Which of these is the best desktop for video editing?

[tykempster]

Based on suggestions from this and other sites, which of the following is the best for editing?

A bit more info on what most of the editing will be, if that makes a difference. I work for an agricultural media company, and most videos will be short. As in auction videos showing each animal for about a minute and half. I am interested in the fastest render time, because I often have to do 150+ of these. I looked on Vegas' website, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about graphics cards to be 100% if the ones in these computers are compatible.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007X0NAYS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative...tag=sareesh-20

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220183

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-XPS-X8500-6842WT-Desktop-Black/dp/B0084C39PO/ref=sr_1_2?s=p...ll+xps+desktop

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883155408

If there are any other suggestions, I would certainly entertain those as well.

Thanks a bunch,
Tyler

[aedipuss]

don't know about the ones with the radeon cards, but the 2 nvidia video cards are useless junk. usefull nvidia cards start with the gtx570/670.

[johns0]

The radeon 7770 are budget cards that are on the border of playing recent video game.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883155408 would be the best computer for what you need.

[usually_quiet]

I agree with johns0. The DELL XPS 8500 is probably the best of the three models listed. (It appears twice in your list.) Among other things, the ASUS Essentio only has a 300W PSU, so it is the worst choice.

None of those machines has a video card with a GPU that is powerful enough for the highest level of GPU assist. The AMD video card in the Dell XPS 8500 will still help somewhat and it is better than the NVIDIA cards in the other two machines. If you decide to upgrade later, NVIDIA would be preferred because CUDA has better support.

Consider replacing the power supply at some point. The PSUs in pre-built PCs aren't usually energy efficient or made to take a heavy load for long periods of time.

All of your choices only provide very limited opportunity for expansion due to their MATX motherboards and cases. It looks like the Dell XPS 8500 only supports 2 hard drives and 2 optical drives. It has USB 3.0 but no eSATA, so you will need to chose external drives with a USB interface. I don't think you can install any add-on cards in the Dell XPS 8500. I don't see any empty slots on the motherboard in the pictures at Newegg's website. All the slots on the motherboard are occupied by the installed video card.

[Edit]I found a better illustration showing expansion slots on the motherboard. The Dell XPS 8500 has one PCI-e x1 espansion slot available with the video card installed.

[smrpix]

You've started from the bottom up, now try again from the top down (These are reasonable and powerful builds):

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/C/DIY+Systems/Videoguys+DIY9+Its+Time+for+Sandy+Bridge+...434e88de7.aspx

I'm guessing you're trying to minimize your budget. Maybe you can find something in between. And you really want Win7 Pro to deal with any permissions issues.

[usually_quiet]

You've started from the bottom up, now try again from the top down (These are reasonable and powerful builds):

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/C/DIY+Systems/Videoguys+DIY9+Its+Time+for+Sandy+Bridge+...434e88de7.aspx

I'm guessing you're trying to minimize your budget. Maybe you can find something in between. And you really want Win7 Pro to deal with any permissions issues.

He has another thread related to this one where he says he doesn't have time to build a PC himself, so he wants to buy something pre-built for about $1000. https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/349798-Build-me-a-computer-for-editing-on-Vegas-Pro-11%21

[tykempster]

Yes, the building part seems like it isn't feasible right now, as I want this desktop ready for the next set of auction videos I need to edit, which will be pretty soon.

Thank you for the help everyone.

Is it correct to say I can upgrade the XPS to 16gb RAM and a higher level graphics card once the budget allows? And would this be a smart option?

[lordsmurf]

On a 90-second video, even as H.264, hardware assist won't make much difference overall. Outside of GPU assist, the graphics card is the least concerning piece of hardware. CPU and I/O (hard drive) comes first. The RAM is barely touched, so something like 16GB is asinine.

Even the power supply doesn't matter a whole lot here, for this specific task. It's not like you'll be running a 24-hour encode at 100% CPU overnight.

Pretty much any of those four machines linked in the first post will be just fine for 150+ 90-second encodes. The encode time will be nothing against the time spent in the editor, open/closing the source, etc.

