Multitrack editing and hardware selection

Question

Hello and thanks for taking a look at this thread.  I am running PrPro CS 5.51 on an older workstation:
HP xw8200 with 2x dual core xeons at 2.3 Ghz and 4GB of ram, with an nVidia card running GPU acceleration on Windows 7 home 64bit.
I am using the multitrack feature cutting music shot on HD and captured using Blackmagic presets at 720p 29.97fps.
This is an uncompressed 8 bit codec.  I ran the decklink hard drive utility and it tests our fine with my raid.  In fact that utility says I could do 1080i at 10 bit uncompressed.
I am having trouble with the multitrack playing back audio while cutting and recurring stoppage of playback when in the multitrack window. 
I also have trouble capturing in the DVCPro HD codec, it just won't do it.  I would have thought that compressed 100 mb video would be easier to capture than uncompressed.
I am wondering if there is a better preset to capture to?  There are so many presets in PrPro from which to choose. My orginal footage is from a tape based Varicam at 720p.
I am also wondering if my hardware is just too slow to handle this.
When editing bogs down I have pulled up Windows task manager and the CPU is at max.  Is this normal?  Should I be looking for a dual quad core machine with more ram.  If so how much more power and speed will I need to use all the newer features?  Thanks  Jack

Answer 1

Yeah, your system is definitely underspecc'd... this thread actually belongs over in the hardware forum, and one of the mods may move it, so don't be surprised if it gets moved.
Most of us have found that processors in the i7-9xx line have done a very good job for us, and are pretty much the fastest things out there, definitely best bang for your buck. Also, while 8GB of memory is the minimum requirement from Adobe, 12GB+ is required to really USE the software effectively. I routinely run multicam tracks with mixed HD and 4k footage, and I'm running a relatively "slow" i7-920 with 12GB of Ram and a GTX-285 graphics card, with stuff spread across four logical disks, two of which are RAID arrays (one for OS/Programs, RAID array for projects and scratch, RAID array for data, and single drive for exports).
I think the reason you're having trouble with the DVCPro HD codec is that, because it is compressed, it requires the CPU to "unpack" the footage, frame by frame, where uncompressed doesn't require that unpacking process.
I'm sure one of the hardware gurus like Harm will post back with ideas on a better specc'd system, but just throwing numbers around, I'd say you should be able to build a well-powered system for under $2k. Also, don't forget that hard drives are important in this equation as well. I notice you said you were running a RAID, which is good because that probably means you've got your stuff on a different set of drives than your OS and Programs. But as you research a more powerful system, make sure to keep hard drives in mind as you go. Generally a minimum of three logical drives are recommended: one for OS/Programs, one for Project Files and Scratch disk, and one for your actual data.