Please check my PC spec - Vegas editing beast!

[pilsburypie]

Hi all - about to spend the best part of £1.5k on a new build so want to check I am getting the best components I can. Basically the machine will be used for Sony Vegas 11pro and Photoshop.

Corsair obsidian 550d black
Asus P8Z77 V
Intel i7 3770K O/C 4.4Ghz
Phanteks PH-TC14PE cooler
16Gb (4x4) Samsung Green MV-3V4G3D/US O/C 2400Mhz
650w Corsair TX series
128Gb Crucial M4 SSD
GTX570 GPU
3TB Seagate Baracuda 7200rpm
LGBH10LS38 blu-ray RW
Windows 7 pro 64 bit

Advice appreciated

[Midnight Blue]

I'm not a hardware expert but to me your spec. seems more than adequate to cope with Vegas. One thing you might like to look into is having a third hard disk of 500Gb at 10,000rpm speed if you can. This is a better size disk for your current working projects.

Hope you enjoy your system.

[pilsburypie]

You say a 500gb 10k rpm is a better size disk for working projects. Why is this? The faster rpm copying/transferring data faster? The smaller disk size making it easier to find the files?

Would the larger 3tb disk be that much slower due to its size?

[Midnight Blue]

That's exactly right the faster spin speed and the smaller size helps the HDD to work faster. I saw a lecture by an industry pro who said th 500Gb size disk is about the right compromise of size needed with performance.

I use a 2Tb and 1Tb disk without much problem, I can't say how a 3Tb disk would work but having a SSD for your OS gives a great performance boost.

[pilsburypie]

Thanks for your input. Is that known as a scratch disc? Someone also suggested another ssd for a similar reason I think. I shall bear this in mind.

[Bpotter908]

The I7 processor you have will do very nicely.
Find out the model number of the Corsair PSU and read a few reviews on it, You should always spend a bit more time on the PSU, You want it to be efficient and constantly delivering the needed power.


I'm so not convinced by owning one big 3TB drive, In addition to Midnight's comments regarding speed what do you do if that 3TB blows up? ( As drives do fail ) You'll have to buy another 3TB drive.

Can you get 1-4 500gb drives and set them up as a mini raid array? you should definitely look at a raid solution as it gives a tremendous performance boost, You'll find the full power of your system unleashed with a raid array, Where as if all the data is on one drive, even with SATA you'll find that there is a system bottleneck that develops which cuts down on your performance quite a bit. There is a single "pipe" of data coming to the motherboard and going to the disk drive, if you have more drives, that's more pipes of data therefore it get's passed around a lot quicker.

Just saw your post about scratch disks.

Your best option for highest performance is this

Raid 1 + 0
1 HDD 7200rpm = Capture Files
1 HDD 7200rpm = Project Files
1 HDD 7200rpm = Media Cache
1 HDD 7200rpm = Exported File

[pilsburypie]

Great idea. The corsair psu is their TX series. Well thought of I believe. 650w should be enought power for the system.

RAID I will have to do some research on. I don't have much knowledge on that past knowing data is written to both discs therefore cutting down write time.

I do have an external backup drive for my videos and photos but also see the issue of replacing one big drive if that goes wrong.

[Bpotter908]

If there are six products in that series and one of them is a dud, how do you know which is which? Watt value does not denote quality or performance

[vidmanners]

Check on Sony creative website...Pro 11 can use the Graphics processor I read, provided it's one on the list. No mention of CUDA . . you'll have to search FAQ's perhaps.

As to HDD's - surely compare the spc gives the seek-time - that's what to expect. As to reliability a second HDD is a good idea for the OS and 500G is more than enough, but for Back-up the HDD needs to be external and stored in another place. If the MBO supports it you may be able to get an eSATA housing for an external 2-3Tb.
USB 3 is soon likely to be the de-facto standard, so make sure you have some...and you might like to add a 4/6 way Firewire card (~£10). . . just in case you're handed a tape-based camcorder.

[TimStannard]

Raid 1 + 0
1 HDD 7200rpm = Capture Files
1 HDD 7200rpm = Project Files
1 HDD 7200rpm = Media Cache
1 HDD 7200rpm = Exported File

I'm intrigued Bpotter. Are you suggesting 4 x RAID 1 + 0 arrays (which would equate to 16 disks)?
Or are you suggesting four volumes on one array?

If the latter, then surely you are losing the advantage of separate drives for different purposes.