Content Creation PC (again!)

mloc

I was wondering what motherboard would be best for a content creation pc (e.g. photoshop, premiere pro etc). I'll be starting off with 4x1gb of RAM and was wondering if there are motherboards that would support more than 4 DIMMs?

papu

as far as i know nothing can support more than 4dimms , however to your first question heres a nice mobo

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=323531

8T8

Yes there are boards that support more than 4 DIMM slots but those are generally for the pro workstation/server market and not often found in the retail channel as companies tend to be the buyers of whole systems outfitted with these more expensive components.

Most current high end consumer motherboards support up to 8GB of RAM in 4 DIMM slots (2 GB per slot).

If 8GB of RAM is sufficient for your workload you should consider getting 2x2 GB DIMM's initially instead of 4x1. Also I would recommend getting Crucial DDR-2 because of it's compatibility, some niche brand RAM may not still be on the market when the time comes to upgrade to the full 8GB.

Crucial 4GB kit DDR-2 533 or Crucial 4GB kit DDR-2 667.

You will of course require a 64-bit operating system as well in order to make use of that RAM.

If you are getting a Core 2 Duo I'd go for either this or this if you want compatibility with future Core 2 CPU's.

mloc

Hmmm, those 2gb dimms are pretty expensive. In fact, they are so much more expensive than the 4x1gb dimms that it would be cheaper just to buy 4gb now in 1gb dimm and wait for the price of the 2gb to fall. I'm looking at about 280 euro for the 1gb dimms compared to 480 for the 2gb dimms. The 1gb dimms are also faster (PC-6400). It would be easier in terms of upgrades, but 4 gb will do me for a fair while, so I don't mind waiting until the 2gb dimms come down in price.

what about this motherboard?

I'm going to buy a C2D 6600, quad cores are not cost justifiable yet. Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit OEM will cover my OS needs, and I'll have 3 x 320gb WD Caviars, two in RAID 0 backed up to an external 1394 HD (I have the drives already). Graphics card wise a 7950GT for about STG£140 will more than do me until DX10 graphics goes mainstream.

8T8

It will take a long time for the price of 2GB RAM to fall because it is mostly used by the "professional/business" market which usually have the pockets to afford the cost.

If you can live with the 4GB then go with that.

That Gigabyte board will do fine as well, the rev2.0 version supports the quad core 2 so if you happen to get that one then that upgrade path is available.

mloc

cheers for the advice, you don't perchance know offhand if there are any suitable mobos that support 1394b onboard?

8T8

The GA-965P-DS3P has a single firewire port on it, many motherboards bar the bottom of the barrel support at least a single firewire port these days.

You can always just pick up a PCI card with extra firewire ports.

mloc

ah yes, i was wondering more about firewire-800, can't seem to find it onboard anywhere and pci cards with it are about 70-80 euro.

L31mr0d

Why not get an external eSATA drive?

Also, the 2x2GB sticks roughly work out at around the same price as the 4x1GB sticks. What sticks of 1GB ram are you getting?

Also I wouldn't buy anything until May, C2D is supposed to be cut in price by late april.

8T8

Firewire is used on DV cameras and the like if you are working on content creation and have video sources you need to transfer the data from firewire is usually the way to go.

eSATA is handy for external hard drives if that's what your intending to use them for but getting controllers is not easy & at most 1 or 2 ports per card.

mloc

L31mr0d wrote:

Why not get an external eSATA drive?

Also, the 2x2GB sticks roughly work out at around the same price as the 4x1GB sticks. What sticks of 1GB ram are you getting?

Also I wouldn't buy anything until May, C2D is supposed to be cut in price by late april.

RAM:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-064-GL

I already have a firewire/firewire-800 500GB external drive, I'd like to be able to use it at full speed.

My shopping list so far looks like this:
Corsair TurboFlash 1GB USB2.0 Vista ReadyBoost
Sony AW-G170AB2 18x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer - (Black) OEM
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk
OCZ GameXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
Lian-Li PC V1100 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

mloc

8T8 wrote:

Firewire is used on DV cameras and the like if you are working on content creation and have video sources you need to transfer the data from firewire is usually the way to go.

eSATA is handy for external hard drives if that's what your intending to use them for but getting controllers is not easy & at most 1 or 2 ports per card.

