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Storage Specs for a Photoshop & Premiere Workstation - Whaddya think?

J

JPS

Golden Member
A client has asked that I design a workstation geared towards Photoshop and Premiere work. Here are the guts of the system and I would love comments/feedback, esp on the disk subsystem:

CPU: Intel Core i7-950 (with moderate O/C to 3.6 or so - can go hexacore once the prices dip some)
MOTHERBOARD: EVGA 131-GT-E767-TR
RAM: 24GB (6 x 4GB) Kingston Hyper X
VIDEO: EVGA GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB
BOOT DISK: Intel X25-M 160GB SSD
SCRATCH DISK: OCZ Vertex 2 50GB SSD
STORAGE DRIVES: 2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB 6.0Gb/s (import/export and video work primarily). EU has a dedicated NAS for long-term storage of files.
CPU: CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX
O/S: WIndows 7 Pro x64
Adobe: All CS5 editions

My thoughts were that 24GB of RAM would cover most file sizes and circumvent the need to have to page out to swap/scratch, but if it was needed a 50GB SSD would be next best thing. The two 1TB WDs are for temp media storage while working with files in either application.
 
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No reason to go with the 50GB version of the Vertex 2. Go with the 60GB one, as the only difference is the over-provisioning amount and it's known that the performance difference is nill. The 120GB version is actually on sale at Newegg right now for a steal, too, BTW.

Otherwise this looks like a powerhouse computer.
 
The PSU is over spec'd for what you're putting in. A 500watt would be fine, if you really like Corsair I'd go with the HX520. If you're nervous do the HX620, or if you think he'll want to add more storage/Vid card/whatever.

Don't forget an optical media drive/burner... 🙂
 
alaricljs said:
The PSU is over spec'd for what you're putting in. A 500watt would be fine, if you really like Corsair I'd go with the HX520. If you're nervous do the HX620, or if you think he'll want to add more storage/Vid card/whatever.

Don't forget an optical media drive/burner... 🙂
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips. What is listed is not complete, just the highlights,a nd I have optical as well as media card readers and firewall all accounted for. The actual disk subsystem is what I am most interested in at this point.
 
No real need to get a extra scratch file - while Adobe suggests a extra disk for it, with a SSD that advantage is rather small (i.e. small parallel read/writes are no problem for it, while it kills HDD performance. Actually that way you can get even more performance out of the drive.. NCQ)
When working with PS there are some situations where sequential write speed IS important, so I'd think about a SF/Micron drive instead of the Intel + Vertex would be a better idea.
Also one 256gb drive is more handy than a 160gb + 60gb drive in my opinion and the price difference shouldn't really matter when looking at the overall cost 😉

Edit: Here one of the old PS tests back when Anand still did them - that's probably one of the more extreme tests, but still
 
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I would agree with the others who say just get one larger SSD drive.

You may want to consider the green drives for storage instead of black. You can get more GB/$ and they move data over 100MB/s. They run considerably cooler, and with a 470 in the case you need to be mindful of heat in a workstation.
 
160Gb is overkill for the boot drive. A single 120Gb Vertex 2 would both perform better than the Intel, and comfortably fit both the OS/program partition, and the scratch disk. My second option would be the 256 C300, if you really felt the space was needed.

With the storage needed for only local (working) files, do you really need 2Tb?

That board has 6 SATA ports, so I would reccomend 4 Spinpoint F4 640Gb drives in RAID 10 or 01, whichever is supported. This gives 1.25Tb very fast storage, which I would back up with one 1.5 or 2Tb local drive. The last (actually first) port would go to the SSD. Note this leaves no option for an optical drive.
 
FishAk said:
160Gb is overkill for the boot drive. A single 120Gb Vertex 2 would both perform better than the Intel, and comfortably fit both the OS/program partition, and the scratch disk. My second option would be the 256 C300, if you really felt the space was needed.
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Yeah a 120gb Vertex 2 is also a good idea, although the C300 should be faster overall (though not that much) and if we're using newegg prices is cheaper on a gb/$ basis.

But if we look at the overall price of the system (newegg lists one 4gb stick at 100$) I think one could argue that the overall difference won't be that big. Also with a 256gb drive they could copy the projects comfortably on the SSD and work there, with 120gb space could become a problem there.

But if cost is a concern and you want to save the money, by all means take the Vertex drive, imho the best drive for the task in that price region.
 
Another thing is the memory.

This G.Skill needs only 1.5V for 1066 Mhz @ 7-7-7-18. It is less than half the cost of the Hyper X that needs 1.65v for 1600Mhz @ 9-9-9-27.

The G.Skill at the link is sold in dual channel kits of two sticks each, but I think it would run in tri-channel mode if you put 3 kits on that board for a total of 24Gb. There are people on this forum who know much more about memory than I do, so they could confirm if that is true or not.

