P55 or X58 for light video editing with 1080p clips?

[schmoppa]

Hello,

 

I am considering configuring a machine to possibly dual-boot into windows 7 and Mac OSX.

 

It will be an all-around machine, some gaming (would get a decent GPU but probably not SLI / Crossfire it), some normal stuff (web, etc), a bit of Photoshop, and some video editing. Pretty basic stuff, really.

 

My question is regarding the video editing part, whether I should get an i7 with the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5, or an i5 with the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2. It won't be heavy-duty editing in the sense that I'm not a professional, and that I want to mainly just do some fairly light editing of family clips. The only possibly heavy-duty aspect of it is I have a lot of 1080P "footage" from a Canon 5D Mk2, which at one point I tried loading into Premiere CS4 on a C2D MBP and wound up crashing the program.

 

My hunch is with some air overclocking (approaching 4GHz), the i5 would be more than adequate for my needs compared to a single i7 CPU, and I wouldn't mind saving the $250 or so premium it takes to upgrade to the i7/x58 combo.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks!

[Hangten]

Important to go with boards that are continually updated by members and Gigabyte is most wise.

Your video should be a concern considering you want it fully working. My opinion is research what works well and this simply requires reading in depth.

Your in major luck and here is one of the greatest places to start: http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/02/ton...f-contents.html

[schmoppa]

yup - I'm looking into a lot of angles for research, including the one where actual hackintosh users with varying hardware configurations, likely even the ones I'm considering, may have some real world experience and advice for me in this regard.

[NoiseTracker]

My question is regarding the video editing part, whether I should get an i7 with the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5, or an i5 with the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2. It won't be heavy-duty editing in the sense that I'm not a professional, and that I want to mainly just do some fairly light editing of family clips. The only possibly heavy-duty aspect of it is I have a lot of 1080P "footage" from a Canon 5D Mk2, which at one point I tried loading into Premiere CS4 on a C2D MBP and wound up crashing the program.

 

My hunch is with some air overclocking (approaching 4GHz), the i5 would be more than adequate for my needs compared to a single i7 CPU, and I wouldn't mind saving the $250 or so premium it takes to upgrade to the i7/x58 combo.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks!

 

Shmoppa:

 

I was running 10.6.2 like a champ with my P55-UD4P with a core i5 4GB of ram and a 9600GT. If you look around you will probably see that the jump between the i7 and the i5 is around 10% (or less) in performance increase does not justify (at least in my book) the price.

 

for the past month I have been XP only, but up to that point (about 4 months prior to that) I had my hackintosh mildly OC'd to 3.2GHz and tearing up more expensive machines. so yes, in my opinion save the cash. buy a nice cooler (mine is the CoolerMaster v8 paid $35) and let it rip. hell with the money you saved if you ever burn it out you can buy another one to replace it!

 

NT

[Griffwill]

you could go for the best of both worlds: get a GA-P55-UD2 and an i7 860. I currently have my i5 at 3.3GHz with an AC Freezer 7 Pro. I can get to 3.46 GHz, but i like the temps I'm at now. The i7 860 would be good for video because of the hyper-threading and i think it's only about $30 more then the i5 750. Also this mobo is supported very well here and at tonymac's site.

[schmoppa]

Shmoppa:

 

I was running 10.6.2 like a champ with my P55-UD4P with a core i5 4GB of ram and a 9600GT. If you look around you will probably see that the jump between the i7 and the i5 is around 10% (or less) in performance increase does not justify (at least in my book) the price.

 

for the past month I have been XP only, but up to that point (about 4 months prior to that) I had my hackintosh mildly OC'd to 3.2GHz and tearing up more expensive machines. so yes, in my opinion save the cash. buy a nice cooler (mine is the CoolerMaster v8 paid $35) and let it rip. hell with the money you saved if you ever burn it out you can buy another one to replace it!

 

NT

 

Thanks for your response. Why did you go XP only?

