Quick i7 spec check

[Olimain]

Just a quick one, does this all look like it will go together and be nice and quick? Will be used for editing/encoding uncompressed video. 4 HDDs will form 2 x RAID0 for scratch disks and source footage.

Many thanks

Oli

[handscombmp]

Need the spec to look at

[Olimain]

It's there, the embedded JPEG...

[handscombmp]

Must be being blocked then by my isp.

I'll have another check soon.

[petercook7]

dont really get it, your spending x y and x yet you buying a poor looking case and a 400watt psu.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH, for video encoding on of the Phenom II X6 processors would be better!

I would check out these reviews:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/a...55t-reviewed/6

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1853&pageID=8962

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...6_1090t/6.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-10.html

[Olimain]

dont really get it, your spending x y and x yet you buying a poor looking case and a 400watt psu.

I calculated that 400W would be fine for this, and case wise, it's just a box to house the bits, I'm not at all bothered what it looks like as it's going to be in the corner of the office

[petercook7]

I calculated that 400W would be fine for this, and case wise, it's just a box to house the bits, I'm not at all bothered what it looks like as it's going to be in the corner of the office

ok but i think you would need a bigger watt powersupply, you dont want to strain the psu, as lifetime reduces faster.

[jim]

I doubt it, 400W will probably be ample.

Hexus test last week found i7 @ 4.0GHz with two Radeon 5870s in CrossfireX used 465W at load - this shouldn't get anywhere near that.

[Olimain]

Thanks for this, though really I need to be Intel as I also intend on using this for another project which is Intel only I'm afraid. I like the results the i5 670 produced though, maybe a better alternative to the i7 for this purpose?

The machine will be running Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 (with a likely upgrade to CS5) and a Blackmagic Decklink Extreme HD card if that helps...

TBH, for video encoding on of the Phenom II X6 processors would better!

I would check out these reviews:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/a...55t-reviewed/6

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1853&pageID=8962

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...6_1090t/6.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-10.html

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get a better case with some hard drive cooling.

The NZXT Beta Evo has a 120MM fan blowing across the hard drives:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/NZXT-...r-Case-w-o-PSU

I would also get a few more 120MM fans too to keep everything cool.

This Gigabyte motherboard has a pair of SATA 3.0 connectors which should be useful in the future:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...6Gb-s-RAID-ATX

AFAIK, you will need to also get the appropriate SATA 3.0 cable for any SATA 3.0 device.

If you want to save some money the slightly lower clocked Core i7 920 is also worth considering:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...io-130W-Retail

Also I would be considering a faster hard drive for the RAID array such as the Samsung F3:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500Gb...-Cache-8ms-OEM

A modular PSU is worth the extra cost as it will help cut down on cable clutter in the case and hence improve airflow. Also make sure you have enough SATA power connectors too.

[Olimain]

Thank you Cat, all duly noted and updated:

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It might be also worth checking the Scan special offers web pages just in case some parts are cheaper:

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

http://www.scan.co.uk/ShopOffers/Index.aspx

Edit!!

Make sure you have enough have SATA data cables for the build and perhaps some cable ties too.

[Olimain]

Yep thousands of cable ties here and I'll definitely be checking Scan's offers / eBuyer before committing to purchase - it was just really to get a spec together before the final push.

One question - is that RAM decent? There's some Kingston RAM on eBuyer at a slightly better price - worth considering?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152065

[jim]

I'd save the money myself and go for the bare Kingston modules - it's a fairly big chunk of cash and there won't be a difference.

It comes down to the warranty above anything else really.

[arthurleung]

I do some encoding myself, and you can easily save the space by using compressed codec like x264 loseless, lagarith or huffyuv. These lossless compression cut space requirement by 70~95% and use minimal amount of CPU power. The I/O CPU usage to read+write @ 178MB/s will probably be quite high anyway.

1080p 30FPS will require 178MB/s on read and write side, which your 500GB disks will struggle near the end. The 2x500GB will also only handle 92 minutes of your uncompressed video.

I've been through uncompressed video which was just a space waster with no benefit. I use some small USB Green HDDs that I don't use anymore or another disk over the GbE for lossless scratch disk. No speed penalty at all.

What kind of processing are you looking at? You're unlikely to need more than 6GB of ram.