Video Editing, Graphic Design and Music Production PC for under $1500

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dubmob

Commendable
Nov 21, 2016
5
0
1,510
Hello,
I’m an editor, graphic designer and musician looking to drop under 1500 on a new build for those purposes as well as for moderate Gaming. I use Cakewalk Sonar (64 bit) heavily, Video Editing in Premiere Pro CC, Photo Editing in Photoshop CC. I’ll be using most of the CC Applications and a handful of other music applications. I’m pretty out of the loop on what makes a powerful PC these days (my last build I bought off Dell). Im looking for a build that will last and will give me the best availability to update for the future when the need arises. I have speakers, monitors, run two Presonus Firestudio 2626 audio interfaces (need only one when not recording full bands), m-audio 2496 soundcard. I’d like to stick with Asus, Intel and Nvidia as much as possible. Your help is much appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

Titan
Apr 20, 2016
15,099
1,048
92,740
Something like this should be good for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($118.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($183.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card ($598.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case ($66.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($73.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1526.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-21 17:44 EST-0500
 
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Verndewdimus

Verndewdimus

Commendable
Oct 29, 2016
30
0
1,560
His pc is a bit much, so you use sonar, a great Daw, ive used it extensively. You want a quad core that does multi threading , if you wanted to you could also go AMD after their latest release and drop the cpu and over all price . Hackintosh is also a viable option but you are limited to Intel cpu's. You already have an interface for recording I assume. You dont need an ssd, a 7200 rpm main drive will be great and I would up that 1 tb storage drive to two or more and install all your sound libraries on it, regardless of the drive, there are only so many read writes you get out of one drive, I would do one tb as a primary drive , though with sound libraries installed on drive 2 you may not edge past a few hundred gb of installed stuff on your main drive. The video card is kinda critical for video editing, AMD is competitive but the cuda architecture is pretty solid. You can do an intel at 2.6 with a 3.6 boost , and save money, You could cut corners on the gfx card as well
http://www.logicalincrements.com/articles/videoediting#howto You can do a budget build for far under 1500 according to this article, You do have options. I consider 16gb thr preferred music production ram amount But 25 tracks on 8 , works ok but can be a bit stiff at times, with internet windows open , you will get daw time outs. The second drive is critical for storing your recording sessions in as well, that frees up dynamic processing lanes that you will use for the DAC DSP on your interface through plugins on your main drive.

And Ive read that some people are using 5400 rpm drives for the secondary drive, the reason this works isnt speed related its lessening the tasks of the maindrive by a good margin with your session files and session audio in the second drive as well as soundlibraries. One guy said hed be up to 32 tracks with no issue and having all his DAC AD/DA tasks done. 7200 is optimal but 5400 can work in a limited capacity, You wont be doing movie scores at that speed.
 
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Verndewdimus

Verndewdimus

Commendable
Oct 29, 2016
30
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1,560
in the end you can more than get by with a 7200 rpm maindrive initially not just talking about ideas either, we had to compose to video in school , our orchestral template was 56 tracks , and im on a laptop, mid 2012 macbook pro. i7 2.6, 8gb ram 750gb 5400 rpm hdd. I could handle two browsers 4 pages each and a 24 track session. people overspend on tech thinking they need the fastest when in my collegiate experience that simply isnt so. there is a difference between professional and non professional use, E.G. my film scoring mentor Evan Evans has a top of the line mac pro with 18 tb of external drives, and extensive used of ssd's, but he scores up to 100 tracks on 4 monitors for major films where the income is tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands per film, But that includes him hiring the orchestra and conductor. granted his system is probably worth 20-30 k but my point here is a beginner can make due with far less.
the film students have the same macbook, same specs as do the video game design students, 650 M nvidia card. There is a reasonable basefloor between what will work and what will give you ample headroom.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

Titan
Apr 20, 2016
15,099
1,048
92,740
There is a lot of difference between desktop parts and laptop parts because laptop componets are underpowered already for lower power consumption and heat dissipation. And the build here is for desktop, not for laptop.
And you can always slow down core performance by limiting core count during processing, but when it will fall short of processing power due to underpowered parts, you wont be able to enhance the performance.
 
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Verndewdimus

Verndewdimus

Commendable
Oct 29, 2016
30
0
1,560
you missed the point, I do believe i mentioned i handled as many as 56 tracks with the laptop. So I will reiterate, a lot can be done for much less both in video and in music. systems should be built not based on fanboy oogling but by what you actually need which could save a person hundreds if they are a novice.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

Titan
Apr 20, 2016
15,099
1,048
92,740
Maybe you missed the OPs first post. This is also for moderate gaming beside music and video and also he wants a powerful pc thats going to last him for a couple of years. And the OP has stipulated a budget to go with. A PC can be configured even in $500, but its for the OP to decide how much he wants to invest and what he intends to do with that.
 
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Verndewdimus

Verndewdimus

Commendable
Oct 29, 2016
30
0
1,560
Again bro, im not wanting a pissing match here, I simply stated depending on what he wants he has tons of options to save money depending on the level and quality of work he is doing.
 
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dubmob

Commendable
Nov 21, 2016
5
0
1,510
Hey guys, thank you so much for your time and for the input here. I had to put the build on hold for a minute but now I think Ive found the funds.
Are there any updates to this? Any changes on Processing power? I'll be rendering alot of video HD and 4k, mastering audio mixes and recording alot with this set up. Peripheral firewire/USB3.0/etc needs to be available. Also a RAID with removable storage - I found this: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322028 to help with that.
 
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D

dubmob

Commendable
Nov 21, 2016
5
0
1,510
Hey guys, thank you so much for your time and for the input here. I had to put the build on hold for a minute but now I think Ive found the funds.
Are there any updates to this? Any changes on Processing power? I'll be rendering alot of video HD and 4k, mastering audio mixes and recording alot with this set up. Peripheral firewire/USB3.0/etc needs to be available. Also a RAID with removable storage - I found this: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322028 to hlp with that.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

Titan
Apr 20, 2016
15,099
1,048
92,740
Well, a lot has changed in the last couple of months tbh, specially with the advent of Ryzen. That build is not recommended for your purpose any more. This should be more appropriate.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($323.49 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock X370 Killer SLI ATX AM4 Motherboard ($217.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($99.97 @ Jet)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($99.97 @ Jet)
Storage: PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($79.99 @ Jet)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.98 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8GB DUKE OC Video Card ($499.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case ($66.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.90 @ Amazon)
Total: $1487.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-05 22:21 EDT-0400
 
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