 

you could go for the best of both worlds: get a GA-P55-UD2 and an i7 860. I currently have my i5 at 3.3GHz with an AC Freezer 7 Pro. I can get to 3.46 GHz, but i like the temps I'm at now. The i7 860 would be good for video because of the hyper-threading and i think it's only about $30 more then the i5 750. Also this mobo is supported very well here and at tonymac's site.

 

not a bad idea. I suppose then the only tradeoff is losing future proofing with the 1366 chipset and triple channel memory access. I wonder if triple channel memory access might make a difference with serious video editing (again, not what I'm interested in most likely).

[schmoppa]

anyone have any opinions as to whether triple-channel memory makes a significant real-world difference in video editing compared to dual-channel?

[lsdelirious]

The only possibly heavy-duty aspect of it is I have a lot of 1080P "footage" from a Canon 5D Mk2, which at one point I tried loading into Premiere CS4 on a C2D MBP and wound up crashing the program.

 

Canon 5D MK2 shoots AVCHD, which in my expierience Premiere does not play well with... With my Canon 7D footage, I convert it to ProRes 422 in Compressor before I begin editing in FCP - I don't use Premiere much these days, but I imagine you should be able to convert your AVCHD to a more compatible format w/ Adobe Media encoder...

 

Also if you're budget conscious you might look into a Q9xxx Core 2 Quad on an x48 board, prices have really come down since i7/i5 release.

[revjb]

The main difference between P55 and X58 is the 'head room' given by hyper thread/triple channel and how the PCI-E controller is on-chip. I would think that yes, it would affect your video-editing. It may cost $200+ more but I'd advise going with the X58. I also like the fact that I can drop Intel's newest hexacore processor if I wanted to double the system's performance in an instant with the X58.

[neil43]

I have both. i7-920 on a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R w 6GB DDR3-1600 9600GT and a i7-860 on a Gigabyte P55M-UD2 w 8GB DDR3-1600 9600GT. I run RAID 0 using Seagate 500GB drives.

 

The P55 and i7-860 out performs the i7-920 hands down. Running 10.6.2 (moving to .3). And the P55 i7-860 tolerates overclocking much better then the X58 i7-920. Even to the point that I am looking to unload the i7-920 system and replace it with another 860.

 

Neil

[schmoppa]

Interesting! (if counter intuitive). What are your overclocks on each system? (is the P55 faster because you can overclock it more?). What apps (synthetic benches? real world apps?) are you running that you are noticing the difference in performance (and how much performance?

 

Is everything else the same other than the board and CPU? Including cooling, case fans, etc? Your P55 does have more ram (you running 2x4GB?), but that shouldn't make a huge difference.

 

It's possible that the X58 board you have was a bit of a dud (as in you were unlucky with the one they shipped), I'm wondering if others out there can corroborate this?

 

Please excuse the flurry of questions, I'm just very intrigued

[schmoppa]

anyone else share neil43's experience where a P55 build is significantly faster than an X58 build?

[neil43]

When I attempt to overclock the i7-920 X58 system, it becomes unstable with only minor steps and only runs solid at the default clocks.

 

With respect to the i7-860 - not over clocked at 2.8GHZ the Geekbench 2 score is 8020 while overclocked (BCLK from 130 to 160) at 3.36GHz the Geekbench 2 score is 9278. And with the RAID 10 the system seems fast. This system has been up 24/7 for about 6 weeks without a hitch.