I use systems with lower specs than the four shown here, and I'm not complaining at all. And I could do 150+ plus videos in one short day of work. In fact, I did something similar this past weekend, and those were all 3-4 minutes videos.

I'd pick this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007X0NAYS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative...2&linkCode=as2

[BOMOON]

[Edit]I found a better illustration showing expansion slots on the motherboard. The Dell XPS 8500 has one PCI-e x1 espansion slot available with the video card installed.

Since the XPS 8500 motherboard has 3 PCIe x1 slots, does that mean that the video card is plugged into 2 of the x1 slots?

You said you found a "better illustration". Where was it?

[usually_quiet]

[Edit]I found a better illustration showing expansion slots on the motherboard. The Dell XPS 8500 has one PCI-e x1 espansion slot available with the video card installed.

Since the XPS 8500 motherboard has 3 PCIe x1 slots, does that mean that the video card is plugged into 2 of the x1 slots?

You said you found a "better illustration". Where was it?

High-end video cards only plug into one PCIe x16 slot but are so bulky that they block the neighboring slot on the motherboard and need a double-wide slot cover for extra support. This is visible in the Newegg website photos for the version of the XPS 8500 that you want.

Although there are 4 slot covers on the back panel, the motherboard only provides 3 slots. I found a drawing showing the 3 expansion slots and their location on the XPS 8500 motherboard in Dell's downloadable manual/user guide.

[Edit] I made a mistake. I must have downloaded the wrong manual the first time. I downloaded the XPS 8500 manual again to look for something else and saw there are 4 expansion slots shown on the motherboard after all. 1 PCIe x16 and 3 PCIe x1. Two PCIe x1 slots should be available with a double-wide video card installed. Sorry about that

[BOMOON]

[Edit] I made a mistake. I must have downloaded the wrong manual the first time. I downloaded the XPS 8500 manual again to look for something else and saw there are 4 expansion slots shown on the motherboard after all. 1 PCIe x16 and 3 PCIe x1. Two PCIe x1 slots should be available with a double-wide video card installed. Sorry about that

No, that's cool. We're all pulling teeth to get useful information out of Dell. I appreciate your input about the XPS 8500 MB footprint.

Plus, I can see where a video card might make access to adjacent slots problematic - I just wasn't thinking along those lines because I've never had a video card that plugs into a PCIe x1 slot. Dumb common sense was telling me that a single x1 slot didn't have enough pins to transport all that video info to the PCIe bus, so I figured (erroneously) that maybe the card plugged into multiple slots to get more pins into the circuit. Talk about a SWAG gone wrong.

It's certainly starting to look as though I'll need to build a PC from MB scratch in order to get what I want with enough expansion slots to accommodate the cards I already have. I sure don't want to dispense with my HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card, but it's PCIe x16, and, depending on what video card you select for the XPS, the spare slot just isn't there. In fact Dell has told me that the "economy" video card for the XPS 8500, the AMD Radeon HD7570, plugs into the x16 slot. There goes the Striker.

There are other reasons in the back of my mind to have a lot of expansion slots of various PCIe footprints. For one example, there are all the recent changes in LAN technology. At the moment I can do either Wireless-G or wired Ethernet with a combination of integrated Ethernet and Wireless-G PCIe x16 cards. I haven't even looked at Wireless-N yet, and it's already going obsolete. If I ever want to upgrade my LAN, I'll need a lot of expansion slots for network adapters.

Then I have all this legacy hardware hanging around here. I have an old HP Scanjet 3C, which HP stopped supporting with driver updates back in the days of Vista. It's a good, solid workhorse that I didn't want to toss just because HP arbitrarily decided to dump support for it. Fortunately it has a SCSI interface so I've been able to get Adaptec cards which are supported by driver updates for the recent Windows incarnations. ergo, I need slots for such cards too.

That's a lot more information than you needed to hear, but you get the idea. A home-grown PC with an i7 MB loaded with slots is probably how I'll have to approach this capturing issue I'm having. Those dumbed-down Dell systems just won't cut it for me.

