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Best build for a Video Editing workstation (£2000/£3000/£4000)

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  • Workstations
  • Windows
  • Build
  • Adobe
  • Video Editing
  • Systems
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June 25, 2014 7:55:35 AM

I work for a small but growing video editing company and they're looking to update their current workstations (early 2008 Mac Pro's) and as the most technical in the company, I've been tasked with coming up with some options.

I'm personally in favour of moving to PC, which my boss is completely behind providing that what we can get for the money will out-perform an equally priced Mac Pro. We're looking at machines in 3 different budgets and will probably opt for whichever will provide the best value. We're looking at £2,000 ($3,400), £3,000 ($5,000) and £4,000 ($6,800) (all very rough conversions).

I have experience of building gaming PC's and so I guess my knowledge lies in consumer machines, but this is my first venture into workstation parts and looking into what is most important to have in the rig.

The PC's will be running mostly Adobe CC, more specifically Premiere Pro, After Effects and Media Encoder as it's primary use, DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop and Illustrator as its secondary. Coupled with Red Giant plug-ins such as Color Suit (Colorista II, etc), there is obviously an emphasis on GPU acceleration as these are all able to make use of CUDA cores and/or OpenGL, but what I am unsure of is whether it is more important to focus on a better CPU or GPU and what will benefit the system more, how much RAM is really necessary, i7's vs Xeon's, workstation parts vs consumer parts, etc.

Any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

More about : build video editing workstation 2000 3000 4000

June 25, 2014 9:10:43 AM

Well, first off, Adobe is moving towards amd only opengl/cl driver based, leaving NVidia out in the dust.
If your not gaming, best to go with straight workstation class amd firepro graphics.
Video editing, your going to need cpu and gpu power, with your budget your good
This is all usd as that's what I know

You'll want six core with hyperthreading, quad core is nice but if your doing major editing you'll notice a major difference, including hyperthreading a quad core is 8 cores, six core is 12 cores.
If you've really got the budget and want the best performance, you can get the max 64gb ram, then make a ram disk of like 32gb and use that as your scratch disk, huge performance leap over even the ssd, but will add about $350 for the extra 32gb ram.
As for ram, don't need anything higher than 1866mhz

i7 4930k $550
Asus 2011 delux mobo $350
32gb corsair dominator ram (4x8gb) $350
Corsair H110 (all in one cpu cooler) $100
Evga/seasonic 1000w power supply $100
Windows $100
Case $100-150
Aftermarket fans corsair high performance pvm, or noctura $25/piece $100 total
256 Samsung evo for windows/boot $120
128gb Samsung evo $65 (for scratch disk)
WD Black 2x3tb $350
About $2300
Those would be minimum I would go for a major video editing rig

For graphics card, use whats left of your budget, and get the best single amd firepro card you can buy

xeon is still a very viable option, but I have only done light/moderate research into that aspect and don't feel comfortable enough to recommend or elaborate on. Possibly someone else can pick up there.

But I do major 3d graphics rendering for work, and do major hd and 4k editing for home and side business.
My build 4930k, asus rampage black vi, custom liquid cooling, intel 530 (already owned previous) 240gb boot, intel 530 (again another previously owned) 240gb for scratch disk, 32gb corsair dominator platinum 1866 ram, evga supernova 1200w psu, 3x3tb Seagate hhds (previously owned, rma's each one at least once, really dislike but own so am using), sli titan black (I game and I use sony vegas and powerdirector more than adobe so make great use of cuda, as well as autocad/maya/blender also utilize NVidia drivers), corsair 540air case completely redone 240mm rad 360mm rad 170mm photon res with d5 vario pump, raystorm cpu block and xspc gpu blocks. I have a nas/raid bay in which I utilize 5x3tb wd blacks. I use this for rendering, as ssd gives great boost speeds, but consistency is horrible, 4xraid gives me about 500mbps constant for my produce/write to drive, and normally all source content is on external drives (typically my external ssd enclosures) in which speeds boosts are nice and constant not needed as it takes more to write than to read from.
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June 25, 2014 9:22:29 AM

Thanks for the reply Dblkk. That's the first I've heard about Adobe moving towards AMD over NVidia (maybe I'm a bit behind!), do you have a link?
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June 25, 2014 9:25:36 AM

Rich P said:
Thanks for the reply Dblkk. That's the first I've heard about Adobe moving towards AMD over NVidia (maybe I'm a bit behind!), do you have a link?


Yup, was just looking for it when I got your notification

Any other questions, more specific on anything I picked or anything at all, just ask. I looked very very in depth on every aspect of my build and tested so many different ways of running/doing anything ot get there.
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June 25, 2014 9:44:20 AM

Rendering, like full out rendering, is taxing and limited by cpu, graphics, memory, storage speeds, and graphics cards.

Memory is what limits the cpu. Cpu is the workhorse in rendering. Graphics cards accelerate the rendering process, but its still heavily based on the cpu.

