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To Overclock or Not to Overclock
kdog
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That is the question. I'm thinking of building a new PC based on the Intel I7-2600 3.4GHz, and it seems the first question that needs to be addressed is whether to overclock. The usage for the computer will be photo-editing with CS5, and hopefully video-editing in the not-to-distant future. I'm not a gamer. I suppose I could build a PC capable of overclocking and just not overclock it unless I feel some compelling need in the future. Not sure if there's any downside to that other than a bit of extra cost. Maybe $100 difference in getting the "K" variant of the chip and an enthusiast class motherboard.
All thoughts are welcome.
-joel
All thoughts are welcome.
-joel
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modern motherboards do a good job , no need to set speeds manually
if you insists on overclocking , use AMD
overclocking is not an easy thing to do , especially with Intel
my idea ; hold your horses until windows8 is out , then choose MoBO and CPU
[ = what i am doing ]
/ɯoɔ˙ƃnɯƃnɯs˙ʇlɟsɐq//:dʇʇɥ
This is the list of compatible GeForce graphics engines from Adobe's website here: http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/tech-specs.html
Probably the cheapest option is this one for $329.
Link to my Smugmug site
Link to my Smugmug site
my idea ;
MoBo should have
- 64bit
-RAID
-several SATA-slots
-at least 4 RAM-slots
/ɯoɔ˙ƃnɯƃnɯs˙ʇlɟsɐq//:dʇʇɥ
Link to my Smugmug site
overclocking is not needed IMO
storage space is ....IMO
my setup ?
3 HDD in one RAID array
1 HDD for backup
8GB RAM - no virtual RAM
win7 , 64bit , no problem
[ only game i have is ; ages beyond myst ]
/ɯoɔ˙ƃnɯƃnɯs˙ʇlɟsɐq//:dʇʇɥ
save money ,,,,,,, like SDD were cheap , ... , HAH ,,,,
for photo-editing , only RAM counts , [ and disk-space ]
/ɯoɔ˙ƃnɯƃnɯs˙ʇlɟsɐq//:dʇʇɥ
Link to my Smugmug site
http://www.danalphotos.com
http://www.pluralsight.com
http://twitter.com/d114
Right, but none of the I7 gen-2 boards seem to support that unfortunately.
Link to my Smugmug site
Admittedly I'm on the older i7 930 system.
I have 2 SSD's
RAM trumps ALL things Video. Get a decent Video card that Adobe perhaps recommends and leave it at that. Though if it comes with elemental accelerator for premiere pro, then that is a good extra! My Quadro FX ( $1k Card) does not outperform my straight RAM when in render mode or in RAM preview or working in layers.
I am presently overclocked to 4.0Ghtz and thats from 2.8Ghtz. Everything is snappier with the overclock. I bought a simple aftermarket air based cooling fan (<$40) and it keeps things cool sufficiently. My MOBO and CPU and RAM were all matched to work in unison for overclocking. and it does work and work well, even after my last upgrade to 24GB.
If you get a board that uses 6GBS HDD, that'll work as well or just as well as a SSD. SSD's have come down in price, but RAM is where you need the most money for video and I suspect all Adobe products.
My experience is different. LR3 is file system intensive when creating preview copies, etc. Adding SSD to my systems have increased performance significantly. Yes, I'd prioritize RAM over SSD, but I wouldn't build a new computer today without both heavy RAM and SSD. Even a small SSD for system and temporary files creates an amazing difference.
Your mileage may vary. Just speaking from actual experience.
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Kevin
I regularly use evga to monitor when my card is actually doing anything. And unless I am using premier pro AND elemental accelerator, it does: NOTHING during a render! That said if I elect to use elemental accelerator, it really cranks out a render in 1/5th the time!
Thanks, Tom.
-joel
Link to my Smugmug site
Link to my Smugmug site
No. Not at all. using evga [(link) Which is for overclocking your graphics card] as a monitoring tool, I can see when/if my graphics card is engaged in duties. For instance when I watch a high bit rate video, I'll see it (the Quadro FX card) come up and work at about 16 to 20 % load.
Now I can have that little monitoring program open while After Effects or Premiere Pro is open and see if/when it does any work.
If I render a video from Premiere Pro (in Media encoder) And watch the card. The Card does no work during the render. My Quadro has elemental accelerator and if I choose one of the elemental options from within Media Encoder, then the card comes up to full song and renders very quickly by comparison.