Unfortunately that also means I'll have to spend big bucks and dispense with support packages. Dell has been good in the latter respect with my Dimension 8300 and 8400 machines. It's too bad that this XPS product line is so hamstrung by lack of optimization options.

Agh.

[sanlyn]

I'm the stodgy type who's sticking with XP because of all I've invested in video software/hardware. But I've built three PC's of my own. The cost was about the same as for a retail job, thanks to hunting down parts on sale and recycling a few. Newegg, TigerDirect, etc., list motherboards that accept just about every OS from W2000 or later. eBay and others have OEM Windows editions.

Yes, you do lose stuff like Dell or HP suppoert, but my experience repoairing their PC's is that ultimately you end up knowing more than the reps do, some of whom seem completely clueless ("Ah, yes, I see your problem, treasured customer. You say your monitor has no image and its power light does not come on? Ah, yes, well, then you must reinstall your operating system").....

[usually_quiet]

[Edit] I made a mistake. I must have downloaded the wrong manual the first time. I downloaded the XPS 8500 manual again to look for something else and saw there are 4 expansion slots shown on the motherboard after all. 1 PCIe x16 and 3 PCIe x1. Two PCIe x1 slots should be available with a double-wide video card installed. Sorry about that

No, that's cool. We're all pulling teeth to get useful information out of Dell. I appreciate your input about the XPS 8500 MB footprint.

Plus, I can see where a video card might make access to adjacent slots problematic - I just wasn't thinking along those lines because I've never had a video card that plugs into a PCIe x1 slot. Dumb common sense was telling me that a single x1 slot didn't have enough pins to transport all that video info to the PCIe bus, so I figured (erroneously) that maybe the card plugged into multiple slots to get more pins into the circuit. Talk about a SWAG gone wrong.

It's certainly starting to look as though I'll need to build a PC from MB scratch in order to get what I want with enough expansion slots to accommodate the cards I already have. I sure don't want to dispense with my HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card, but it's PCIe x16, and, depending on what video card you select for the XPS, the spare slot just isn't there. In fact Dell has told me that the "economy" video card for the XPS 8500, the AMD Radeon HD7570, plugs into the x16 slot. There goes the Striker.

There are other reasons in the back of my mind to have a lot of expansion slots of various PCIe footprints. For one example, there are all the recent changes in LAN technology. At the moment I can do either Wireless-G or wired Ethernet with a combination of integrated Ethernet and Wireless-G PCIe x16 cards. I haven't even looked at Wireless-N yet, and it's already going obsolete. If I ever want to upgrade my LAN, I'll need a lot of expansion slots for network adapters.

Then I have all this legacy hardware hanging around here. I have an old HP Scanjet 3C, which HP stopped supporting with driver updates back in the days of Vista. It's a good, solid workhorse that I didn't want to toss just because HP arbitrarily decided to dump support for it. Fortunately it has a SCSI interface so I've been able to get Adaptec cards which are supported by driver updates for the recent Windows incarnations. ergo, I need slots for such cards too.

That's a lot more information than you needed to hear, but you get the idea. A home-grown PC with an i7 MB loaded with slots is probably how I'll have to approach this capturing issue I'm having. Those dumbed-down Dell systems just won't cut it for me.

Unfortunately that also means I'll have to spend big bucks and dispense with support packages. Dell has been good in the latter respect with my Dimension 8300 and 8400 machines. It's too bad that this XPS product line is so hamstrung by lack of optimization options.

Agh.

I can't recall seeing any recent desktops with an ATX motherboard from one of the big OEM brands, so if someone needs to install a discrete video card and more than a couple of add-on cards, an OEM desktop is not going to be the right choice.

That being said, not everyone needs the extras offered by ATX motherboards. I purposely built an MATX machine because I wanted a smaller, lighter PC. Onboard video is enough for me, and I didn't need 7 expansion slots or more than 6 SATA ports, so MATX has been satisfactory. Of course it doesn't have a warranty covering the whole thing, but each part has one, and extended warranties can be purchased for some things if desired.

