Good Premiere pro Cs5.5 Video Editing Computer Set Up For Under $3000

Question

Hey everyone im hopeing to hear for Harm Millaard input on this and anyone elses who understands PC computers for video editing. I need to build a computer set up for my specific needs. I am a youtuber who makes videos for a living and I need a speedy computer for editing primarily in premiere pro CS5.5 and sometimes in After effects. I use magic bullet 2.0 color grading in almost all my videos so that slows my computer down alot. The current computer I have now shuts off when ever it runs to much stuff and gives me the BSOD so its extreemly fusterating because editing something small can take me all day because of the constent shutting off. Mostly does BSOD when I uses Magic Bullet 2.0 I shoot with DSLR footage but once in a while it will happen out of the blue when running alot of things but mostly when exporting. I need a list of specs that will all work together to give a perfect workflow for my needs and I also would like advice on what Raid because I dont fully understand it as well as what back up drives etc should I have. I plan of buying the specs and having someone build it for me and set up raid etc that knows how to do all that. In case some of you wonder what type of computer I have now these are the specs if you need more information on what I have in my computer ask exactly what info you want to me to tell you and ill look it up.
If you have advice on specs I dont have to re-buy that I could take out of this computer to save money then that would be better as well. I currently have no back up external drives as well so Idk what I should buy for that as well. Thank you all for your time a head of time!

Answer 1

Well!!!!.....where do I start??  You must spend some time here reading all the valuable info that has been presented and discussed many times here. Basically, PPro is a very demanding , PROFESSIONAL program that needs beefy and SPECIFIC hardware to run properly.
    AMD CPU will not cut it.....it lacks the necessary instruction set that Intel has that apply to video processing.
You need a fast Intel i7 CPU for starters.
You do not mention video card.....NVidia CUDA card of over 1GB video memory is required to enable the "Mercury PlaybackEngine", which provides a TEN TIMES INCREASE  in rendering speed of previews.....not to mention accelerating the export process by handling some specific effects during export.
     Some DSLR codecs,( like Canon MOVs) cause PPro....which is a 64bit program..... to open the 32 bit " Quick time Importer" process, ( as Quick Time is 32 bit), slowing down the process, even with good hardware. Editing highly compressed consumer codecs,( AVCHD,etc.) in real time ,then exporting can be very taxing on a computer, requiring top -notch components. Even if you do it the old way and transcode to a more edit friendly codec before editing.....you would then need a larger,faster disk system to handle the huge files at a high speed!!!
16GB system memory is OK for 5.5.....with 6 and later, 32GB is better.
Two separate hard drives are the required minimum for PPro......currently, the best performing and cheapest setup would be : C drive=  120GB quality SSD, D drive = 2x 7200 RPM HDDs in onboard RAID 0 for pagefile,previews, and all cache files.  E drive= same setup as "D", for media,project files, and export.  F drive =  large 7200 rpm disk for necessary backup of important files and backup of "D" drive. All drives should "indexing" and" compression" turned OFF,( under drive Properties window).
Less expensive would be just three separate 7200 RPM HDDs...that could be OK with just DSLR footage which is so compressed that it requires less actual MB/sec., unless you are using many tracks of video, upping the requirement needed.
Read the many posts and articles by Harm Millard and Bill Gehrke....they have contributed a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience to the readers.....preventing many from making bad purchases and expensive mistakes when trying to construct a machine that will perform well....their website, PPBM5 is invaluable as it can show you all the video benchmark results of differently configured machines. It is a good guide as to what you may want to build,or, purchase.....Good Luck!!