New Workstation Opinions

[cholo]

I just ordered a new workstation for working with HD material and wanted to know if anyone is using a similar system and how things have been working out before paying for the new system.

It's a Dell Precision 390 with 2.4 Ghz quad core processor, 2GB RAM, nvidia quadroFX 500 video board and Win XP SP2.

Anyone with a similar configuration and the results they've had with speededit with such a system would be very helpful. Thanks in advance to anyone who chimes in.

[ted]

Cholo, welcome to my world of frigging frustration. See link for some great info from some great guys on just this.
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69123

The biggest problem is that the hardware I'm buying doesn't always work with the software/hardware we still gotta use daily.
XP Pro doesn't take advantage of the hardware I'm buying. I don't think Win XP will utilize Quad core either. :thumbsdow :thumbsdow :thumbsdow
The solution was to go with a dual boot, Win XP 32bit AND VISTA Ultimate 64bit.
Dumb down to 4gigs Mem because the 8 I planned on using won't work with XP which VT MUST have! :thumbsdow
I'll merge more and more to VISTA as I find applications are OK with it.

Check out the link and you'll see the frustration with trying to buy a system for tomorrow, today! :compbeati

[ScorpioProd]

For anyone that can wait, the P35 chipset may be worth waiting for...

[ScorpioProd]

Hey, good news, the P35 boards are now at NewEgg! :)

[cholo]

I'm planning on going the esata raid route for video hdd. That way I can just take the raid with me to work at home if I have to using my macbook pro with an esata expresscard.

[cholo]

Just to follow up on my original post, I just took delivery of the machine. It's a monster! I've managed 5 layers of hdv with resizing, soft borders, etc... in real time with a text crawl on top, previewing at ful 1920x1080. CPU never hits 100%, hovers around 92%. At this point, I can't be sure when I've hit the limit before I take delivery of a proper raid to rule out any hdd bottlenecks. SpeedEDIT works like a dream. My macbook pro feels very lame compared to this beast. The right video card, twice the processing muscle and 1.5x the bus speed can make all the difference in the world. :)

[wvp]

We got a new system comming soon as well...
Dual Xeon MB (5000x) with one 5345 Quad Core 1333FSB installed
2GB ram
Nvidia FX7600 video card
4 drive SATA 1.5TB Raid "10" (4 drives striped, then mirrored) plus system & storage drive and an external SATA connector (not eSata :()
Should be a great system with room to improve. Will let you know how it works out.

[SBowie]

Dual Xeon MB (5000x) with one 5345 Quad Core 1333FSB installed
I am constantly warned that it can prove nigh unto impossible to find a suitable matching cpu later to 'complete the pair.' I'd be really interested in experiences related in this connection - urban myth, or suund advice?

[Pete Draves]

Steve you are right.
A pair must be bought at the same time. With todays improvements even 3 months later even a pair might be hard to find. Been down that path and had to replace a board for a client. No cpu's were available.
Pete

[John Perkins]

To clear up a few misconceptions:
XP Pro will run with >4GB of RAM, it just won't take advantage of it.

XP Pro will work with quad core CPU's, but only up to two CPU sockets for a total of 8 cores. Windows is licensed per socket, not per core.

CPU's may have problems working together if they are different steppings. (like build numbers) I suggest buying a pair at a time.

On a 64bit OS, SpeedEDIT is able to use up to 4GB of RAM for itself.

Congrats Cholo! :thumbsup:

[wvp]

I am constantly warned that it can prove nigh unto impossible to find a suitable matching cpu later to 'complete the pair.' I'd be really interested in experiences related in this connection - urban myth, or suund advice?
Thanks for the heads up...No way I can justify the cost for the second CPU at this time (got 2 other systems just as old and new cameras needed). More likely we would not upgrade the CPU anyway but its good to know it might not be possible.