I don't have a lot of complaints about my previous PC, a Dell, purchased in 2001. It still runs. I never used Dell phone support because I didn't need help. I did call customer service to exchange the HDD for a larger one because I made a mistake when I ordered. Dell was not bad to deal with for that.

[BOMOON]

I'm the stodgy type who's sticking with XP because of all I've invested in video software/hardware.
...
Yes, you do lose stuff like Dell or HP support, but my experience repairing their PC's is that ultimately you end up knowing more than the reps do, some of whom seem completely clueless ("Ah, yes, I see your problem, treasured customer. You say your monitor has no image and its power light does not come on? Ah, yes, well, then you must reinstall your operating system").....

That's not stodgy at all. After 6 months of Vista, I became one of the legion of folks who reverted to XP. What a relief when I finally got it working again!

I later upgraded to Win7 only to get better support for HD recording and authoring (I thought). It looks now as though I'll have to make another leap from Win7 32 bit to Win7 64 bit. That should have been my line of thinking regarding these upgrades - not so much a question of going from XP to 7 but of going from a 32-bit to a 64-bit OS.

But for ease of use, stability, and what they call "robustness", I still like XP the best of all the recent incarnations of Windows, with Windows 2000 running a close second. I doubt very much that Windows 8 will change that ranking, based on what I've seen so far.

PS: the auto-linker in the forum software grabbed the word "treasured" in your post and linked it to the Treasured Video File Repair program. That was a good one.

Alan Mintaka

[BOMOON]

...
That being said, not everyone needs the extras offered by ATX motherboards. I purposely built an MATX machine because I wanted a smaller, lighter PC. Onboard video is enough for me, and I didn't need 7 expansion slots or more than 6 SATA ports, so MATX has been satisfactory.
...

I guess fooling with SD and HD capturing cards, along with high performance audio cards and graphics cards has gotten me used to having a lot of expansion slots. Maybe the Dimension line was the last of the Dell OEMs to have a lot of those.

So ATX is the buzz acronym for the family of MBs I should be examining, eh? See, I didn't even know that.

So, the hunt is on for a 64-bit ATX MB, beaucoup expansion slots of various PCIe types, and an i7 CPU socket. At least one of the expansion slots has to be PCIe x1 for the Colossus. "Everything else" is TBD, including where the hell l'm going to get the bucks.

Meanwhile, I have an HD capture card that's stuck in 720 X 480 resolution, unless I can figure out what's making the captured files pick up a lot of audio dropouts and video dropped frames in the 1080i caps.

Over in the Hauppauge thread I attached one of the captured 1080i files to my last post. Anyone who's interested in seeing the vidcap can go here for a copy.

Alan Mintaka

[sanlyn]

So, the hunt is on for a 64-bit ATX MB, beaucoup expansion slots of various PCIe types, and an i7 CPU socket. At least one of the expansion slots has to be PCIe x1 for the Colossus. "Everything else" is TBD, including where the hell l'm going to get the bucks.

Yes, the bucks are another story.

For starters, you might have already seen this at Newegg::
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627+600009016&QksAut...=1&srchInDesc=

And an Intel/AMD mix (from which I've bought a ton of stuff):
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=13&sel=Detail%..._160_2141_2141

I'm in an AMD budget myself, but haven't been disappointed in 6 years. There are other sites. The two sites are also good for tips 'n tricks and user reviews.

[usually_quiet]

...
That being said, not everyone needs the extras offered by ATX motherboards. I purposely built an MATX machine because I wanted a smaller, lighter PC. Onboard video is enough for me, and I didn't need 7 expansion slots or more than 6 SATA ports, so MATX has been satisfactory.
...

I guess fooling with SD and HD capturing cards, along with high performance audio cards and graphics cards has gotten me used to having a lot of expansion slots. Maybe the Dimension line was the last of the Dell OEMs to have a lot of those.

So ATX is the buzz acronym for the family of MBs I should be examining, eh? See, I didn't even know that.

