Movie Making / Video Encoding Rig - Need advice

[AshWar]

Howdy Anandtech Community!

After building 2 gaming rigs for me and my girlfriend, her uncle wants me to build a rig for movie making / video encoding. While I know what parts make a good gaming rig, I?m clueless about making a sweet movie making rig so I could use some advice.

CPU: Quad Q9550 or Q6600? ? He really wants a quad and seemed happy with the Q9550. For making movies, is it worth it over the Q6600?

RAM: 8Gigs or 16Gigs? - I had originally planned on 8Gigs but was wondering if pushing to 16Gigs had impact on compiling speeds with the current software out there.

VIDEO CARD: 4850 1GB or 4870 1GB? I?ll be going the 1GB verion of either model as he?ll be running a 30? monitor at max res. He does do some gaming. Single player RPG?s, Single player mode of some FPS?s, nothing online. Is there an impact on movie making that justifies the 4870?

TV TUNER CARD: He has an older one in his old system and wants it in this new bad boy. Any recommendations on a nice new one? Is there anything I should be aware of when running a TV tuner card along with the Video card? For PSU calcuations, I?m just adding an extra 20-30W to the total based on some of the online tools out there (If I need to think higher, please let me know )

Other notes:
1. He won?t be overclocking.
2. We?re shooting for ?Best bang for the buck? but he?s willing to burn extra money for good components.
3. Parts will be bought in the U.S.
4. He?s patient but wants the machine within the next month

That?s about it so far. The other components I have planned out and some will be determined by answers to the above questions.

Thanks for reading and any advice you may have!

 

[DSF]

16 GB is an expensive proposition right now, and it won't really help much.

Either video card is way overpowered for simple movie-making. In terms of gaming, what games is he playing? If they're older games then it shouldn't matter too much. If he wants to be able to play newer games regularly, then I'd go with the 4870 1GB. 30" is a big screen.

You could also consider the Q8xxx quad cores like the Q8200, which are built on the 45-nm process but with less cache, making them less expensive. I don't know whether the lower cache impacts video work or not.

 

[Slugbait]

GPU encoding is still at the gestation stage, so don't consider the card as an option for video rendering yet. If he wants to play Crysis on a 30" monitor at native rez, then yeah, consider the 4870...or something a lot faster.

I've made a few family movies...my old machine had one gig of RAM, my current machine has two. Eight gigs should be overkill (with a BFG in a knife-fight kind of overkill). Note that you will install a 64-bit OS for that much memory. But I digress, an insane amount of RAM is not going to significantly affect performance.

A larger amount of CPU cache also is not going to significantly improve perf (if at all...). With that said, megahertz rulz...go with the Q9550, especially for media editing. It runs cooler, too. Then overclock the mofo anyway...

I have a couple of older TV tuner cards...one of them is a 250MCE, which is still pretty much current. Whaddya got right now?

Don't just add an extra 20-30W, or trust online tools...you'll stand a good chance of missing your goal by a long shot (especially if it's a crappy PSU), and it has to be replaced if you add anything else or upgrade later. The 15% off code for this PP&C 750W expires today, and the rebate expires Friday, but regardless...less than $90 shipped is a pretty fraking good deal on this unit.

 

[DSF]

If you're planning on buying a 750W PSU, the Corsair 750TX is generally less expensive than that PCP&C, and of high quality. However, you really don't need 750W for that setup, even with a 4870 and a tuner card.

 

[cessation]

If he wants the videos encoded fast the CPU(s) would probably be the most important component. There's dual and quad socket motherboards out there you can put quad core CPUs in. That route isn't cheap though, and of course the software would need to take advantage of those multiple CPUs.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: DSF
If you're planning on buying a 750W PSU, the Corsair 750TX is generally less expensive than that PCP&C, and of high quality. However, you really don't need 750W for that setup, even with a 4870 and a tuner card.

Eep. Eight bucks difference ain't worth it. Well, actually the PP&C is 15% more expensive now, but the cost has been low and fluctuating lately. Regardless, probably still worth it without the coupon...

 

[Blain]

:shocked: At the risk of being mobbed by the townsfolk here...
RAID 0 helps when working with large video files. 2 x WD 640GB (SE16 or Black), would be sweet.

Caveat: Make sure Uncle Bill will be religious about his backups.
Possibly even using a third 640GB WD as a storage drive.

 

[Syran]

Might want to check out some workstation/server type boards. From what little I know about this, Cores & Memory are of the biggest priority. This would allow you to do Dual Quad Core. The motherboard has 8 memory slots, so I'd start out with 8GB (4x 2GB) to start out with, knowing you can expand to 16GB if needed. Just an idea


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[Blain]

Uncle Bill is cheap. I don't think he'll spring for a dual qaud rig.