Hi. I could really use any advice or recommendations from any of you guys on an upgrade to my PC, I'm not that knowledgeable on PC's, my local computer store will be doing the work, but I'm not sure which motherboard processor and ram to ask them to install. The machine will be used for HD video graphics, I have just over a grand to play with approx £1200, I would like an i7 a fast one that I don't need to overclock (Perhaps an i7 950) an SSD for the opsys a new motherboard and a large amount of ddr3 Ram. The Ram and motherboard are causing me the most problems, the minimum recommended Ram for the software I use is 2 gig per processor core, fair enough but i7's have 8 cores no? so this makes the minimum recommended Ram = 16 gig, I currently have 8 gig and an intel core 2 duo, it is a lot of ram so I decided to run a few tests and found it was relatively easy to max out the Ram I already have so I suspect 16 gig of ddr3 would be the right amount to go for with an i7, in fact many video graphics users are installing as much as 32 gig on their machines presently. Where this all leaves me is, confused, I wanted to go for a Gigabyte motherboard, but though they support 16 gig, they only have 4 ram slots, so how do you get 16 gig on to one of their boards, the largest ddr3 ram sticks I can find are 2 gig each which would mean I can only install 8 gig half of the minimum recommended by Adobe for After effects. Does anyone have any ideas for a solution perhaps some Ram I've overlooked or a different motherboard?
I can't really help you there, as I don't know... but the other people with 32GB of RAM, probably have a server motherboard powered by some fancy Intel Xeon CPU. So you may need to look into that. I know that Dell sells standard computers with 16 or 24GB of RAM powered by a Core i7, so definitely something exists., like this one: http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/M...rd&ProductID=2957&ProductName=GA-EX58-EXTREME (max memory supported is 24GB - 6 memory slot). Another things to note, is that the Core i7 is actually a Quad Core CPU. The 4 other cores that you see, is because of the Hyper-threading technology, which basically tried to execute 2 instructions simultaneously like if you had 8 cores. The result is that it's faster than a Quad Core, but no wear near a true 8 core CPU. Another thing to consider, is that Nvidia makes Quadro series GPU's. These GPU's are designed to offload CPU task to the GPU instead which is much faster (as it's designed to do this kind of stuff, as well as 3D rendering, graphics, graphical effects and physics). Of course you need supported software to use this ability. I believe some of the latest Adobe software uses that ability... you have to see. If you are going with dual CPU Xeon (for 8 real cores) path, I suggest you look at the MacPro. NO, not for MacOS, and a Windows based Quadro GPU... buy Windows 7, and install it instead of Mac OS. you kinda don't want MacOS, as it's apple that does the drivers not the hardware manyafcture, so you end up not taking full advantage of the hardware and lack features for every hardware. Why go with a a MacPro instead of custom build? Simple... Intel provides Apple these Xeon for virtually free, so that means you save money. Note: if you get a Windows GPU they are not only cheaper than MacOS ready GPU's, but also works only in Windows environment.
16 Gb of RAM is a silly combination on I7 since it supports triple channel memory therefore has 3/6 Dimms. so 6-12-24-48 for £1200 budget your not gunna be able to factor in uber expensive RAM like 4GB modules or 8Gb modules your looking around £600+ for 4GB and around £1500 for 8Gb ones as for the gigabyte boards your looking at the wrong ones. my X58-UD5 has 6 DIMMS so you could have 12Gb in that no problem, 16Gb isnt really possible combination for your budget. Ideally you should be looking at workstation as these are much better suited to your needs for large amounts of RAM etc. but i doubt £1200 is anywhere near enough. for average high street stuff 12Gb is all your gunna get for i7 1366. Id also look into the quadros but again they are extremely expensive but are much better suited to graphics deisgn etc than your gaming GPUs.
I've never heard of GPU's what are they? They sound very interesting, well anything that can help with rendering sounds good to me, how exactly do they work, is it an extra bit of hardware? I'm running xp pro x64 which is solid as when it comes to high end audio and video apps, though as you said It does seem a lot of people are going for mac book pro's for video graphics work, I didn't realize they had 2 quads in em, no wonder.
I see, it's starting to sink in now, oh well 12 gig should keep me happy then I guess, I think these excessive amounts of ram are a little over hyped anyway, After effects won't use more than 8 in my comps most of the time, so that's cool. X58-UD5 you say, what kind of ram would be good in combination with this board? I'd need to find a working configuration of all three actually, the ram the processor and the board that all match based around an i7 950, any suggestions other than the X58-UD5? ram etc?. .
