Recommendations for board for video editing.

[Roger Buchanan]

I'm figuring out what kind of parts I need to get, but could use some
help. The last system that I worked on building was a, ahem..., P-75...
<weak grin> Lots has changed since then...

I want to build a system for editing home video type things.

So far I know I want a motherboard with 800mhz FSB, Dual Channel Memory,
Intel chipset, NO integrated video/audio, SATA capable and able to run 4
or more Gigs of RAM. I'm not looking to overclock anything, or do any
"tweaks". Just want reliable and reasonable performance right outta the
box.

What other requirements should I be looking for???

Thanks in advance.
--
- Rog

http://www.wpcusrgrp.org/~rogerbuchanan/index.html

NOTE: to Reply to this, remove the phrase "NOSPAM"
from my "Reply To:" address, or it will be returned.

 

[Phil]

I'm figuring out what kind of parts I need to get, but could use some
help. The last system that I worked on building was a, ahem..., P-75...
<weak grin> Lots has changed since then...

I want to build a system for editing home video type things.

So far I know I want a motherboard with 800mhz FSB, Dual Channel Memory,
Intel chipset, NO integrated video/audio, SATA capable and able to run 4
or more Gigs of RAM. I'm not looking to overclock anything, or do any
"tweaks". Just want reliable and reasonable performance right outta the
box.

What other requirements should I be looking for???

When you say "4GB or more", this is the limit for 32bit CPUs, if you think
you may be requiring more RAM you should seriously consider a 64bit system,
which can handle insane amounts of RAM.

 

[Leythos]

When you say "4GB or more", this is the limit for 32bit CPUs, if you think
you may be requiring more RAM you should seriously consider a 64bit system,
which can handle insane amounts of RAM.

He's going to need more than XP Professional too. If you're serious
about performance, get a Dual CPU board, 4GB of RAM, and at least 3 hard
drives - two act as a MIRROR for the OS and source files, the third is
the one you write the final video to while reading the parts from the
mirrored set. This gives you the redundancy to keep the system running
and a alternate drive that permits the heads (r/w) to move without
having to reposition while reading the source.

A Dual Xeon system with Windows 2003 Server Standard would scream in
this setting. XP Prof does support the RAM and CPU's, but it will only
see 2 CPU's, not 4 if you have Xeon's - since HT makes it look like 2
CPU for each physical one installed.

 

[Phil]

He's going to need more than XP Professional too. If you're serious
about performance, get a Dual CPU board, 4GB of RAM, and at least 3 hard
drives - two act as a MIRROR for the OS and source files, the third is
the one you write the final video to while reading the parts from the
mirrored set. This gives you the redundancy to keep the system running
and a alternate drive that permits the heads (r/w) to move without
having to reposition while reading the source.

A Dual Xeon system with Windows 2003 Server Standard would scream in
this setting. XP Prof does support the RAM and CPU's, but it will only
see 2 CPU's, not 4 if you have Xeon's - since HT makes it look like 2
CPU for each physical one installed.

http://uk.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?langs=11&m=PC-DL Deluxe

-Supports Intel Xeon processor with 512K cache up to 3.06GHz+
-Supports 533MHz FSB
-Supports ECC/Non-ECC based 128MB to 4GB memory capacity
-Promise PDC20378 Serial ATA controller
-Supports 2 x Serial ATA ports and 1 x ATA133 channel
-Supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1 function. Also support RAID function across Serial
ATA & ATA133 channel
-2 x ATA100 IDE connectors, 1 x ATA133 IDE connector
-4 x Serial ATA connectors

It has o/b sound, but I'm sure this can be disabled in BIOS

 

[Paul]

I'm figuring out what kind of parts I need to get, but could use some
help. The last system that I worked on building was a, ahem..., P-75...
<weak grin> Lots has changed since then...

I want to build a system for editing home video type things.

So far I know I want a motherboard with 800mhz FSB, Dual Channel Memory,
Intel chipset, NO integrated video/audio, SATA capable and able to run 4
or more Gigs of RAM. I'm not looking to overclock anything, or do any
"tweaks". Just want reliable and reasonable performance right outta the
box.

What other requirements should I be looking for???

Thanks in advance.

I guess my first question would be whether a video editing program
can actually use all that RAM. Perhaps Photoshop could make use
of it, for very large images at high DPI, but I would think that
video simply wouldn't benefit. I mean, if you had enough RAM, at
some point you could hold the entire clip in memory, but how much
memory would it take to hold a couple hours of video ? At some point
the video is staged on a disk, for input or output, and there
really isn't any advantage to holding a lot of the clip in memory.

First, you should do some checking as how much RAM people buy, for
use with the same video editing suite you plan on using. Maybe you'll
find that 1GB is enough not to limit performance.

There are limits to both program design and OS design, as to how
much memory an individual program can use, and what the split is
between the OS and userland. For example, with no modifications,
your average OS would give 2GB OS and 2GB programs. With a command
line switch, some can be convinced to do 1GB OS and 3GB programs.
Then the program itself has to be compiled to handle a 3GB space
instead of 2GB.