At this site, for the $1,000 Kingston 24Gb kit, it says:

" The SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1066MHz timing of 7-7-7 at 1.5V."

so I think it's the same stuff as the $450 G.Skill.
 
I'd take another look at that CPU choice, and get one more HDD.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/47?vs=108

EDIT: The only thing the 9xx series seems to excel a great deal in is 3D Rendering. The rest is only like 1 second off and with the money saved with the chipset and utilities the 8xx series i7 is worth consideration.
 
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Davidh373 said:
I'd take another look at that CPU choice, and get one more HDD.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/47?vs=108

EDIT: The only thing the 9xx series seems to excel a great deal in is 3D Rendering. The rest is only like 1 second off and with the money saved with the chipset and utilities the 8xx series i7 is worth consideration.
Click to expand...

Does Intel plan on making hex-core 8xx series? Doubt it considering they're now moving on to a new platform in ~6 months. Since OP needs the box now and says he may upgrade to hex-core later.... The money invested gives him a little more "future-proof" than an 8xx.

If you can go with a MicroCenter deal on the 950 ($230+tax atm) then it's a non issue all around.
 
If he is going to upgrade he should do it now. If Intel moves to a new platform (which they will) it is likely he will waste the $300 on the 950. When the new chips/ sockets come out he'll either want to upgrade the MoBo/ Proc because he'll get more performance and better efficiency out of the new platform, and it will possibly be cheaper to do so. Intel's next offerings go up to 12 core I believe, so Hexicore a year or so down the road will likely be trumped by much beefier offerings from both Intel and AMD on BOTH their new platforms.

I'd actually recommend an AMD 1055T now to save some money and get one of the new platforms with the money saved.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106276

As you can see, the 950 does have the upper hand here, but it's also $100 more, and that's without total platform savings which would be close to $200+. With that he could get a more substantial upgrade with either new offering (the proc anyway), instead of a $400+ one which will barely make a difference.

The new Procs are coming out Q1 2011, so he could ride on a $300 AMD platform for 2/3s of a year instead of the $500 Intel platform that doesn't front much of a performance boost for the cost and get Sandy Bridge when it launches with cost relieved by the money saved.

I also don't like the 24GB RAM. I do work in Premiere and After Effects as well as Photoshop and 3D software everyday and I haven't capped my 6GB RAM yet. Keep in mind it is possible but only if you have every app running on the station at once (I normally have 3 run at a time, Premiere, Photoshop, and 3DS Max for example).

The intel SSD is slow compared to newer Sandforce controlled SSDs like the Agillity 2s or Corsair Force.

You should definitely use 3 Storage drives

1. SSD - for app
2. 1TB - Assets from Photoshop, titles, ect.
3. 1TB - Capture
4. 1TB - Output

The 470 is a great decision. Keep in mind he'll have to soft mod to get the Mercury Playback in Premiere and After Effects.
 
Davidh373 said:
I'd actually recommend an AMD 1055T now to save some money and get one of the new platforms with the money saved.
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Well every AMD plattform you can buy atm is as dead as every Intel chipset you could buy now and PS is hardly multi threaded, lots of stuff (filter and so on) runs on a single or 2 threads. So I'd probably go with a 750/920. No idea about Premiere though

And 6gb RAM in photoshop is easy to outdo if you've got lots of layers and large projects. Even my hobbyist editing stuff can outdo that - depends solely on the usage szenario.
 
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Voo said:
Except that every AMD plattform you can buy atm is as dead as every Intel chipset you could buy.
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That was my point actually. The new platform coming out will be easier to get then if the $200 extra dollars are saved now. 750 (i5) would be CRAP for rendering HD video.

Voo said:
And 6gb RAM in photoshop is easy to outdo if you've got lots of layers and large projects. Even my hobbyist editing stuff can outdo that - depends solely on the usage szenario.
Click to expand...

I have worked on 4096 x 4096 textures with 30+ layers and only had slow down when I saved PSDs btw. This was likely more because of HDD limitations.
 
Davidh373 said:
That was my point actually. The new platform coming out will be easier to get then if the $200 extra dollars are saved now. 750 (i5) would be CRAP for rendering HD video.
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I thought the whole point of the Nvidia GPU was to not render video on the CPU? But yeah as I said, that was specific to PS and not premiere.
 
Voo said:
I thought the whole point of the Nvidia GPU was to not render video on the CPU? But yeah as I said, that was specific to PS and not premiere.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the draw to nVidia cards is in the new "Mercury Playback Engine" which is powered by CUDA. It is intended to eliminate the need to preview render no matter how many layers of HD content there are, but the final render is still done on the CPU.

