DS finally arrived

ye..nice waiting for pic and review

ok wife gave me some info on ds rig the box was a little scratched up but not to bad,the game case is in great condition,everything started up just fine,only 1 problem,the keyboard was not sent with the computer but the problem has been resolved.been shipped today

Congrats Man!  Can't wait to see the pics and review! 

Originally posted by Kitijima Congratz! We anxiously await. Bill, I was wondering because you do alot of CS3 etc. With your memory, are you not finding it efficient to run those applications? What are the wait times if any when loading it up and when you do heavy editing?

Well, I have good news if you are thinking about an overclocked DS system like mine. Adobe CS4 Production Premium is VASTLY faster than it was on my previous quad core hardware. The apps all run great!

I have two raid-striped Velociraptors as my OS/program drive and an overclocked i7 965, so the load time for Photoshop CS4 is maybe 2 seconds max. It's a HUGE difference from my old machine which was a Q6600 and 1TB Seagate boot drive. It used to take like 15 seconds for Photoshop CS4 to start up on that machine. Premiere Pro CS4 takes about 5 seconds to start now, which is a massive speed increase, too. I swear it took 30+ seconds on the old system.

As far as RAM usage, After Effects and Photoshop now use as much as they need thanks to 64 bit Vista. I think Premiere and the rest of the programs in Production Premium CS4 can now use 4GB each under Vista 64 because they are still mostly 32 bit. The 12 GB lets me keep 2 or 3 of the programs open at once without drive thrashing, depending on the size of the files I'm working with.

If I'm working with tons of layers and filters in Photoshop, I usually try not to open anything else. Ditto if I have a lot of HD files loaded into Premiere. Opening something else actually might not affectthis machine too much, since I have the work files split between three drives, but I like things to be instantaneous - and they really are with this system. My work habits from using it on the previous hardware have me trained not to dump too much into memory at once, I guess.

Another note, I don't know if you've worked with AVCHD files much, but on my old C2Quad system they were choppy during playback, jog, and shuttle. This system plays them smoothly in real time, even at double speed. The final renders happen in about 1/5th the time they took on my old Q6600, too. That 80% reduction in render time for HD was worth it, by itself. Those 8 threads and the higher clock speed really pay off.

I find myself experimenting more because it costs me less time to try things than it used to. Overall, I'm pretty happy with every aspect of this system.

TIPS:
If you are going to let them overclock your CPU, get liquid cooling. Renders max the CPU threads for long periods so you don't want the CPU to overheat and slow down on you. I recommend the HAF 932 case (even though it's ugly) to keep everything inside the computer cooler.
I found numerous references online which said to split the work files onto 3 separete hard drives (not 3 partitions) and that also seems to help.
Make sure you get Vista 64 Ultimate so you can exceed 16GB of RAM when it comes available someday in the future. Plus, Photoshop CS4 (After Effects too, I think) is 64 bit under Vista 64 and runs much faster because it uses a lot more RAM and more registers in 64 bit mode.
Also, my Bella DV 3.0 keyboard with the job/shuttle dial on it works fine on Vista 64 with the "beta" drivers off their web site. You'll have to either set it up manually or download the Premiere configuration file from their web site along with the drivers. I set mine up manually so I could control speeds. You can order keycap stickers from them directly.

I hope this helps.

Congrats army man!!!

tho the 920 is not as good as a 965, once oced, a 920 can beat a stock 965 and the difference is very little, your 920 oced, will be able to do just about anything the 965 does, might be a tad bit slower but nothing you would notice

those of us that go with the 965 do so more for preference then performance

Edited by DST4ME - 17 Apr 2009 at 4:28pm

that is for the 965, the 920 and 940 are at 4.8 but you can try 6.4, I doubt if you will notice a difference.

Edited by DST4ME - 17 Apr 2009 at 5:03pm

actually 75c full load is a good temp to have, of course lower is better but at 3.8 and 75c is a very good place to be IMO

Its more the CPU, if you get a CPU that runs cool then the temps in the same system will be lower, liquid cooling or air, 75c is a good temp to have

Ya I know they unlocked it, which is why in the other thread about 975 I mentioned that I like to see an actual retail chip rather then the engineering versions they let people test, but unless somebody is doing very intensive tasks I don't' see how the 6.4 will really benefit anybody with a 920 or 940.

but the 920 has turned out to be amazing which is what I was saying before the i7 came out and a few people here and 2 techs were not agreeing with me but we all agree now