Building the BEST PC for Movie Edit Pro
I was asked today for some advice about building a PC to make the best use of Movie Edit Pro, and I took some time to write a kind of long-winded response. So I decided if it was good enough to write all this, I should share it in a blog:
I have an ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard. I think it's about 3 years old. However, I recently found out the guy that sold it to me really did me well because I was still able to install one of the new quad-core processors, the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0gHz, giving me a total of 12gHz of cpu power. Also, I've installed two 2-gig PC-2 6400 sticks of memory, for 4 gigs of RAM total, however, since I'm running WinXP 32-bit, it doesn't see any more than 3.5 gigs. Originally I had purchased 8 gigs, but after finding out the 3.5gig limitation, I returned two of the sticks. In my PC currently is a 750 gig SATA300 drive by Seagate. Unfortunately, it is already full. I learned fairly early that IDE hard drives, while functional, are not really ideal for video editing because the transfer speeds can't keep up in the long haul. Actually, SATA drives, even over USB2.0 buses, are faster still than IDE/UDMA600 drives. This isn't really all that noticeable on a regular Windows system to the average user, but once you start working with HD video files, like AVCHD/Blu-Ray or stuff like that, you'll see the difference. For a video card, I bought a PCI-Express16 ATI Radeon 4670 w/1gig of dedicated video RAM. I recommend either the ATI/DIAMOND brand or the eVGA brand. Both will surely give you incredible performance. Anything less than PCI-Express16 in a video card will buy you a serious bottleneck in editing. Virtually all the processing that happens during editing is done by the video card. During render times, it's more the CPU, editing times, it's the GPU. So make sure you have a TON of video ram and a killer GPU. SPEND THIS EXTRA MONEY.
I cannot stress enough how important stability is. If you're looking to overclock, you might do well to rethink your strategy, because there's nothing more frustrating than learning you don't have enough of a cooling setup and your system crashes while you have 4 hours of unsaved work on the screen. In my opinion, I feel it is best to start out with a motherboard that will support FIRST the highest-end CPU's available TODAY AND TOMORROW, and SECOND will also allow you to start out with a lower-end, more affordable CPU right now. This gives you both balance and budget. Then buy a CPU that does the best OUT-OF-THE-BOX performance you can afford. One of the things I learned about Movie Edit Pro is that it doesn't seem to take full advantage of my quad core. I can boost it up by using CTRL-ALT-DEL and right-clicking on the MovieEdit.exe process and jumping the priority up the "Realtime" or "Critical", but it still only uses about 29-33% of my processor power... I don't know what gives with that, as I've set the affinity to use all 4 CPU cores. Still, it runs circles around my old Core 2 Duo 2.4gHz processor. I am told 3 things about this:
1. The i7 processors work better with Movie Edit Pro 15 plus on 32-bit systems
2. Magix Video Pro X handles the Core 2 Quad processors better.
3. Windows 7 solves this problem.
Since I have none of the above, I can't verify this information. I'm also told that MEP doesn't like 64-bit Windows XP and I know it has problems using the 3D Text functions on Vista.
Let me come back to cooling for a minute. We all know fans make noise. If you're going to be doing any filming or recording of audio around the PC, try to make sure you spend a tiny bit of extra money (seriously, it might mean $10 difference) on quieter fans. Also try to use a case that offers MAXIMUM ventilation. This will reduce the need for bigger fans, and make for quicker escape routes for the heat. When it comes to rendering out your final video cut, your CPU fan will be fighting for its life, and you will surely hear it whirring up to full speed. And don't be too cheap to buy a decent fan. If you try to pinch a penny on this, you'll end up kicking yourself when you have to buy a new CPU because you turned it into a cinder chip.
For video cards, I chose the one I have because of expandability. Because I was thinking ahead, I bought the right motherboard, and now I can buy two of these video cards and have twice the rendering power. Many of the newer cards have some sort of built-in pairing ability. You'll need to be sure your motherboard supports it first, but after that, just get the best card you can afford that can take advantage of this feature. Start out buying ONE. In another year, that card will drop easily in half in price, so you should be able to find one cheap to pair it with on ebay or something.... come to think of it, I need to start shopping for that! LOL!
With all this being said, I should probably tell you that NOBODY I know has a system good enough for silky-smooth editing using Movie Edit Pro on a PC. All of us experience choppy video at times while editing. So don't get all bummed out when you spend all this time and money building the PC of your dreams only to find out MEP still "stutters" when you're watching the edits in the preview window. Your end product will still look amazing if you're using the program right.
Also don't be afraid to shop around for individual parts. If you do it right, you can save yourself a thousand dollars or more, especially if you take advantage of rebates that often come around for hard drives, memory, and motherboard/CPU combos. But be aware that price has to come SECOND to practicality. Start out buying the best motherboard you can afford for the job, and go from there.
