Tell me what you think

MoJoe · #1 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 02:12 AM

Well, here's my system:

Pentium 4 2.4C overclocked to 3.2Ghz
Abit IS7-G Motherboard
2x512MB of Kingston HyperX PC4000 (dual-channel)
ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro
2x80GB Western Digital 7200RPM 8MB Cache in RAID 0
Sony DVD-ROM

Soon Getting:
NEC 8x dual format DVD burner

Alan Mills · #2 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 08:23 AM

Sounds capable enough. (compared to mine anyway)

You didn't mention what s/w or OS you'll be using though which can have a big impact on recommended machine spec.

One thing you might want the think about for the longer term though is that you only have at most 80Gb of disk space for editting. Not really all that much by today's standards.

Oh, and I can't remember what RAID 0 is off-hand. Can you remind me?

Also, what's the impact of the overclocking? Is it running at 2.4 or 3.2 in real terms? Both capable enough really. Just curious. Does overclocking shorten the life of the chip at all?

Marc Peters · #3 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 11:16 AM

If memory serves me correct, RAID 0 is the old "two for one" deal (two drives are treated as one). Apperently this improves performance by reducing seek times - but that's me just repeating things parrot fasion without thinking about the physics of it!

Without significant cooling, the CPU's life (as would any component) would be reduced as the heat generated will be significantly higher then a "normal" CPU. In my experience, even a slight modification to P4s results in a jump in the CPU core temperature.

I haven't got around to reading this article, but tomshardware has an article on oc'ing recent CPUs: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040419/index.html

They've also clocked a P4 at 5GHz cooled with liquid nitrogen to -196C.

Alan Mills · #4 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 12:08 PM

OK, just looked up RAID 0.

Some worrying noises there like...

Not fault tolerant. If one drive goes wrong you lose data on both so don;t use on mission critical jobs.

Therefore, I personally fail to see any benefit in a RAID 0 configuration here.

You'll be just as well to have two seperate drives as seperate partitions. One for the OS and a seperate drive for video.

At least if one goes wrong you still have the other.

Unless, of course you have video files in excess of 80Gb, which is pushing 7 hours so i doubt it.

Marc Peters · #5 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 12:29 PM

And with the volume of critical data in video editing, it's probably best to go for mirrored drives if anything - unlike other PC activities, it's not a matter of backuping up project critical data on CD/DVD as it simply wouldn't fit! How many other activities consume so much HDD space with so much ease?

tongachutt · #6 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 05:29 PM

I dont think that the raid array will cause any real problems as the WD HDD's are very reliable and should last years- Raid0 also gives you a very decent write/read speed boost. Effectivley any data stored on hdd is (sort of) split in half and written/read to/from each disc in parrallel, theoretically giving you twice the bandwidth of a normal setup. It is true however that if one drive goes all your data will be lost.

As far as your overclock goes as long as your running cool and stable you shouldnt have a problem there either. Running your proc slightly hotter may reduce its life slightly but It'll still run for a good few years - long enough for it to have become obsolete anyways!

What you might want to consider is getting a third 20 or 40gig drive on which to put your OS and premier (or whatever NLE you prefer) and keep your raid array for your video footage. Your machine should then kick ass for editing!

tonga

MoJoe · #7 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 08:20 PM

aight, I use Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 Beta as my OS but I think I might try adding a 20gig linux partition, not for editing though. My main Video editing software is Vegas but I also use Premiere a bit and I'm trying to learn After Effects.

Overclocking: I am an experienced overclocker and I know what I'm doing. I made sure to upgrade my cooling so I currently have a huge copper heatsink and a 92mm fan cooling my CPU and my temperatures are actually lower then what they were when I was running my CPU at stock speed with the stock heatsink. It's also completely stable so that's not much of a problem.

RAID 0: I am aware that if one hard drive fails all my data is lost, but again, Western Digital hard drives (at least the new ones) don't fail very often and I'm really not concerned. I back up all my critical stuff. The speed increase is massive though and well worth it. In case you didn't know, RAID 0 combines the capacity of both the hard drives so they appear in windows as one 160GB hard drive. That's enough storage for me now, and if I need more I might buy a bigger hard drive. The main reason why i don't want to buy a different hard drive for windows and my apps is because that's where the big performance boost comes in. It take my comp about 5 seconds (no exaggeration) to boot into windows and stop loading after getting to the moving bar screen. well worth it if you ask me.

Marc Peters · #8 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 08:27 PM

When can we expect to see your first video?

MoJoe · #9 (**permalink**) 04-22-2004, 08:32 PM

oh, idk about that...

I'm still a n00b to editing...

My next project I guess will be a movie I'm making for bonus in my high school french class. Time is really tight here and I'm not in charge of the film, just the editing, so I'll put it here but I know I won't be satisfied with the film when it is "done".

My biggest project it over the summer I will be working with two of my friends on a big project (30 minutes). I'm working on filming and general editing, one of my friends will be working on sound and photoshop stuff, and another one knows Maya and Terragen :twisted: . I'll definently post that movie when it's done.