Correction: Help me build a $2500-3500 computer

[Peter Steele]

Sorry for spamming posts but I just thought I would correct the thread title in case that might help, my $2500-3500 budget is for the computer as a whole not just for the CPU

I am just looking for something good enough to handle big projects of 4k/5k raw Scarlet footage that will be able to last for a while, any recommendations would be great, thanks

 

[Eric Bowen]

If you can get the budget closer to 4K then the X99 with atleast the 5930K would be an option if not the 5960X which is what you want. 32GB of ram would be minimum with 64GB ideal. Atleast 1 SSD drive for the OS and a 980Ti card for video. The drive arrangement would have to be 2x mechanical drives in a raid 0 for that budget range atleast at the moment. You could add to the drive config later.

 

[Peter Steele]

Thanks a lot Eric, this is really helpful. How would a Mac Pro within this budget (so probably the quad core with a graphics card and a bit of a RAM upgrade) compare to specs like these? I was originally trying to use Final Cut but that was only to try to save some money from the monthly fees of Adobe. But if I am saving some money on the PC maybe I should consider Adobe. I also thought about trying to do the Hacintosh route but I don't know if it is a good idea with the very limited computer knowledge that I have. Any advice here? Also are there any hard drives or specific types of RAM that you would recommend?

 

[Eric Bowen]

No the nMPro would not offer the same performance in that price range. The nMPro is the previous i7 Gen 3 platform and AMD GPU's versus Nvidia. The PC Workstation and Server platform are i7 Gen 4 which introduced DDR4 to the market. That has a significant impact on GPU acceleration performance especially at 4K and 5K. If you use Final Cut instead of Adobe you would likely have atleast acceptable performance on the Mac in that price range versus Adobe. However if you go the Adobe route then the performance and hardware specs you can get for the money spent are far better on PC. The ram will depend on which platform you get. If you decide on a platform then I can recommend what to look for on memory. Any WD Black drives would be fine for raid 0. Seagate Barracuda drives would be the choice for Seagate. They just have a lesser warranty. Performance is about the same with the Seagates having a little better caching model.

 

[Peter Steele]

Awesome, I am going to browse a bit and check some prices and I will try to get back to you soon to figure out the memory part of it. I appreciate the help

 

[Eric Z]

For great performance, you'd probably need something like:
X99 chipset
i7-5960X CPU
4x16GB (64GB) 2133MHz DDR4 RAM (sadly, no ECC supported with the above CPU)
NVIDIA 980 Ti 6GB or Titan X 12GB GPU
Intel 750 1.2TB PCIe NVMe SSD
Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 NVMe
Seasonic Platinum 860W PSU
Win7 Pro wSP1 x64 en-US (or if you can live with MS collecting your data - Win10 Pro x64).


However, if the above exceeds your budget:
Z170 chipset (for example: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming GT)
i7-6700K CPU
4x8GB (32GB) 3000MHz DDR4 RAM (again, no ECC supported with the above CPU)
NVIDIA 980 Ti 6GB
Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 NVMe
Samsung 850 Pro 2TB 2.5" SATA3
Seasonic Platinum 760W PSU
Win7 Pro wSP1 x64 en-US

This should get you sorted.
Cheers.

P.S.
Please note that you also need to add an enclosure, keyboard, mouse and monitor(s).
So take that into account as well.

 

[Eric Bowen]

ECC is unnecessary for media content production work. That is only required for Server operations or HPC work where the system is on 24/7 for weeks. I would also suggest DDR4 above 2133 for the X99. The 5960X is unlocked both for the CPU and memory and the higher frequency DDR4 will be higher grade ram as well. Ideally you want DDR4 2666+ and CL15. I would also not suggest the Intel NVMe drive with the Samsung SM951. They do not perform up to the specs of the drive consistently and constantly fluctuate performance below specs due to caching. They also take up a valuable PCI-E slot. I would suggest 2x SSD's in a raid 0 versus the NVMe drives.

