Advice: Building an Adobe PC

[Blotus]

A machine built only for running Premiere, Photoshop, and After Effects CS6. I'd need a lot of hard drive space, maybe 4x2TB drives. And a shitton of RAM.

Most of the requirements are straightforward, but when it comes to graphics cards, I'm a chump. I also have no concept of what PCs and their components cost.

Windows

Intel® Core™2 Duo or AMD Phenom® II processor with 64-bit support; Intel Core i7 processor required for Adobe® SpeedGrade™
Microsoft® Windows® 7 with Service Pack 1 (64 bit)
4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
10.5GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices)
Additional disk space required for disk cache, preview files, and other working files (10GB recommended)
1280x900 display with 16-bit color and 512MB of VRAM; 1680x1050 display required and second professionally calibrated viewing display recommended for SpeedGrade
OpenGL 2.0–capable system
7200 RPM hard drive (multiple fast disk drives, preferably RAID 0 configured, recommended)
Sound card compatible with ASIO protocol or Microsoft WDM//MME
DVD-ROM drive compatible with dual-layer DVDs (DVD+-R burner for burning DVDs; Blu-ray burner for creating Blu-ray Disc media)
Java™ Runtime Environment 1.6
QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime and multimedia features
Dedicated GPU card required for SpeedGrade (for optimal performance in SpeedGrade and for GPU-accelerated features in Adobe Premiere® Pro and After Effects®: NVIDIA Quadro 4000, 5000, or 6000 or other Adobe-certified GPU card with at least 1GB of VRAM recommended); visit http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/extend.html for supported cards
Optional: Tangent CP200 family or Tangent Wave control surface for SpeedGrade
Optional: For SDI output, NVIDIA Quadro SDI Output card required for SpeedGrade

So with those things mentioned above, a spiffy graphics card (1GB or more), and an i7... how much should I be expecting to spend?
What should I look out for? Things to avoid?

[kali o.]

How much is a newer Quadro card? Three grand? I couldn't spend that. If a normal card is what you are gunning for, the GTS 570 should be under $300 now and it probably offers the best price vs performance atm (550 is a trap). i7...what? A 2700k will set you back 300 or so. But if you mean a 3960, then you get up to a couple grand with a solid mb.

I have no idea what you really need for this kinda software, but if I built a system this second for myself it would be:

i7-3770K OR i7-2700K
$350 (liquid cooling if o/cing) / $300 (hyper 212 works and is cheap)

MSI Z77A-GD65
$175

GIGABYTE GTX 570 1280MB OR MSI GTX 670 2GB
$280 / $400

Then just as much mushkin/g. skill memory as I need (mb supports up to 32gb), a crucial SSD, one or two 2TB Western Digital HDD, 700w+ PS (higher if SLI, and I like Antec), a BR drive and a solid case. Sound cards are a total mystery to me...everytime I've added one, I've had gaming issues.

[Oracle]

Total hijack btw.

Kali, help me out here:

I've always built PCs myself, but have been severely out of the loop regarding hardware over the past two years. Currently running an E8400, 4GB RAM, and a 9800GTX+ on a Gigabyte board (don't have the model infront of me).

I'm looking to replace all of these components, while keeping my current case, hard drives, and possibly PSU provided it can run the new stuff (I can't remember what it is off hand, but I'd compare the new parts to its load before I pulled the trigger on a purchase).

I'm not looking to spend a ton of dough, definitely under $800, less if possible (just dumped $14,000 into house improvements... wtf did I do that right before summer!?). Just something to get me through another 2-3year upgrade cycle.

I've been looking at the i5 3570K. I saw this bundle on NCIX today:
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku= ... omoid=1060

Is this a decent deal? Do you recommend the processor?

Then as far as GPUs go, I'm COMPLETELY out of touch. I'm not looking for a high-end $500+ video card. I'm a sweet-spot GPU purchaser, usually spending between $170-$250.

Edit: I've looked here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html. Seems the GeForce 560 Ti falls in my price-range. Any better recommends? The 7850 here doesn't look too bad, either: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku= ... omoid=1060

I'm also looking for anywhere from 8-16GB RAM, but I can get that for $50-100 on NCIX, so not a real big concern.

Any recommends would be welcomed.

Edit:

So going a little further, for $725+tax I could get the following:

CPU/Mobo bundle: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=71249&promoid=1060
Video Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=69558&promoid=1060
RAM (4x4GB): http://ncix.com/products/?sku=57076&promoid=1060

[kali o.]