Technically, the consumer cards aren't set to be used by Mercury, but in following the directions in this link you can tell mercury to use your consumer card (all the way up from the 8800)

http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm
 
Ah ok, I knew that there were hacks to get the consumer cards to run it, but I thought they would use CUDA also for the final rendering.. still great for people who edit heavily, but still too bad.

Still quality problems I assume?
 
I think Voo meant there are quality issues with the CUDA rendering, hence why it's only used for previews and not final renders.
 
Ahh, possibly. I don't have much hands on experience with it yet (Getting a 470 to replace my 4890, and probably an upgrade for CS4 when CS6 comes around), so I wouldn't know. Interesting though.
 
First off, a huge THANKS for all of the comments and feedback. Met with the client earlier today and we have decided to make the following changes:

CPU - Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 12MB
MOTHERBOARD - ASUS P6X58D-E X58
RAM - 24GB (6 x 4GB) Kingston Hyper X
VIDEO - MSI N470GTX Twin Frozr II GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB
OS/APPS/SCRATCH DRIVE - 256GB Crucial RealSSD C300
VIDEO DRIVES (CAPTURE + EDIT) - Either two (2) WD Black 1.5TB 3.0Gb/s drives or two (2)WD Black 1TB 6.0Gb/s drives on a HighPoint Rocket 620 6.0Gb/s Controller Card since 1 of 2 onbaord 6Gb/s ports is taken by the C300
STORAGE DRIVES: Two (2) WD Green 2TB 64MB 3.0Gb/s
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750HX or SeaSonic X750 (depending upon cost)
O/S - WIndows 7 Pro x64
Adobe - All CS5 editions (Principally Photoshop and Premiere)

Rationale is as follows:

- CPU: Decided he wants to spend for hexacore now vs waiting for price drops.
- RAM: Staying at 24GB to allow the most headroom for the fastest storage. Hopes to keep all Photoshop within resident RAM, if not it will be on scratch on the C300. Going with Kingston b/c they make bulletproof RAM and have been verified by Asus, at least for the 12GB kits.
- OS Drive: The C300 looks compelling and given that Win7 will handle the TRIM and thre is an open 6Gb/s port on the motherboard then why not!
- VIDEO CAPTURE DRIVES: Wanted to run 6Gb/s Seagate 2TB XT drives, but one 6Gb/s port is taken by the C300 and 2TB for capture and render is overkill. The WD options presented are solid alternatives
- STORAGE DRIVES: Client wants to have 4TB available, "just because", so I have using twin WD Green drives
- PSU: I know the ones listed are overkill, but I would rather have the room now than have to change later and Corsair / SeaSonic are just awesome PSUs.
 
And as I was earlier going to comment... You guys were quibbling over a couple hundred dollars for a dude that *professionally* uses PS and Premier? Ahahaha... too funny.
 
@JPS: Looks good, but SATA2 is all you need for HDDs - we're NOWHERE near the limit there. Even the fastest 666gb platter drives doesn't exceed 150mb sequential r/w, so there's another 100mb before we're running into problems.

this here may be interesting for the HDDs, but honestly without benchmarks you won't see the difference between same-gen, same-rpm drives anyway so the Blacks are just fine. Just don't pay anything extra for extra cache (i.e. 64mb instead of 32) or SATA3.


@Davidh373: Yep I meant exactly what alaricljs thought I meant 😉
 
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JPS said:
- CPU: Decided he wants to spend for hexacore now vs waiting for price drops.
Click to expand...

Great.

JPS said:
OS/APPS/SCRATCH DRIVE - 256GB Crucial RealSSD C300
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Not a good decision... just because it's SATA III does not mean it's faster than a SATA II drive. The OCZ Vertex II/ Agility II, Corsair Force, and GSkill Pro are all faster drives for a lower price. That is why not.

alaricljs said:
And as I was earlier going to comment... You guys were quibbling over a couple hundred dollars for a dude that *professionally* uses PS and Premier? Ahahaha... too funny.
Click to expand...

I do Photoshop, Premiere, and 3D work professionally. $200 dollars is $200 dollars. You could buy a lot with that and believe it or not even though we do get $10k jobs and so on we may only get 2 or 3 a year, so that's just a little over minimum wage. Not to say he's in the same boat but a lot of people's wages get overestimated in this field.

JPS said:
- PSU: I know the ones listed are overkill, but I would rather have the room now than have to change later and Corsair / SeaSonic are just awesome PSUs.
Click to expand...

750W is not overkill for this build, at least not to the point where it's ridiculous.

24GB RAM is still where the overkill lies. I can't imagine him running more than 4 apps with massive projects at once... which at most would only require 12GB... Now if he has a really great 4k camera, it might get a little choppy with multiple layers and multiple files open. Another way to check for this is if he is capping off his memory now, and how much more beyond simply adding a buffer he wants to do.
 
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