The bottom half of this post is where I learned about some of this:
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

In terms of motherboards, the P4C800/P4P800 use 875/865 chipsets, and
have four DIMM slots, for using 4GB of memory. But, the PCI and AGP
devices need some address space, in order for the processor to access
them, and this address space comes at the expense of main memory. You
lose a portion of main memory as a result. Typically, you might see
3.5GB of memory available, when plugging in four 1GB DIMMs.

The latest series of motherboards P5xxx, use the 925/915 chipsets.
These also have four DIMM slots, and depending on the motherboard,
use DDR or DDR2 memory. They have the same issue with memory space,
but because the boards now include PCI Express card slots, even
more address space is wasted, at the expense of main memory. Using
four 1GB DIMMs, you might see 3.0GB of memory available.

See section 2.2.1 of these two Intel motherboard manuals, for details
on where the numbers come from:

ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/bz/C3176501.pdf
ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/cv/C6859701.pdf

In terms of performance, you might be thinking that buying 2x1GB
plus 2x512MB DIMMs would be the right solution. If you do that, you
can lose 20% memory bandwidth compared to 4x1GB DIMMs. So, depending
on whether this computer is for a home business, the economics of
your time might dictate buying the more expensive memory
configuration, even if some of it is thrown away. This was detailed
in an Anandtech article:

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=1839&p=6

If this is a home business, you might also consider hardware
acceleration for video editing. The main benefit of acceleration
hardware, is it can do format conversion for the output process,
so you aren't limited by the performance of the processor for
whatever form of compression the format uses. The hardware is
also capable of doing some acceleration for simple transitions,
but many of the effects also rely on the processor for assistance,
so you don't get complete hardware acceleration. These cards can
be expensive, like $3000+, but if you are serious about your
platform design, might be work looking into.

http://www.canopus.us/US/products/Index/product_index.asp (DVRex)

There are also some drool worthy motherboards on the following
web sites, but it may be hard to take advantage of them for other
than server type applications. The software would be the limitation
here:

http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/products/html/matrix.html
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/matrix/

HTH,
Paul

 

[DaveW]

The maximum amount of RAM that consumer motherboards can use is 3 GB in
essentially all cases.

 

[Doug Ramage]

A Dual Xeon system with Windows 2003 Server Standard would scream in
this setting. XP Prof does support the RAM and CPU's, but it will only
see 2 CPU's, not 4 if you have Xeon's - since HT makes it look like 2
CPU for each physical one installed.

Not so. I have 2 x Xeon cpus with XP Pro, and 4 cpus (2 physical + 2 logical
for HT) are shown in Task Manager.

 

[Doug Ramage]

In terms of performance, you might be thinking that buying 2x1GB
plus 2x512MB DIMMs would be the right solution. If you do that, you
can lose 20% memory bandwidth compared to 4x1GB DIMMs. So, depending
on whether this computer is for a home business, the economics of
your time might dictate buying the more expensive memory
configuration, even if some of it is thrown away. This was detailed
in an Anandtech article:

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=1839&p=6

Paul

Thanks for that info, Paul.

I have been using 2 x 512Mb (PC4000) and 2 x256Mb (PC3200) in my PC-DL
(Intel 875 chipset)mobo. This is because my backup system will no longer
boot with the 256Mb sticks (TwinMOS) so it has 2 x 512Mb installed.

I removed the 2 x 256Mb sticks and the AIDA32 memory scores went by over
20%.

I was going to buy some 1Gb sticks (one now and another later), but I shall
now rethink that strategy. It looks like it may be two more PC4000 sticks.

 

[Pete D]

Except all the ones that have 800Mhz FSB and will take 4Gb like the
P4P80XXXX's.

That said, you don't need that much memory for video work.

For the best advice you can get pop over to rec.video.desktop they are a
friendly bunch that will clear up your misconceptions and point you in the
right direction.

Cheers.

Pete D

 

[Paul]

Except all the ones that have 800Mhz FSB and will take 4Gb like the
P4P80XXXX's.

That said, you don't need that much memory for video work.

For the best advice you can get pop over to rec.video.desktop they are a
friendly bunch that will clear up your misconceptions and point you in the
right direction.

Cheers.

Pete D

I agree with the second part of the post, but your first point needs
some elaboration. An 875/865 based board happily takes 4x1GB sticks,
but there is an address space problem. The Northbridge is limited to
a 4GB address space, and from that space, you need to address PCI cards,
the AGP slot, and the memory you just plugged in. The PCI and AGP
cards might need 500-700MB of address space, and that must be subtracted
from the 4GB of DIMMs. There is a register in the Northbridge called
"top of ram" or the like, and the BIOS programs it, such that there is
room for PCI and AGP. You cannot access memory any higher than the
setting of that register.

Paul

 

[Pete D]

I agree with the second part of the post, but your first point needs
some elaboration. An 875/865 based board happily takes 4x1GB sticks,
but there is an address space problem. The Northbridge is limited to
a 4GB address space, and from that space, you need to address PCI cards,
the AGP slot, and the memory you just plugged in. The PCI and AGP
cards might need 500-700MB of address space, and that must be subtracted
from the 4GB of DIMMs. There is a register in the Northbridge called
"top of ram" or the like, and the BIOS programs it, such that there is
room for PCI and AGP. You cannot access memory any higher than the
setting of that register.

Paul

That may be the case but all I said was that the boards will take 4Gb. Tas
all.