 

The Xbench is:

 

Results 272.07

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.6.2 (10C540)

Physical RAM 8192 MB

Model iMac11,1

Drive Type RAID-0

CPU Test 242.85

GCD Loop 368.78 19.44 Mops/sec

Floating Point Basic 214.36 5.09 Gflop/sec

vecLib FFT 142.32 4.69 Gflop/sec

Floating Point Library 483.56 84.20 Mops/sec

Thread Test 1119.47

Computation 1189.66 24.10 Mops/sec, 4 threads

Lock Contention 1057.09 45.48 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads

Memory Test 444.02

System 583.22

Allocate 1030.97 3.79 Malloc/sec

Fill 382.47 18596.72 MB/sec

Copy 641.30 13245.70 MB/sec

Stream 358.47

Copy 357.79 7390.03 MB/sec

Scale 333.76 6895.34 MB/sec

Add 389.23 8291.53 MB/sec

Triad 357.35 7644.54 MB/sec

Quartz Graphics Test 357.37

Line 279.51 18.61 Klines/sec [50% alpha]

Rectangle 360.27 107.56 Krects/sec [50% alpha]

Circle 293.51 23.93 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]

Bezier 312.16 7.87 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]

Text 973.52 60.90 Kchars/sec

OpenGL Graphics Test 154.71

Spinning Squares 154.71 196.25 frames/sec

User Interface Test 558.21

Elements 558.21 2.56 Krefresh/sec

Disk Test 134.92

Sequential 252.51

Uncached Write 345.32 212.02 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 397.38 224.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 151.07 44.21 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 262.53 131.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 92.05

Uncached Write 35.44 3.75 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 439.46 140.69 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 124.45 0.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 203.07 37.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]

___________________

 

neil

[Mackilroy]

That's odd, neil, because I've read a number of stories of people with i7 920s getting 3.6 GHz (and 4 GHz) easily – is yours a D0 stepping model? If so, it should have no problem overclocking at all.

[neil43]

That's odd, neil, because I've read a number of stories of people with i7 920s getting 3.6 GHz (and 4 GHz) easily – is yours a D0 stepping model? If so, it should have no problem overclocking at all.

 

My problem overclocking problem with the i7-920 may well be caused by this motherboard. I don't have access to another (yet). But as a home work horse system, it is solid at the defaults and really is only slow by comparison to the i7-860 OC'd that I built for work and use daily.

 

And for performance I really recommend using striped RAID boot/system drives (when you can not afford SDDs).

 

neil

[Jimmy Urine]

Hey schmoppa

 

i think you're approaching it the wrong way, you should consider getting yourself the best processor according to overhaul performance.

if you're thinking of buying a system i suggest you research the board more than the cpu. the ud5 has a problem with the built in NIC, which to our discovery (gigabyte ex58-users) follows through all the models. therefor you need to get yourself an apple usb NIC (which costs $15 but is worth every penny, but takes time to find the right driver for vista/7 64bit). on the other hand the ds4 has an older alc sound card, and let me tell you if you're not using the voodoohda kext, it's a headache to configure unlike the ud5, but the ds4 costs a 100$ less, though i would still recommend the ud5 since it has SLI and if you take one of them strong GPUs (gtx+ 28x) you're gonna need a very cheep Efi card as a primary GPU hence the need for SLI.

 

installation to all gigabyte-ex58 is easy and all you need is the latest DD package (go to the gigabye ud5 forum) or use the fake smc kext+a preconfigured DSDT file. (so easy let me tell you, updating to 10.6.3 was never so easy)

 

i've been running with my system for a year now (i7-920/x58-ds4 x64/efi) and my job is video editing. i shot a few music videos with the canon 5d mk2 and edited on premiere cs4 through using Cineform's codec, and it works like butter, and i have to admit i'm not over clocking at all because the 920 isn't all that stable once not overclocked properly.

 

from my experience if you're gonna edit avchd footage on osx+adobe the workflow and using the right codecs is all that matters you can do that even on a c2d though i don't think it'll work like butter until cs5 which is a few months away, with it you can edit just about anything without using an external codec on just about any machine working fully 64bit.

 

as for gaming, put 7 x64 with a nice gpu and you're good to go.

 

hope this helps, pm me for workflow instructions on using canon's files +adobe suite if you need.

Little Jimmy Urine

[schmoppa]

Jimmy, thanks so much for your response.