So, the hunt is on for a 64-bit ATX MB, beaucoup expansion slots of various PCIe types, and an i7 CPU socket. At least one of the expansion slots has to be PCIe x1 for the Colossus. "Everything else" is TBD, including where the hell l'm going to get the bucks.

Meanwhile, I have an HD capture card that's stuck in 720 X 480 resolution, unless I can figure out what's making the captured files pick up a lot of audio dropouts and video dropped frames in the 1080i caps.

Over in the Hauppauge thread I attached one of the captured 1080i files to my last post. Anyone who's interested in seeing the vidcap can go here for a copy.

Alan Mintaka

Yes, the ATX form factor is the next step up from the smaller motherboards used in most pre-built desktops. If you want to build a PC using an Intel CPU with a discrete video card, this would be worth looking at for a mid-price ATX motherboard. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

[BOMOON]

For starters, you might have already seen this at Newegg::
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627+600009016&QksAut...=1&srchInDesc=

And an Intel/AMD mix (from which I've bought a ton of stuff):
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=13&sel=Detail%..._160_2141_2141

I'm in an AMD budget myself, but haven't been disappointed in 6 years. There are other sites. The two sites are also good for tips 'n tricks and user reviews.

Yes, the ATX form factor is the next step up from the smaller motherboards used in most pre-built desktops. If you want to build a PC using an Intel CPU with a discrete video card, this would be worth looking at for a mid-price ATX motherboard. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

Thanks to both of you for those product links. I can see that I'll have to give myself the short course by researching all the acronyms. Lots of stuff to consider here.

One thing to consider RE memory: I have 4GB physical RAM in each of my Dimension 8300 and 8400 PCs. I can probably scarf some of those for whatever MB I buy, but of course I'll have to research that too. They were memory upgrades for Dimensions, so they probably aren't state of the art for these new MBs.

All this just to get a working HD capture card.... maybe I ought to consider researching those, too. Is the Colossus, or any Hauppauge product for that matter, really my best bet if I'm going to engineer a whole new system?

Alan Mintaka
Discount Pencils, Inc. $0.05 ea, bulk discounts

[olyteddy]

I agree with lordsmurf. An IvyBridge processor with as many cores as you can afford (the i7-3770 in his post is eight threads, four cores) and the Intel integrated HD graphics is a good choice for editing and encoding. Intel processors use QuickSync GPU acceleration and there are encoders coming out that do a pretty good job using QuickSync. Do you have access to Costco? Their ZT-Systems lineup have a real good bang-for-the-buck ratio: http://www.costco.com/computers.html?refine=30004%2b14229 I have an older i7-2600 ZT and it's a well built, stable system (perhaps a little light on the power supply - mine is a 400 Watt unit). They also come with a 2 year warranty.

[BOMOON]

Do you have access to Costco? Their ZT-Systems lineup have a real good bang-for-the-buck ratio: http://www.costco.com/computers.html?refine=30004%2b14229 I have an older i7-2600 ZT and it's a well built, stable system (perhaps a little light on the power supply - mine is a 400 Watt unit). They also come with a 2 year warranty.

I'm not familiar with those but I'm always grateful to have more info to check out. A lot will depend on what kind of motherboards these things have in terms of expansion slots, as well as the various rankings in reviews. I confess to being a little leery of a Costco computer line, unless ZT is made by someone else and simply marketed by Costco. That's probably just my bias. I'll certainly look into it, thanks.

[olyteddy]

My ZT is a Gigabyte H67MA-USB3-B3 MoBo; Samsung 2GB HD; Liteon optical drive; ATX case with 2X5.25 external, 1X3.5 external, 4X3.5 internal; 16GB RAM; Logitech K260 Keyboard and Mouse and a 400 Watt (no famous brand) PS. It was $699 delivered. That was back when the 2600 was the latest and greatest chip. http://www.ztsystems.com/ Costco also sells Dell and Hp among other brands with the same 2 year guarantee.

[newpball]

Best option is to build your own, get a core i7 K version processor for overclocking, minimum 16GB memory, get a good GPU, an exclusive SSD for the OS and an exclusive hard drive for cache.

I strongly suggest the X99 platform with 6 cores.