Questions about performance and drives
jpodlesnik1 Oct 10, 2010 11:08 AM
Computer specs:
ASUS P6X58D Premium Mainboard
Intel i7 930 (no O.C. with Zalman 10X Flex cpu cooler)
12GB (six 2GB) Kingston PC3 10600
Antec CP-1000 1000 Watt PSU
Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 video card
Areca ARC-1680IX-12 PCIe x8 SAS RAID Card
(hard drives listed below)
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, with many system tweaks applied (No anti-virus loaded in machine.
No startup processes enables at all.)
Adobe Production Suite (MPE enabled in PPro CS5, with 5.02 update installed)
Latest Nvidia drivers installed.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
(system drive) Two Intel X25M MLC GEN 2 80GB SSD drives in a striped RAID 0 array.
read: 501.0 MB/s write: 130.9 MB/s
(storage drive) One WD 2TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 2 Hard Drive.
read: 117.0 MB/s write: 118.4 MB/s
(project drive) Three WD 1TB Black X 6GB/s 64 MB cache drives in RAID 5 array.
read: 211.9 MB/s write: 215.3 MB/s
Do these comparative read/write times look correct?
Video editing:
DV (720 x 480) 48 hz audio 30 fps 3.6 MB/s
4 layers
layer 1 - 100% opacity, Cineon Converter applied
layer 2 - 50% opacity, vertical flip applied
layer 3 - 30% opacity, color balance filter applied
layer 4 - 20% opacity, contrast filter applied
full resolution playback
REAL-TIME
cpu usage - 25% (I knew DV performance was going to be great. I could have added more layers but stopped at 4)
AVCHD (1920 x 1080) 48 hz audio 60 fps 3.1 MB/s
2 layers
layer 1 - 100% opacity, contrast filter applied
layer 2 - 50% opacity, vertical flip
1/4th resolution playback
REAL-TIME
cpu usage - 98-99% Do these playback specs look about right? Is the GPU doing its share of the work? I assume my GTX 480 is positioned in the right slot?
Question: Are fast RAID cards necessary when AVCHD throughput is 3.2 MB/sec? ?
I find it interesting that I spent $4K on a computer and am only getting 2 layers of AVCHD real-time (at 1/4 resolution playback). I'm aware that my vendor-built computer cost more, but in return I will say it is amazingly quiet. :-)
Should I expect noticeably more performance when I upgrade to the 980x cpu and 24 GB RAM? Perhaps I need to OC my processor to get better results, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to teach myself overclocking. (Anyone know of someone in the Phoenix, AZ area who is skilled at overclocking?) I have not taken the PPBM5 test yet; I just want to get better performance for what I paid. Perhaps my expectations are amiss?