So going a little further, for $725+tax I could get the following:

CPU/Mobo bundle: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=71249&promoid=1060
Video Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=69558&promoid=1060
RAM (4x4GB): http://ncix.com/products/?sku=57076&promoid=1060

For the record, I buy from ncix too (they have a store here, warehouse is not far and they buy half their shit from Tech Data anyway, which is nearby too).

- nothing wrong with that cpu/mobo. It's a solid choice. You still want to by decent cooling.
- for $20 bucks more, you could get a 570. http://ncix.com/products/?sku=58573&vpn ... omoid=1067
- solid memory choice.

Unless you are positive, not sure I'd keep the Power Supply. You could post what you actually have, but just remember:
- It needs to have compatable connections
- It needs to provide sufficient power (including a adequate rail for your GPU)
- All PSUs fail eventually...and on the way, they can lose efficiency, capacitors can leak, etc

If you don't keep it, you can grab an Antec 650w -- 750w for around $75 or so. There is always one on sale. That's perfectly sufficient. Which type you want might depend on your case and where you seat the PSU (80mm or 120mm fan).

Edit: For the record, I grabbed: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=67325&vpn ... omoid=1066
It was 50 bucks at the time and sufficient. My only complaint is the cables were a little stiff, but otherwise it's perfect. Some stupid people will recommend higher PSU's (always...lol), but unless you are running SLI or overloaded with components and cooling, 600w is plenty -- you are unlikely to push more than 400 under a full load. Unless your PSU is failing, that leaves ample room even with efficiency loss.

[Oracle]

Would you pick that specific version of the 570 (EVGA?)

There is this on sale too

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku= ... omoid=1060

(4 monitor support, lol)

[Oracle]

Power Supply:

Antec TruePower Trio 550W output

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=21601

I think it should work. Card is rated for 500W (Well, the 7850, looks like I'd need 600W for the 570?), and it's not like this is a low-quality PSU.

[kali o.]

Would you pick that specific version of the 570 (EVGA?)

There is this on sale too

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku= ... omoid=1060

(4 monitor support, lol)

I know EVGA is solid, I don't know squat about Galaxy. Take the model number and do a search...as long is there is no glaring issues.
As for the PSU, 3x 12 rails which is good, 24A/18A are adequate. Lets say 80% efficiency. 550 x.8 = 440. The 3570k & 570 are pretty easy on power but with a full load, 16gb, 1 hdd and an optical drive, I can see you pushing just above 400w. It's cutting it close. You can try it, but I wouldn't be surprised if you get resets down the line.
Why not this one instead: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59339&vpn ... omoid=1305

[SineSwiper]

Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you guys? Just think for a second before you try to build some $4K PC for video editing. Yes, video editing requires a lot of power, but you really need to think about WHAT power you need:

Memory: Yes, video editing takes up metric fucktons of memory. Just throw in whatever the mobo can handle.
CPU: I assume the shit you are using is multithreaded. If so, a nice quad core here. Hours of converting really boil down to the CPU. Definitely want 64-bit here. (Duh, with the RAM, you have to.)
Video Card: See, this is where you can screw up and buy something you don't need. Yes, this is video editing, but ironically, the GPU is not going to get a lot of heavy wear. Video cards are designed for games, where you need a ton of stuff on the screen at the same time. Massive polygon counts, a ton of different models, 3D graphics. Hell, you aren't even dealing with 3D graphics. Why the fuck do you need a top-of-the-line video card?
HDD: Like I told Kali before, don't go out and buy some damn SSD 2TB RAID 5 system. Get the SSD space you need for the programs and storing some video files you're editing. Something like 120GB is fine.

Also, Adobe wants your money. Don't buy into the gimmicks until you can prove that they are worth it.

[Blotus]

Thanks for the input, Kali (and threadjackery, Oracle - it's interesting).

I definitely would not pay top dollar for the mother of all NVIDIA cards, but I will need something spiffy. Working with native recording formats without transcoding (whether compressed AVCHD/h264MOV or RED files) is inherently processor intensive. When you get into effects, compositing, and playback in AE, I imagine a good gfx card will be the difference between choppy-ass RAM playback and something smooth and conducive to a good, modern workflow.


Anyway! Gonna be budgeting this out for ~$2k, hopefully under so I can get another monitor out of the deal. All dependant on whether or not our business loan goes through.