The bigger PSU means it's capable of outputting more power. It doesn't mean it will waste more power.

I like a full tower case. 1 SSD for OS & apps. 4 * HDDs & a true hardware based RAID card for data & tmp & etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116042 I don't know anything about the raid card though. That looks cheap for a true hardware based raid. I'm waiting a couple more years before pulling a trigger... when software NLE products are more complete. CS6? CS6.5? CS7?

If I can get away with a smaller form factor, its better for me. Power supply has a sweet spot in terms of efficiency. Getting a 800w ps and using 200 would be inefficient. I might be in that sweet spot unless I'm overlooking something.

@LucasAdamson
SHUTTLE SH67H3 PC Barebone System as a motherboard. I'm a bit worried that the 300w ps is not enough. The cpu uses 95w max, video card 65w max according to the specs. Chipset, drives, memory, figure 100w max. Cutting it close.

wow

We can hope for excellent color correction for CS 6, now that Adobe acquired licenses from Iridas. While Color finesse has great features and image quality; i always found it too cumbersome and slow to do serious grading. I'm glad Adobe improved integration with Resolve for the time being.

BTW, a fast GPU is very relevant once you start effects work in any format, and it doesn't help at all with RED decoding (you'll need a Red Rocket for that).

@stonebat
I was a bigger Colorista fan when Final Cut portability was more of an issue. Now that the FCS era is receding into legacy, I've migrated to CS5's bundled Color Finesse app. While it's a contortionist trick to Dynamic Link it via After Effects into a Premiere Pro sequence, the waveforms, soft clipping, and gamma/pedestal sliders in Finesse's full-screen interface are too seductive to pass up. Whip this out like it's routine, and anyone peering over your shoulder will think you're a brain surgeon. Here's a before and after example on a crappy, under-exposed frame grab:

An inexpensive 1GB CUDA card can deliver a worthwhile performance boost on a dual-core laptop running Premiere Pro CS5 in 8GB of RAM. On Lucas' 8-core, 16GB workstation with SSD drives, you'd want a high-end pair of Nvidia SLI cards running dual 30-inch 2560x1600 monitors:

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa301w-bk

On my relatively modest 6-core, 12GB HP Pavillion workstation with its bundled Nvidia GTX260 card, I make do with a single NEC 27-inch 2560x1440 display:

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa271w-bk

Sadly second-rate, I know, but with some threadbare shopping it all came in at under $3K.

Again you seem to be confusing different technologies. Direct AVCHD editing without encoding is entirely separate from CUDA graphics card effects acceleration, although they are both present within Adobe Premiere CS5 & CS5.5

The term NLE doesn't refer to either technology, but to computer based editing generally.

@Jspatz "Not sure why you say that. When you put a clip on the timeline there is a yellow highlight and the clip plays real time. When you apply an effect the line turns red and playback speed without rendering is CPU dependent. If you are configured with the right card so Premiere recognizes Mercury Hardware engine and you use one of the effects that access it, yellow line and real time come back, even with multiple tracks, although disk IO has to keep up."

Well, I haven't found that I need it at all, but I do have an 8 core i7 processor. I guess it can't do any harm to have CUDA enabled card, unless like me you're running a Hackintosh (all Macs have ATI cards).

@stonebat
NLE means non linear editor - in other words any computer based editing system. A linear editor was a tape to tape system or a Steenbeck film editor, for example.

You seem to be confusing the term NLE with graphics based effects acceleration - totally different! There were many advantages to NLE before GPU acceleration came along. ANY computer editor is NLE, regardless of GPU effects acceleration.

But yes, if your point is that CUDA effects acceleration offered by NVIDIA graphics cards is only useful if you use a selected handful of enabled effects, I'd agree with you: it is over-hyped and not strictly necessary on a fast system. It can't hurt to have the ability though, eh?

Major advantage of NLE is performance gain from GPU acceleration.

I've used PP CS5, AE CS5, Neat Video, Magic bullet looks, Colorista free, Color Fitness, proDAD Mercalli.

NLE is no brainer for projects that requires no other than NLE editor. Other than that, NLE is overrated. Most 3rd party plug-ins don't support GPU acceleration. PP CS5 supports NLE, but AE CS5 doesn't. Not sure about AE CS5.5 though. Also 5DtoRGB "might" do better transcoding to intra codec.

Give a year or two... maybe CS6 and popular plug-ins updates... then NLE will be really useful. Investing in Windows machine seems better idea than OSX.

I haven't tried it myself, but if I would by a reasonable IPS monitor today, it would've been the Asus ProArt PA246Q. Price and review looks ok (ofcourse this is no PRO monitor, but definatly better that TN based) http://www.asus.com/Display/LCD_Monitors/PA246Q/