 

What and how severe is the NIC problem? Is this the case with every board, or just some?

 

If I get a GTS 250 for my video card, do I need a second? I'm unclear on that part. What is an EFI card?

 

Thanks!

[schmoppa]

though i would still recommend the ud5 since it has SLI and if you take one of them strong GPUs (gtx+ 28x) you're gonna need a very cheep Efi card as a primary GPU hence the need for SLI.

 

anybody understand what this means? I'm trying to figure out if the GTS 250 I am thinking of ordering is enough.

 

so now I am a little spooked by the UD5. After buying a $30 adapter, including the mail-in-rebate, I'm paying almost $280. The GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD7 is $350... does it have the same problems?

 

I can't find the Apple USB NIC for sale anywhere (yet). Are there any non-USB solutions for ethernet that are compatible with these hackintoshes?

 

Is the NIC problem a wide-spread problem with the UD5, and has anyone seen this with the UD7? Any other problems with the UD7? talk about 11th hour problem revelations just before ordering..

 

EDIT:

the ud5 has a problem with the built in NIC, which to our discovery (gigabyte ex58-users) follows through all the models.

 

Ah, so all of them have the problem, then? Makes sense since they all have the same Realtec adapter.

 

Damn. The main reason why I chose this board over another x58 board is due to Kakewalk. Guess I have to suck it up then (and hope they have fixed the problem!) or else go off-trail with another board.

[Jimmy Urine]

first off, ease up man. panic won't do you any good.

 

the ud5 is excellent for mac os x.

i don't know the ud7 but looking at the spec i would suggest that you run a few searches with the usb/sata controllers to see that you're not running into any problems since macs don't have sata 3 or usb 3 yet. worth checking but it looks good.

 

the gtx 250 will do for your configuration.

 

a gfx efi card is just for your convenience as it let's the os use one card for regular gfx work while the other card is used for the more heavy duty stuff as it exists in most mac pros with nvidia.

you can read about it here:

http://netkas.org/?p=117

but that's only if you're gonna use the injector. you can get better results with an efi string or my favorite: a dsdt fix.

 

as for apple lan: (name: apple usb lan adaptor)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Macbook-Air-USB-...=item3cabce0dfc

you can ebay yourself one of them, they always sell and there's no hassle with using one of them.

the reason is that the realtek tends to hog and choke when restarting your system or dual booting. getting one of these cards will just save you the hassle of unplugging your pc every time you need to restart or dual boot.

 

keep us posted

Jimmy Urine

[schmoppa]

Thank you so much for your response, Jimmy.

 

I wasn't panicking per se, but I a little worried to see that the LAN chip is a bit squirrely.

 

I'm still a bit unclear on the EFI card. I'm sure a lot of what you said will make more sense as I dig into building and configuring the box, but this was still a bit cryptic:

 

a gfx efi card is just for your convenience as it let's the os use one card for regular gfx work while the other card is used for the more heavy duty stuff as it exists in most mac pros with nvidia.

you can read about it here:

http://netkas.org/?p=117

but that's only if you're gonna use the injector. you can get better results with an efi string or my favorite: a dsdt fix.

 

What's an example of a situation where there's "regular" gfx work and heavy duty stuff happening at the same time? For me, I'm typically in 2D mode (Office apps, web surfing, photoshop), and occasionally playing a 3D graphics game like WoW (though I often have WoW in windowed mode, frankly). Would the situation be where I am doing some 3D modeling and the heavy duty card would be dedicated to that while the EFI card is handling the normal 2D stuff? Or the case where WoW is in windowed mode?

 

If the above is correct, I'll probably just stick with the one card for now to keep things simple. I did a super quick google search on the injecting stuff, and it sounds like it is sometimes needed to make the card work properly - is that true? Would I still need an efi string or dsdt fix if I am running on a single card? Again, I don't exactly know what an efi string or dsdt fix are, but as I get into the build I assume I'll encounter that and have to learn.