-Bryce
http://www.newdepthmedia.com
I have an ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard. I think it's about 3 years old. However, I recently found out the guy that sold it to me really did me well because I was still able to install one of the new quad-core processors, the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0gHz, giving me a total of 12gHz of cpu power. Also, I've installed two 2-gig PC-2 6400 sticks of memory, for 4 gigs of RAM total, however, since I'm running WinXP 32-bit, it doesn't see any more than 3.5 gigs. Originally I had purchased 8 gigs, but after finding out the 3.5gig limitation, I returned two of the sticks. In my PC currently is a 750 gig SATA300 drive by Seagate. Unfortunately, it is already full. I learned fairly early that IDE hard drives, while functional, are not really ideal for video editing because the transfer speeds can't keep up in the long haul. Actually, SATA drives, even over USB2.0 buses, are faster still than IDE/UDMA600 drives. This isn't really all that noticeable on a regular Windows system to the average user, but once you start working with HD video files, like AVCHD/Blu-Ray or stuff like that, you'll see the difference. For a video card, I bought a PCI-Express16 ATI Radeon 4670 w/1gig of dedicated video RAM. I recommend either the ATI/DIAMOND brand or the eVGA brand. Both will surely give you incredible performance. Anything less than PCI-Express16 in a video card will buy you a serious bottleneck in editing. Virtually all the processing that happens during editing is done by the video card. During render times, it's more the CPU, editing times, it's the GPU. So make sure you have a TON of video ram and a killer GPU. SPEND THIS EXTRA MONEY.
I cannot stress enough how important stability is. If you're looking to overclock, you might do well to rethink your strategy, because there's nothing more frustrating than learning you don't have enough of a cooling setup and your system crashes while you have 4 hours of unsaved work on the screen. In my opinion, I feel it is best to start out with a motherboard that will support FIRST the highest-end CPU's available TODAY AND TOMORROW, and SECOND will also allow you to start out with a lower-end, more affordable CPU right now. This gives you both balance and budget. Then buy a CPU that does the best OUT-OF-THE-BOX performance you can afford. One of the things I learned about Movie Edit Pro is that it doesn't seem to take full advantage of my quad core. I can boost it up by using CTRL-ALT-DEL and right-clicking on the MovieEdit.exe process and jumping the priority up the "Realtime" or "Critical", but it still only uses about 29-33% of my processor power... I don't know what gives with that, as I've set the affinity to use all 4 CPU cores. Still, it runs circles around my old Core 2 Duo 2.4gHz processor. I am told 3 things about this:
1. The i7 processors work better with Movie Edit Pro 15 plus on 32-bit systems
2. Magix Video Pro X handles the Core 2 Quad processors better.
3. Windows 7 solves this problem.
Since I have none of the above, I can't verify this information. I'm also told that MEP doesn't like 64-bit Windows XP and I know it has problems using the 3D Text functions on Vista.
Let me come back to cooling for a minute. We all know fans make noise. If you're going to be doing any filming or recording of audio around the PC, try to make sure you spend a tiny bit of extra money (seriously, it might mean $10 difference) on quieter fans. Also try to use a case that offers MAXIMUM ventilation. This will reduce the need for bigger fans, and make for quicker escape routes for the heat. When it comes to rendering out your final video cut, your CPU fan will be fighting for its life, and you will surely hear it whirring up to full speed. And don't be too cheap to buy a decent fan. If you try to pinch a penny on this, you'll end up kicking yourself when you have to buy a new CPU because you turned it into a cinder chip.
For video cards, I chose the one I have because of expandability. Because I was thinking ahead, I bought the right motherboard, and now I can buy two of these video cards and have twice the rendering power. Many of the newer cards have some sort of built-in pairing ability. You'll need to be sure your motherboard supports it first, but after that, just get the best card you can afford that can take advantage of this feature. Start out buying ONE. In another year, that card will drop easily in half in price, so you should be able to find one cheap to pair it with on ebay or something.... come to think of it, I need to start shopping for that! LOL!
With all this being said, I should probably tell you that NOBODY I know has a system good enough for silky-smooth editing using Movie Edit Pro on a PC. All of us experience choppy video at times while editing. So don't get all bummed out when you spend all this time and money building the PC of your dreams only to find out MEP still "stutters" when you're watching the edits in the preview window. Your end product will still look amazing if you're using the program right.
Also don't be afraid to shop around for individual parts. If you do it right, you can save yourself a thousand dollars or more, especially if you take advantage of rebates that often come around for hard drives, memory, and motherboard/CPU combos. But be aware that price has to come SECOND to practicality. Start out buying the best motherboard you can afford for the job, and go from there.
-Bryce
http://www.newdepthmedia.com
Labels: building, card, cpu, edit, editing, motherboard, movie, pc, perfect, pro
posted by A Heart To Witness at 1/19/2010 11:08:00 AM
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