Need help in picking a new system

Nabby871

Prominent
Apr 23, 2017
1
0
510
Hi everyone,

I need to decide between this two workstation. I am a editor and mostly use Photoshop, After Effect, Avid media composer.

SYSTEM 1:
ASUS Z10PE D16 WS 1024GB RAM
DUAL XEON E5 2620 v4 2.1Ghz (8 cores 16 threads combine 16 cores 32 threads)
2133Mhz DDR4 24GB
Nvidia Quadro M4000

SYSTEM 2:
ASUS x99-A II 128GB RAM
i7 6850K 3.6Ghz (6 cores 12 threads)
3200Mhz DDR4 24GB
Nvidia Quadro M4000

I do know that the i7 6850K is the faster processor and with faster DDR4 RAM will give good result when considering the price, and also most software mentioned above will hardly use
more the 8 to 10 cores at one go, but my question is in situation when all the three software are running, for example there is a title animation rendering going on in After Effect (in the background) and i am working on a documentary in Avid which has 7 to 8 video and audio tracks with some effects in it and also in between i need to go to Photoshop to make some mattes for my edit i am doing.which system will be more efficient in these situation.

It is not about the speed always ( speed is important you can not wait for one day for the title animation rendering) but also the efficient of working between other software while the rendering is going on.

I know system 1 will be costlier than system 2 (not by very huge margin) but if system 2 can give me result than how does not want to save money, but it should not cost me in time as we know in this profession time is money. And also the system should we future proof, it should be there for at least 4 to 8 years, until and unless there are some huge technology change.

What do you guys think?
Any help would be appreciated.




 
Solution
My initial thought was exactly like ScrewySqrl's, this is a perfect case for using a Ryzen 7 CPU and it still might be. The other thought was, "Do you really need to use a Quadro/Firepro GPU, they are so much more expensive?" But in looking at the Avid Media Composer I was struck by how rigid Avid is with product support, no AMD or consumer cards.
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/compatibility/en365919?popup=true

Having said that, there is some mention of the use of Ryzen in their forums
http://community.avid.com/forums/p/180415/840573.aspx

And consumer cards can be used with software tweaks (look at the post by Richard Vala in the comments section)...
My initial thought was exactly like ScrewySqrl's, this is a perfect case for using a Ryzen 7 CPU and it still might be. The other thought was, "Do you really need to use a Quadro/Firepro GPU, they are so much more expensive?" But in looking at the Avid Media Composer I was struck by how rigid Avid is with product support, no AMD or consumer cards.
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/compatibility/en365919?popup=true

Having said that, there is some mention of the use of Ryzen in their forums
http://community.avid.com/forums/p/180415/840573.aspx

And consumer cards can be used with software tweaks (look at the post by Richard Vala in the comments section)
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/GTX-1070-and-GTX-1080-Premiere-Pro-Performance-810/
http://community.avid.com/forums/p/161097/812732.aspx

Dual Xeon's are not recommended for Photoshop/AE but rather a Broadwell CPU
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Should-you-use-a-Dual-Xeon-for-Premiere-Pro-CC-2017-932/

but Avid recommends dual Xeon for some features of Media Composer
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/compatibility/en365919?popup=true

Here is a performance comparison for various CPU types and configurations
http://imgur.com/a/wL5wE

So at the end of all this it is hard to recommend a choice as we don't know which features of Media Composer you will be using and what resolution you are editing at. I see it as breaking down to three paths for a budget build

    ■ Fast with lots of threads: Dual E5-2670 v2. Your Photoshop performance will suffer due to the low core speed but you will never run out of available threads. If you are editing at 4K then this is the way to go.
    ■ Best Performance to Price Ratio: Ryzen 1800X. Has the lowest number of PCI-e lanes though, only 24 native to the CPU. Passmark score beats the stock HP Z840 recommended by Avid.
    ■ Best Intel Single Core at approx. $1000: i7-6900K. Bit more expensive than a dual E5-2620 v4 build but should have enough threads and will perform very well on Photoshop tasks.
You need to consider how many peripheral components you will need and thus how many PCI-e lanes you will need.
 
Solution