 

Regarding rebooting / dual booting and the Realtek chip, if unplugging and replugging will provide a fix until the next time you restart, at least that's only really annoying, as opposed to totally broken... instead of restarting, does a shut down, wait, then start up accomplish the same thing?

 

Thanks for the full name of the USB adapter. I also found a refurb for $17 from BestBuy.com, so I think if I wind up needing / wanting it I will purchase it then.

 

I did place my entire order finally, here's what I got:

 

 

CPU: i7-920

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

Memory: CORSAIR DOMINATOR

6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8D

GPU: MSI N250GTS Twin Frozr 1G GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (I have an extra Seagate 1.5TB drive for data)

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7

HSF: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long

Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model AD-7240S-0B

Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

[Jimmy Urine]

Hey Schmoppa

 

As for the GFX card stay with one, you don't really need two cards since you actually described the usage of osx with two cards pretty well.

the dsdt/efi/injectors all do the same thing, they make the gfx cards run on osx. it's all a matter of how upgrade proof you want to be.

 

The DSDT is a "special" table found in the bios that tells the os how to work with it. efi strings actually do the same but they're much more limited. injectors are the same and they actually affect the os itself. the best "cleanest" way to install mac os is to have all the required fixes in the DSDT since it's pretty much upgrade proof and aside from the dsmos/fake smc you wouldn't need any kexts (if you do it right and these days you don't need to do it right, i have a fixed DSDT you can use with your gfx card and all the required extension fixes). it's a dream come true since there's no need to touch anything after you've installed it. hassle free, always working, and the best thing is that you can run 64bit out of the box with no problems.

 

though unplugging (not shutting down) will fix the lan disappearing act problem get yourself the refurb usb lan, it'll save you time a headache passing between systems trust me on that it'll be the best 17$ you'll ever spend on your system

 

now i've a question you're not gonna like, are you gonna dedicate the boot drive to osx or the systems suppose to "share" it?

the best thing for you to do as far as os and preplanning goes is to have a few hard drives dedicated.

now before you panic, let me explain.

 

SSD for main system (i suppose mac)

another dedicated drive for windows (if you're new to mac you'll find that you're not gonna visit there too often unless you want to play games all the time)

1.5TB formated as hfs+ to keep all your file, music, whatnot... (install Mediafour | MacDrive and you'll be able to fully access it from windows, though you may copy things to it don't install stuff on it)

and another small old drive or usb storage (no more than 15gb since it's a waste of space) for an osx recovery system.

 

this configuration will help you keep everything separated so if main system goes down you'll be safe and able to fix it.

 

looking through your configuration i'd say you've got yourself a lovely new MAC

 

if you need any info post/google or PM

else enjoy

Jimmy Urine

[schmoppa]

Thanks once again Jimmy!! You've been a lot of help.

 

If I can help it I will not use W7 very much, though I am curious to check it out having built several XP Pro boxes over the last 8 years. I have been using a Macbook Pro the last nearly 2 years however, though just for work and I am looking forward to my own personal Mac system. The only time I could really envision using W7 is if I did get a game not available on the Mac, but that's not too likely in the near future.

 

I was indeed considering partitioning the SSD to dual boot (though I'm not positive how big the first partition can be before the second isn't bootable, as I recall that was an issue with XP installs). But if all goes as planned and the Mac install is solid, I don't actually foresee using W7 a lot, and in that case would likely just find an old, small unused drive and run W7 off that for kicks. Though many of my old drives are, of course, PATA. I do have a couple PATA->SATA adapters however.

 

And for when I do video editing or photo editing, I'll have a couple extra drives for scratch disks (though I wonder how much that will be needed given the SSD).

[Griffwill]

for me W7 is more of a utility OS. I have it on a separate HDD and us it to update hardware stuff like firmware. I'e also been using it recently to run emulators. I just can't let go of the N64...