Or if while working in After Effects I do a RAM preview I can elect to turn the card on/off from within After Effects. If I turn the Card on (called OPEN GL) it renders the preview ( of my work so far) slower and is doing about 5% work. I usually just leave it off because Just using the RAM ( my ref. to Straight RAM) instead of Card AND RAM is faster. Much Faster. I'd have to shoot a Screen Shot video of it to Show you, but if you can take it on trust ( $1000 dollars worth of Graphics card trust), then this should satisfy.
below captured Screen SHots (FULL SIZE link: http://www.tomwisephotos.com/Photography/Mega-Challenge/i-9pRkH7N/0/X3/openGL-on-X3.jpg)
GPU turned off below (FUll Size link: http://www.tomwisephotos.com/Photography/Mega-Challenge/i-tF52H4T/0/X3/SSopenGL-off-X3.jpg)
You'll also note that I asked for 1/4 resolution for the Open GL render preview and FUll resolution for the straight RAM preview. That was to lighten the load of the Open GL preview, which it has such a hard time doing apparently.
Bottom line: Ram Trumps Quadro FX 3800 workstation graphics card!
Large amount of RAM along with this new CPU family and a decent graphics card ought to really bring it home.
I love my SSD's no doubt, but I also love both of my scratch disks which are 6Gbs/HDD and plugged into 6Gbs sata ports on the MoBo.
PremierePro has a lot of video effects that you add in layers and, I think becuase I don't have a supported video card to find out:cry, that besides just rendering the bits the Mercury engine also renders the effects faster than the CPU can. Also Premiere Pro tells you if what it renders is being done with the Mercury engine or not with a little highlight line just above the sequence.
None of the fancy video cards do much unless the application you use supports them. I think it mostly games that support these advanced features, Premiere Pro is probably one of very few non-game apps that do.
Also in Premiere you can choose the quality of preview is shows when you are editing. For the simple video stuff I do I choose a "low res" preview so things don't slow down, but is good enough and fast enough for what I do.
The reason I would like a supported video card is that I think it would speed up the final rendering, which for me right now takes a bit longer than real time. I'd love to cut that down.
http://www.danalphotos.com
http://www.pluralsight.com
http://twitter.com/d114
Link to my Smugmug site
Now. Isn't that the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine I've heard so much about? Premiere Pro is divinely suited for such an engine. After Effects is not. Premiere Pro actually only renders a small fraction of a frame and uses algorithms to conjure up the rest so it can play back at real time in it's viewing window. After Effects on the other hand has to render each and every pixel of each and every frame so that you can do detailed compositing work, hence once again why I use it more often to show graphics card examples. So no. Adobe After Effects cannot use the Mercury Playback Engine.
A bit longer than real time? Thats actually pretty darned good Dan! I have done simple 60 second video renders that take an hour or more.
But the real deal has been elemental accelerator. Elemental is a separate company and VERY responsive via e-mail. I got lucky that my Quadro had it when I bought it, and when I choose one of elementals' codecs to render with, it speeds up a render-time hugely
On one hand it makes hardly any sense to me that a graphics card costing close to 2 grand cannot really do anything for a graphics intensive program. And yet on the other hand in my reading some weeks ago, I read where certain movies took over night just to render 2 frames of content, and I know they have better computers than me.
You're very welcome. I hadn't grasped that idea as well as you. Otherwise I'd have never ponied up for the QuadroFX-3800 last year when I built my Workstation. In my defense though, Nvidia and their marketing hyperbole boiled me over and fooled me totally.
To do it all over again. I'd have 2 Cpu's, As much RAM as I could reasonably afford (like 48GB), a Simple yet effective graphics card that all the After Effects Geeks like ( just peruse their forums) like those GTX cards you mentioned earlier, Win7 Pro And CS5.5.
Good Luck on your build!
What the Mercury engine does is use the instruction set in the graphics card to render the video. That's why only certain cards are supported. Premiere has lots of video effects and supports multi track of video which are really layers, so it is much like Photoshop in that respect. I use Premiere to do simple animation too, though it would be really tedious for anything all that complex. Pushing all that into the processor on the graphics card is a real win.
In premier you usually do editing in a preview window that is in effect lower resolution that what you are going to produce, just for performance. In my case even without a supported graphics card I haven't noticed any slow downs while editing though someone else I know who makes videos similar to mine does sometimes experience pauses while he is editing.
Premiere is much like Photoshop in that edits and effects are non-destructive. So you can always produce the highest quality output your source material is capable of even if you are doing editing in a low res mode. Once you are done with your edits Adobe's media encode renders you final output.
On my next system I'l will be sure to get one of the graphic cards that the Mercury engine supports though.
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