While rendering, the speed of writing is actually what determined my bottleneck. I had beast setup, and cpu was at 44% (ish), and graphics was only minimal. I couldn't figure it out, until I saw that my hhd was at 100% with 140mbps. I hooked up two in raid, same story except more cpu and graphics % usage. But still raid hhd was 100% at 250mbps. Switched to solid state, and it was around same story, except everything was all over the place % usage wise. cpu was 20% then 80%, then 60%, then 20%. same with graphics, until I realized that ssd usage was fluctuating between 100mbps to 500mbps. Also found that the limit for speed, includes both read and write. If its 500mbps, and your reading and writing to same drive, its like 200 mbps read 300mbps write. But if you read from and write to a separate drive, then your at each drives max, so if both drives 500mbps max, then 500 read/500write is possible. I found that 400-500mbps is around the minimum it takes to releave the storage speeds bottleneck while rendering, and led to a constant 100% (well like 98%) cpu usage while rendering.

Using ram or separate ssd for a scratch disk, doesn't apply to rendering times, but every time you change the original file, without actually finalizing/rendering, it gets saved to this scratch disk. Traditional hhd scratch disk took about 10 seconds. So any time I would click apply for anything (like adding effect, or anything of that sort) took about 10 seconds (circle spinning system unresponsive) before it would finish and I could then continue working. Solid state for scratch disk moved that delay down to about 1-2 seconds. Ram, that pause was non existant.

For graphics, I say use workstation, as it seems that's what this build is going to be. And workstation class gives pure drivers that are 100% utlilized by your programs. And single best you can afford, as a lot of times when you sli graphics, your not getting 100% of both, you actually loose a lot. And ive found from my sli titans, that while theyre working together, they don't work 100% in unison, and actually ends up throwing off your final product a bit. Plus your heat, noise, and required power are all also lower.

I chose the asus deluxe, as it offers exceptional 'goodies' that are aimed at making the most of a rendering build. The rampage black that I chose is $200 more, and offers more 'goodies'. That switch is up to you, as final rendering will be identical between the two boards.

Corsair dominator pro/platinum 1866mhz ram, gives you great performance, xmp profile in motherboard bios will fully utilize the ram. They use the best chips in their ram, which means less problems down the road.

I say evga and seasonic as they are the top two, corsair and xfx also make some top quality products. I have the evga supernova, and its great, fully modular, great efficiency, and a 10 year warranty.

I say Western digital blacks, as theyre top notch best in class. More expensive, but its worth it over loosing everything you have stored when a cheaper drive goes crap. 5x in 9 months for my seagates.

Case, its more personal preference. You want something good, big enough to house everything, give great airflow, built in dust filters is a must in my book.
I chose corsair 540 air, as it is essentially a full size case, but instead of being a tall tower, its like a box. All the hot stuff on one side with all the fans, and all the cooler stuff on the other, makes cable running easy and tidy as well.
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Best solution

June 25, 2014 9:53:22 AM

I wold recommend something like this


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor (£407.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC12DX_RD 68.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£34.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Asus X79 Deluxe ATX LGA2011 Motherboard (£259.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£160.89 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£43.19 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Crucial M500 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£155.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£64.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£88.00 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-209DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£51.92 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (OEM) (64-bit) (£105.39 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1531.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

with a nice workstation GPU such as
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-pny-nvidia-quadro-k5...(x16)-256-bit-gddr5-sli-2x-displayport-2x-dl-dvi-retail
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-pny-nvidia-quadro-k4...(x16)-192bit-gddr5-2xdisplayport-dual-link-dvi-i-retail

or
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-amd-firepro-w5000-pc...(x16)-256-bit-gddr5-2x-displayport-dual-link-dvi-i-4096x2160-13-tflops
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June 25, 2014 10:17:40 AM

mastrom101 said:
I wold recommend something like this


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor (£407.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC12DX_RD 68.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£34.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Asus X79 Deluxe ATX LGA2011 Motherboard (£259.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£160.89 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£43.19 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Crucial M500 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£155.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£64.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£88.00 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-209DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£51.92 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (OEM) (64-bit) (£105.39 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1531.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

with a nice workstation GPU such as
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-pny-nvidia-quadro-k5...(x16)-256-bit-gddr5-sli-2x-displayport-2x-dl-dvi-retail
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-pny-nvidia-quadro-k4...(x16)-192bit-gddr5-2xdisplayport-dual-link-dvi-i-retail

or
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-amd-firepro-w5000-pc...(x16)-256-bit-gddr5-2x-displayport-dual-link-dvi-i-4096x2160-13-tflops


Good quote. I would still go corsair h110, as itll be quit, sleek looking vs huge fan, wont get in the way of ram, and offer very good cooling.

I chose Samsung, and would still recommend Samsung or at least two of the same brand ssd's, as the software included with Samsung magician is top notch. All drives are around same price, and offer almost the same performance, but what really differs is the software you get with it.

As for Seagate, I wouldn't trust them with my ex fiancé/mother of my childrens files. And I don't care about them.
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June 25, 2014 10:23:33 AM

I'd use this guide, along with whatever buget you have left, to choose a card.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/specviewperf-12-wor...

I would also suggest, making a new forum thread, but strickly ask for xeon build, and see if anyone can pop in with input for that route. With about $800 usd stuck into i7 route, i'd be interested to see what you could get xeon route for under $1k. I don't think a single xeon beat out the 4930k, but there are several dual cpu chip xeon motherboards out there in which im sure two medium to top end xeons could beat out the 4930k. Just don't know price, and don't truly know if theyre better.
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June 25, 2014 1:26:04 PM

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I'll give all this a good read tonight and I'll let you know if I have any questions!
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