Performance gain and bang for buck for Video Editing?

[joliv999]

Hi,

I'm in about to pull the trigger on a desktop hack and having worked out 3 different systems, I have eliminated the one based on I7-870/P55 Mobo, which would cost about the same as the one based on I7-950/X58 Mobo.

I'm living in Thailand and some of the more compatible components are not available locally (ordering from Amazon or Newegg is not an option). Prices here are ok, so not a problem.

Don't play games, but need a strong machine for photo and video editing. I'm no pro, I do this for fun. Have both the complete packages of CS5 and FCP.

I'm now looking at either an either I5-760 or I7-950 based system. The later is obviously more powerful and future proof, but costs $400 more, at $1100 (without GPU).

While $400 is worth some consideration, my biggest issue is the best pick for GPU. I was considering the ATI 5770, looking at the current Mac Pro lineup, expecting it to be easily compatible with the hackintosh build. Well, it appears not to be the case.

Thus the other valid alternative for me was going for a Nvidia 9800GT, that appears to work very well (and costs $80 less)

I would appreciate some opinions/feedback to the following:
1. Considering my main use for the system, is it worth spending extra $400 for the higher end machine? How much would the performance gain in terms of rendering speed for FCP or Motion be?
2. Are the hassles of keeping the ATI 5770 card running properly worth the potential performance gains over the 9800GT?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Jo

 

[MacMan]

Hi,

I'm in about to pull the trigger on a desktop hack and having worked out 3 different systems, I have eliminated the one based on I7-870/P55 Mobo, which would cost about the same as the one based on I7-950/X58 Mobo.

I'm living in Thailand and some of the more compatible components are not available locally (ordering from Amazon or Newegg is not an option). Prices here are ok, so not a problem.

Don't play games, but need a strong machine for photo and video editing. I'm no pro, I do this for fun. Have both the complete packages of CS5 and FCP.

I'm now looking at either an either I5-760 or I7-950 based system. The later is obviously more powerful and future proof, but costs $400 more, at $1100 (without GPU).

While $400 is worth some consideration, my biggest issue is the best pick for GPU. I was considering the ATI 5770, looking at the current Mac Pro lineup, expecting it to be easily compatible with the hackintosh build. Well, it appears not to be the case.

Thus the other valid alternative for me was going for a Nvidia 9800GT, that appears to work very well (and costs $80 less)

I would appreciate some opinions/feedback to the following:
1. Considering my main use for the system, is it worth spending extra $400 for the higher end machine? How much would the performance gain in terms of rendering speed for FCP or Motion be?
2. Are the hassles of keeping the ATI 5770 card running properly worth the potential performance gains over the 9800GT?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Jo

1.) The X58 combo will perform better. I don't know about the i7-950 but the i7-930 is easily over clocked. More so than my i5-750
2.) The 5770 is not that difficult to get running in 10.6.4. The only current downside is that you need to run a 32-bit kernel. That will limit applications to only being able to address 4GB of RAM. There are experimental solutions to run 64-bit and should become mainstream soon.

 

[Claus]

For CS5, I'd look into supported nVidia cards to get most out of it. http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

FCP and Motion are not yet so critical about GPU. Anything above 256MB works fine. You can even install it on systems with lesser cards.