Film Editor building first osx86 machine. looking 4 newb guidance

[fallbrooks13]

researching to build a machine for running mainly final cut studio 2, and adobe creative suite

 

any opinions on these hardware components to get started?

 

want to run leo10.5.5

 

Mother board - GA-EP45-DS3L

processor - Core 2 Duo 3Ghz E8400

Video: nVidia 8800GT 512 mb

 

i found this thread and learned a lot.... http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=135948

 

What size case do i need to make sure all these parts fit?

 

thanks for dealing with yet another newbie.

[TychoB]

As an editor myself, I've recently built two systems - one for the UK and one for AZ, both with Gigabyte motherboards similar to the one you've chosen.

 

I would highly recommend using the quad-core Q6600. Even before overclocking, it happily runs two layers of colour correction + one gaussian blur in real time WITHOUT RENDER. Even a standard MacPro finds that difficult.

 

I used an 8400 GPU in one, and a Radeon HD3870 in the other; for cases I used Antec Sonata III and Antec NSK6580B respectively.

 

I followed the iPC 10.5.6 guide, and there is some very useful stuff posted by pcwiz.

 

Do not expect the interior to look anything like as tidy as the MacPro, but performance-wise you will not be disappointed.

[Nick14]

HD3870 is The best card for Video and photo editing and getting a Quad core is a much better pick for this Kind of work

[TychoB]

HD3870 is The best card for Video and photo editing and getting a Quad core is a much better pick for this Kind of work

 

Nick, friendly observation: it is "Class of its own", no apostrophe.

 

As it's in your sig, thought you might like to know… :censored2:

[fallbrooks13]

As an editor myself, I've recently built two systems - one for the UK and one for AZ, both with Gigabyte motherboards similar to the one you've chosen.

 

I would highly recommend using the quad-core Q6600. Even before overclocking, it happily runs two layers of colour correction + one gaussian blur in real time WITHOUT RENDER. Even a standard MacPro finds that difficult.

 

I used an 8400 GPU in one, and a Radeon HD3870 in the other; for cases I used Antec Sonata III and Antec NSK6580B respectively.

 

I followed the iPC 10.5.6 guide, and there is some very useful stuff posted by pcwiz.

 

Do not expect the interior to look anything like as tidy as the MacPro, but performance-wise you will not be disappointed.

 

did you encounter the quicktime 7.6 Mouse lag / HDCP issue? if so what route to fix it? do you ever have issues with dropped frames during capture or playback?

 

could you give me the hardware and operating system specs on both of your builds?

 

when you said it ran two layers of color correction and filter at real time what type of codec and resolution size were those projects?

 

thanks again for the help

 

EDIT:

 

i see in your sig you have listed one of the builds...

[TychoB]

did you encounter the quicktime 7.6 Mouse lag / HDCP issue? if so what route to fix it? do you ever have issues with dropped frames during capture or playback?

 

Haven't experienced any mouse lag - and I am on 7.6; don't know what HDCP means - maybe I'm even more newb than newb!

 

could you give me the hardware and operating system specs on both of your builds?

 

My current system here in AZ is in my sig, below. Sorry, forgotten details of the UK one, except I always use WD hard drives, Crucial RAM, and the DVD was a LiteOn. Everything SATA seems to be the general advice going the rounds.

 

iPC 10.5.6 is the OS distro I chose - seems to be the cleanest except for a vanilla install, which I might try at some point. I'm afraid I didn't document my actions particularly well, so I'm not sure what kexts I used. But I remember finding HD3870 and audio kexts quite easily. Firewire works, USB, ethernet and audio. I also downloaded Soundflower and Rogue Amoeba's LineIn so that I can run PPMulator with FCP.

 

when you said it ran two layers of color correction and filter at real time what type of codec and resolution size were those projects?

 

That was PAL DV, 720 x 576, 50i. And to answer your dropped frame question, no dropped frames on playback. Can't speak of capture, still working through previously captured projects (on a MacPro). Certainly at DV bit rates, using the DV native codec, you'll never see the cores working hard.

 

 

thanks again for the help

 

It's not much, but I hope it helps.

[fallbrooks13]

ok,

 

so quad core it is.

 

thinking about this configuration. made a post looking for compatibility

 

Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L Micro ATX Intel

 

processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core

 

graphics card - SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GT SX98GT512D3L-NM

 

RAM - Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

[muhandis]

ok,

 

so quad core it is.

 

thinking about this configuration. made a post looking for compatibility

 

Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L Micro ATX Intel

 

processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core

 

graphics card - SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GT SX98GT512D3L-NM

 

RAM - Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

 

 

Have been building hack pros for editing and recently found that the best motherboard sets are the p45's from gigabyte.

q6600 is a great overclocking proc if you can still find stocks. oh, and caviar black drives don't hurt either.

 

And hacks are actually better performing than macpros (just try rendering on similarly spec'ed machines).

I edit hd on prores or dvcpro hd codecs and no problems whatsoever on my sig machine.

 

4:2:2 or 4:4:4 edits will require raid on my machine, though. and maybe a quadcore upgrade.

 

 

so the 3870's a great graphics card? hmmm...let me read up on that and maybe buy one soon. thanks to all.

[fallbrooks13]

thanks for some of the pointers and help guys.

 

but im specifically looking to know if anyone has any experience with these components.

 

Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L Micro ATX Intel

 

processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core

 

graphics card - SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GT SX98GT512D3L-NM

[TychoB]

thanks for some of the pointers and help guys.

 

but im specifically looking to know if anyone has any experience with these components.

 

Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L Micro ATX Intel

 

processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core

 

graphics card - SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GT SX98GT512D3L-NM

 

Well, here's an extract from a Tom's Hardware article vis-a-vis the Q8200:

 

"In comparison to the Q8200, the older 65nm Q6600 is less expensive than the Q8200, priced at $193, has an L2 cache twice the size of the Q8200, includes Intel’s Virtualization Technology and has a faster clock-rate of 2.4 GHz. The Q6600’s lower FSB speed of 1066 MHz gives more room for overclocking too."

 

I'm extremely pleased with the Q6600, and so are countless contributors to this forum, it would seem; it's almost a legend among value-priced CPUs.

 

As for the rest, I guess you just have to search the forum and osx86project.org and see how many hits you get. That'll be a good indication as to how popular they are.

[muhandis]

Well, here's an extract from a Tom's Hardware article vis-a-vis the Q8200:

 

"In comparison to the Q8200, the older 65nm Q6600 is less expensive than the Q8200, priced at $193, has an L2 cache twice the size of the Q8200, includes Intel's Virtualization Technology and has a faster clock-rate of 2.4 GHz. The Q6600's lower FSB speed of 1066 MHz gives more room for overclocking too."

 

I'm extremely pleased with the Q6600, and so are countless contributors to this forum, it would seem; it's almost a legend among value-priced CPUs.

 

As for the rest, I guess you just have to search the forum and osx86project.org and see how many hits you get. That'll be a good indication as to how popular they are.

 

Plus the q8200 runs at higher temps than the q6600. for a little bit more you can get a q9400.

i suggest sticking to the gigabyte ep45's (ud3r's or the ds3r's) as they have easier retail install methods and have the best i/o connectors.