Recently I built a computer for a customer to edit HD videos and got him 300GB WD 10,000 RPM HDD and he said its a night and day difference between the 7,200 RPM HDD.

And he has 2TB of storage along with primary 300GB for editing.

drPheta wrote in post #10945189
Thanks, everyone. I looked into piecing together a similarly spec'd PC and the cost just kept getting higher than going the Dell route. Plus, I don't really feel like dealing with possible busted/DOA RAM/Mobo/etc and warranty issues (I've had headaches doing this in the past).

Building your own is the way to go, but there is another way to address your concerns. Have it built to your specs locally at an established shop. If there are any problems you won't be face with any shipping, just take it in.

i would IMO build your own system you cannot go wrong and i dislike dell

Video editing? NVIDIA Quadro would be best for this.

jaycky wrote in post #10960769
i would IMO build your own system you cannot go wrong and i dislike dell

AGREED!!! (the disliking Dell part)

I built one about a year and a half ago, it was:

Intel Core 2 Quad @ 3.16 Ghz
4 GB Ram
32GB SSD as the boot drive
1TB data vault
1GB ATI Radeon

It is still pretty fast, but not really up to editing the .mov out of the Canons. I had to convert them. I got a MacBook Pro i7 that I am using now.

JPM, I bet if you swapped the ATI card for a nVidia GTX it'd be up to par for editing.

As I said earlier, I'd build my own but the cost was already several hundred more than the Dell I had pieced together. And, to avoid DOA boards/chips and returns/downtime having CyberPowerPC or iBuyPower build it adds even more.

If you buy at the right time, Dell PCs are actually pretty good. This machine I built really only has one major downside, and that is it only has 1 PCI x16 2.0 slot... so no SLI graphics capability. But, for Premiere CS5 it's not necessary. A GTX 470 should do plenty well with an i7 930 and 8GB of RAM. 2 Year warranty also makes it pretty attractive.

You could log into the Dell support forums and get an idea as to how the various issues are being handled by Dell support.

Yeah, I have since switched to Mac, so that computer got downgraded to the family computer (for which is it WAY overpowered)