Super Fast Computer for Video Editing

I recently put together from scratch a high performance desktop PC after I quickly determined that buying a comparable machine was more than 2x the cost and still would not have many of the features I was looking for such as USB 3.0, (4.8 Gbps!) and SATA 3 (which has speeds of 6 Gbps), overclocking capability, lots of expansion ports, a power supply which could handle any type of computer upgrades with out an upgrade.

My main problem with my existing desktop (DELL XPS with Intel^® Pentium^® Extreme Edition Dual-Core with HT Technology – (3.20GHz,800MHz FSB,2MB Cache)  was how painful it was to edit HD DSLR video.

Its a know fact that High Definition Video Editing and Video Compression/transcoding is one of the most CPU and memory intensive applications today.  And as I have found there is nothing worse than wasting your time trying to edit HD video, on a sub-par machine.  After all Time does equal Money.

I picked up all of the parts on a recent evening locally at FRY’s Electronics.  If you don’t happen to live near a FRYs store the same components are available online from retailers such as Newegg.

• Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W Power Supply,
  • Antec Manual
• Intel i7-980X Extreme Edition Processor
  • the fastest most powerful CPU available today,
  • Intel i7-980X Press Slides
• Asus P6X58D Motherboard
  • excellent overclocking options
  • One of the best featured MotherBoard supporting the Intel i7-980X today.
  • Intel x58 chipset
• Cooler Master Haf 932 Case
• EVGA eForce PCI Xpress 2.0 GT240 Graphics card with 1GB DDR3
  • a cost saver for the time being.  Only finally in CS5 do we have some use of the graphics card for processing but for limited functions.
  • If I was a gamer, this would be a bottleneck.
• Kingston 12GB DDR3 Triple Channel Memory(3 x 4GB) @1600MHz
• LG Internal  GH24 LightScribe DVD RW with SATA interface
• Hitachi 2TB SATA 2 7200 drive
  • super cheap on sale locally at FRYs
• Logitech G15 gaming Keyboard
  • I wanted a keyboard with lighted keys, so I could work in the dark!  A definite benefit.
• Windows 7 64 bit, Ultimate Edition
  • Absolutely need 64 bit OS to take advantage of my installed memory, and the benefit of new 64 bit native apps, such as Adobe CS5, which became available this week.
  • Other benefits to Win 7 ultimate edition, such as BitLocker, etc.

Build Comments:

• It wasn’t very apparent how to install the CPU and heatsink assembly on the motherboard.  This video from Intel helped explain the installation process.  This is probably the most critical step, as you don’t want to damage a $1000 CPU.

Upgrades for consideration:

• Faster Drives:
  • addition of a Solid State drive(s) with SATA 3 and/or addition of RAID configuration utilizing traditional hard drives .
• Additional monitors including 30″ LCD
• Faster Graphics card(s)
• Blue-Ray disc Reader/Writer

For comparision, I spec-out a similarly configured Alienware machine (Dell), and it was over $7000,  more than 2x of what I paid for my homebuilt system.  Also there were no possible configurations to get USB 3.0 or SATA 3, which i have in my system.

More details and benchmarks coming, Check back on this blog.