GPU = Graphics processing unit. Graphics accelerators such as quadro's or FireGL's (both workstation card brands) only accelerate viewports in the software, so what you see on screen whilst working can display without lag. As for rendering, this operation is still done via the CPU and more cores the better. expense workstation cards are not worth the cash at all, unless you editting serious amounts of hi-def video with in the industry.
lol sorry GPUs are grpahics processing units they are the acutally chips on graphics cards. GPUs are part of all graphics cards and therefore people tedn to use GPUs to shorten it although we shoudlnt cause it is an incorrect usuage of the term. as for XP64 it generally suck cause it has extremely poor driver support and is plagued compatiblilty issues. Dont NEED a MAC for video graphics work since you can they just use standard components and put windows on instead. Does your software even support MAC ?
Mushkin recently released their Blackline-series with 2x4GB and 3x4GB 1600MHz DDR3 packages with CL8.
really couldnt even find it listed on their website EDIT found it not blackline though - just thier standard dekstop memory and its $780 for 12GB kit
GPU's stand for Graphical Processing Unit. It's a processor... every component in your computer, even your DVD drive has a processor. Processors allows a device to function properly by receiving supported instructions (giving by the Operating System - Windows for instance), to perform a certain task. Your CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the big main processor, it's designed to do basic math, execute system level instructions, and run all sort of software that you put on your computer. Your GPU is what converts instructions (binrary data it receives), into mainly, graphics... that the card in your computer that allows you to have an image on your display. It's power is more than the CPU for the high end ones. While your CPU has 4 CPU's in 1 die.. a high end desktop level GPU of today has over 200 processors. However, if you try to run Notepad on it... it will be extremely slow, as it's not designed to do such task. It's specialty is perform: - 2D rendering (draw stuff in 2D on your screen) - 3D rendering (gaming, CAD, 3D modeling, etc...) - Complex Math (encoding/decoding videos, simulation and more) - Complex Physics (able to perform complex physics to provide more realism in games, or in simulation) Another processor in your computer is the SPU.. Sound Processing unit... that is your sound card... it grabs instructions, and perform decoding and converting to provide you with digital or analogue sound for your speaker system. Today's GPU are soooo powerful, that now more and more software are interested in using it. For instance, Windows XP interface is actually drwan by your CPU, and not by your GPU.... back in the odl days of 2001, most computers did not have the graphical capabilities to draw XP interface smoothly, the CPU was more powerful, despite not being designed to do such a task. In today computers (2006 and up) average computer have the real power to draw... so now.. since Vista with Aero interface (the glass effect, transparency and all that) is all rendered by the GPU. This means... that when you move your mouse or drag a window out of frustration as your computer is sooo slow.. it won't make things worse... as it's not the CPU that draws the interface anymore Also wallpapers doesn't make the CPU slow down. Of course, I am not talking about anything significant here.. as today CPU's are MUCH more fast than back in the old days... i am just saying that for a small laugh. Also remember that your XP is a 32-bit Operating system... designed for 32-bit CPU... today we have 64-bit CPU's and Windows Vista/7 are fully optimized for 64-bit processors (assuming you install the 64-bit version). So that will provide you a boost in performance if you run (and if it exists) teh software you use in 64-bit flavor. Anyway... back to GPU... some software uses, today, your GPU to render things instea do fteh CPU as it's faster. In you case I BELIEVE but not sure, that the latest version of Adobe software that you use can use the GPU instead of the CPU to render things meaning that when you render/encode/decode stuff it will be much faster. More info: http://www.nvidia.com/page/workstation.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/builtforadobepros.html
Read an article on Sweclockers.com, XtremeSystems and Guru3D about 2 weeks ago, and they were blackline. Mushkin Blackline 4GB-modules with 7-7-7-20 timings @ 1600MHz. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=237825 http://www.guru3d.com/news/mushkin-blackline-ddr3-8-gb-and-12-gb-memory-kits-/
Quadro's are really expensive and you can do the same things with most Nvidia graphics cards above an 8800. 12gb should be enough, 6gb comes in at around £100, so £200 will give you 12gb A Vista x64 or Windows 7 x64 license - £100-£200 A motherboard - £150-£200 i7 950 - £450 Geforce GTX 275 - £170 etc
Yes and no... Quadros have drivers and the chip is tweaked really to be optimized for such task. And the drivers are much more reliable (that is why you pay more)
Not to mention the extra memory on the Quadro-cards, try finding a consumer GPU with 4GB of memory...
My Gigabyte board has 6 slots. As far as i know only their low-end X58 boards like the UD3 have 4 slots. I'm running a Gigabyte EX58-UD5 and i love it to bits.
