Planning on buying tonight! If you can, please take a look.

[ramboski]

Hey everyone.
Long time reader first time builder.

Really worried I'm gonna blow the bank on this machine and it won't fit together but after days of research I think this build will work.

First bit from Amazon
Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 Desktop Processor $294.99

Gigabyte LGA1366 SATA3 ATI CrossFireX ATX Motherboard GA-X58A-UD3R $207.47

OCZ OCZ3G1600LV6GK DDR3 PC3-12800 1600 MHz Gold XTC 6GB Triple Channel Kits $89.99

Cooler-Master Haf X: Ultimate Full Size Gaming Chassis $179.99

Corsair 60 GB Force Series Ultra Fast TRIM Supported Solid State Drive CSSD-F60GB2-BRKT $119.99

Samsung 1 TB Spinpoint 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.5 inch Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive HD103SJ $62.99

Next batch from new egg

Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model AD-7260S-0B - OEM $16.99

OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $119.99 -$15 rebate

1. XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity 2. XFX Black Edition XPS-850W-BES 850W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC ... $374 / $294 after rebate

Split between Amazon and Newegg was biased on best price and Amazon doesn't charge taxes.

I'm a film maker who needs a good rig to get HD editing done. Additionally I haven't been able to play computer games since obilivion on my laptop so i'd love a machine for the long haul. BUT budget is key.

Started up a production company and only have about 5 grand for this, camera equipment, grip equipment and transportation to shoots.

Right now it is about $1500 and I need a monitor too (please suggestions for a cheap but sharp one)

I don't know what other information you'd need. I know 6gb ram isn't the best but good enough for now. I was looking at the obsinian 800D case but it was too much so the HAF X is a good sub. Just trying to get the build going. Can build off it as income ... well comes in.

Please let me know what you all think. Thanks for your input.

 

[Samchavles]

Looks good to me i do the exact same thing. As far as graphics go i have a 90 dollar card. The EVGA Gt 240 1gb.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

It handles red encoding to pro res 4444 amazingly.

My red cameras my baby

And as for a cheap sharp monitor the best brand ive seen for price and has great reviews.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Get yourself this rig. a good cheap lighting set from amazon. Maybe if you can get a little more spring for the Canon 5D with the wide angle lense and you can do great buisness my friend.

 

[alux]

Think about 12GB of ram, so you can run windows in parallels smooth or any other OS if you need it.
Transcoding in mac at HD takes a lot of space, think about a 2GB disc for those kind of things. Take in count that the booting disc should have a partition of 1GB or less to boot property.

Monitor: Dell ultra sharp series, 24 inch or more. Use HDMI input so you can see smooth text. Any thing in vga is not as sharp as hdmi

Maybe you should put on hold the SSD if you can. I had read that performance decrease very quickly, but not have any SSD confirm it to you.

 

[Samchavles]

Think about 12GB of ram, so you can run windows in parallels smooth or any other OS if you need it.
Transcoding in mac at HD takes a lot of space, think about a 2GB disc for those kind of things. Take in count that the booting disc should have a partition of 1GB or less to boot property.

Monitor: Dell ultra sharp series, 24 inch or more. Use HDMI input so you can see smooth text. Any thing in vga is not as sharp as hdmi

Maybe you should put on hold the SSD if you can. I had read that performance decrease very quickly, but not have any SSD confirm it to you.

Hd encoding doesn't differ because of operating systems silly. It depends on the nitrate of video he's encoding and into what codec.

 

[bones123]

I run windows 7 ultimate in vmware fusion 3 with only 5GB total ram on my hackintosh. I give W7 2 GB and it runs fine. I'm not doing anything ram intensive on the W7 vm but it runs fine.

edit: wow just seen some prices on 12 GB kits yeah it sounds like a good idea

 

[alux]

I run windows 7 in parallels. At the beginning with 6 GB or ram, but the MacOS start to increase Swap usage up to 3 GB. Then i put another 6 GB and everything goes smooth since then.


Samchavles, what RED camera do you have?

 

[Samchavles]

The red one. It costs 25 grand but I won it in a student film contest

 

[Vendetta]

Any particular reason for the 2 SSDs?

I would do a bit of searching around to see what type of success people have had with the 5870s. I know people have done well with the 5770, but haven't read much about the 5870s.

The PSU may be overkill.

 

[justr]

I just built a similar system a couple days ago and it is running smoothly. But I've got at 5770 instead of the much better 5870; also have 12GB ram, and no SSD (though that's next). Running it in an Antec Three Hundred, which is available for $50 to $60 bucks, looks great, fits everything fine (including a Hyper 212+ cooler), and runs quite cool (I couldn't get my machine to break 60C in intel burn test or prime95 blend with the fans set to their lowest level; with fans on high I topped out at 57 C). The plan is to overclock to 4.0 GHz.

I picked up the Sabrent Bluetooth adapter for my magic mouse and wireless keyboard.

And I'm running 64-bit kernel. (Check out Noshy's guide... it's spot on.)

The one thing I wonder about all the parallels talk is... if you've got Win7 too, why not just install it on an empty drive or separate partition? I've got Win7 Ultimate 64-bit dual-booting off a partition... the guide here made it simple to set up.

Another question: why the 850 Watt PSU? Sounds like overkill. Oh, and if you or a friend lives near a microcenter, the i7-950 is only $199 in store only!

In any case, you won't regret it. Runs fast, clean, and was easy to set up.

 

[alux]

Lucky you. Congrats!.

The red one. It costs 25 grand but I won it in a student film contest