Quite true, I use firewire already for the external HD and also for data capture from DV sources.

I should probably have added to the above that I have two of the 320gb HDs already and a DELL 2407WP monitor, which I will use in the new system. I was thinking of getting a new keyboard/mouse, but I'm thinking the money might be better spent on a graphics tablet.

8T8

Looks good one thing I'm not 100% certain on is Firewire 800 support under Vista 64-bit or 32-bit for that matter.

I know Firewire 400 works fine in 32-bit but I do not have any Firewire 800 devices and that was wonky under XP last I heard Vista is supposed to fix all that and Firewire 800 should work.

But there is conflicting info on whether it works or not so it may be a small gamble buying the Firewire 800 card as there is info that native Firewire 800 support was pushed back to Vista SP1.

mloc

8T8 wrote:

Looks good one thing I'm not 100% certain on is Firewire 800 support under Vista 64-bit or 32-bit for that matter.

I know Firewire 400 works fine in 32-bit but I do not have any Firewire 800 devices and that was wonky under XP last I heard Vista is supposed to fix all that and Firewire 800 should work.

But there is conflicting info on whether it works or not so it may be a small gamble buying the Firewire 800 card as there is info that native Firewire 800 support was pushed back to Vista SP1.

Yeah, I've heard that also. I'm happy enough using it in Firewire 400 mode for the moment, as it is mostly just for backup (I'm a little nervous of the RAID 0 array!).

I've decided on the Asus P5b-Plus motherboard, the other board I was looking at has a heatpipe cooling solution, which afaik is not compatible with the inverted design of the Lian Li case. I'm also going to go for a SATA DVD-R drive so I have no ribbon cables in my case. I hate those things.

8T8

mloc wrote:

Yeah, I've heard that also. I'm happy enough using it in Firewire 400 mode for the moment, as it is mostly just for backup (I'm a little nervous of the RAID 0 array!).

I've decided on the Asus P5b-Plus motherboard, the other board I was looking at has a heatpipe cooling solution, which afaik is not compatible with the inverted design of the Lian Li case. I'm also going to go for a SATA DVD-R drive so I have no ribbon cables in my case. I hate those things.

Yup I hate those ribbon cables as well thank god there are nearly gone, NEC & Samsung both sell good SATA DVDRW drives.

Had that problem with a V1000 Lian Li case as well myself there are types that do work and unofficially the ones that dont work should be okay but it is easier to go with a board that simply has a passive heat sink instead of a heat pipe setup (there really isn't that much difference & the heat pipe is more window dressing anyway).

mloc

having a bit of problem finding the Lian-Li PC V1100 PLUS, it's out of stock at overclockers... I'm considering the Antec P180B, but I really like the Lian-Li... any idea where I could get one?

(Preferably not from the US!)

8T8

Is it the black version your after as the V1100 Plus silver is in stock at OcUK along with it's bigger brother the V2000 Plus again silver.

OcUk aren't the only other ones out of stock of the black version as Kustom PC's are also affected they do have the silver ones in stock.

Other than those two don't know where else to get Lian Li.

The Silverstone TJ09 is another compartmentalized case and has gotten very good reviews.

Kustom PC's are out of stock but Scan do have the black version but Scan I hear are a bit of a pain to deal with.

mloc

Right, just ordered the lot. I went for the Lian Li PC-B20B, which is not compartmentalized but still more or less what I'm looking for. In any case, it seems to have gotten some great reviews.

Other than that I went with what was on that list I posted earlier, the other changes being the Asus P5b-e plus MB, a samsung SATA DVD-RW drive and... I realise it is total overkill for photoshop, and even for video playback etc, but it was on special so I couldn't help it... a BFG 8800GTS 320mb OC. Ah well!

8T8

I'm sure Adobe will one day somehow work GPU acceleration into their product so you can tell your self you are merely preparing for the future

mloc

8T8 wrote:

I'm sure Adobe will one day somehow work GPU acceleration into their product so you can tell your self you are merely preparing for the future

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=72&catid=626&threadid=1255676&enterthread=y

Still, total overkill... at least the 1920x1200 res of my monitor wont be a problem for the odd game I do play.