 

[Eric Z]

ECC is very much recommended, especially when using 32GB or more, as there`s more chance for an incorrect bit to occour.
As for using RAM faster than 2133mhz - you're right. However, I haven't seen any DDR4 16GB sticks that clock higher. That`s why I wrote 2133mhz in the x99 build.
8GB sticks are available with higher speeds. That`s why I wrote 3000mhz in the Z170 build.

Regarding the SSD choices - I don`t have much experience with PCIe NVMe drives, but all the reviews I've read praised them. RAID is of course very welcome, but the guy is on a tight budget. I'm not sure how much he can spend on storage.

 

[Eric Bowen]

ECC is not required anymore if your ram is good ie test it reliably when the system was built. ECC was designed for electromagnetic interference or other anomalies causing transistor gates to flip prematurely generating ram errors. This so rarely happens now you can run systems for weeks before you can even see 1 error. The last study on this said it took 6 months of memtesting to generate 1 error. This was years ago. Ram either tests good without any errors or you have a bad stick.

 

[John Bellari]

Anybody here seeing noticeable real-world specific benefits to DDR4 RAM above 2400-2666MHz besides benchmarking in comparison to 2133Mhz DDR4, be it ECC or non-ECC?

Just loaded up a new Z170 build with 64GB DDR4, looking to perform some app specific testing as time permits...

 

[Eric Bowen]

I did with the X99 and Realtime playback at 4K+ full resolution preview. That was with CC 2014 and handled realtime without dropping frames even when CPU load was 100%.

 

[Peter Steele]

The ram will depend on which platform you get. If you decide on a platform then I can recommend what to look for on memory. Any WD Black drives would be fine for raid 0. Seagate Barracuda drives would be the choice for Seagate. They just have a lesser warranty. Performance is about the same with the Seagates having a little better caching model.

Ok so then in regards to the RAM suggestion, if I were to go with the PC and use adobe what specific type would you suggest, and how well can I survive with 32GB?

And then in regards to the hard drives, were the WD Black or Seagate recommendations only for mechanical drives, or are they also good for SSD? I just noticed that something like the Intel 750 1.2TB PCIe NVMe SSD is going to probably be a lot more than I can afford.

I think the gtx 980 ti is probably what I will go with but I am still debating between the 5930k and the 5960x, I guess in part it will depend on how much the RAM you suggest ends up costing, but I guess I'm wondering if the difference of performance will really be 500$ worth? I certainly want to be able to handle footage smoothly, but at the same time I'm not doing it professionally so I suppose everything doesn't have to be top of the line.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[Eric Bowen]

32GB of ram would work for Premiere well enough. AE is when 32GB becomes far more limited. WD and Seagate recommendations are for mechanical drives only. I suggest Samsung SSD's for solid states although avoid the Evo series for media drives. They are ok for OS but dont have near the endurance rating for media drives. 4K and 5K media will push a 5930K to it's limit. The 5960X handles the realtime playback load of high resolution media much better. It is definitely worth the price when in that workflow.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

ECC is very much recommended, especially when using 32GB or more, as there`s more chance for an incorrect bit to occour.
As for using RAM faster than 2133mhz - you're right. However, I haven't seen any DDR4 16GB sticks that clock higher. That`s why I wrote 2133mhz in the x99 build.

2666 to 3000 MHz 16GB sticks are becoming common here. Your market is probably a bit behind in Israel at the moment as the 16GB sticks are really just hitting the market, but there are 3000MHz and 2800MHz in stock at vendors here in the US like NewEgg, right now. 4 x 16GB 2800MHz DDR4 can be had for $550, so prices have really gone down too since I built my last X99 system in the other thread here. I paid $800 for 8 x 8GB 2800MHz. I can get 8 x 16GB 3000MHz for $1120.

ECC can help your RAM from getting scrambled by cosmic radiation or alien probes or whatnot, but ultimately it's not really necessary for desktop systems and chip makers have moved away from it for all but their server platforms that see 24/7/365 server duty or mission critical work. Not even all the Xeon CPU offerings require ECC RAM. And 32GB isn't considered a lot of RAM these days. Not when we can easily put 512GB in commodity dual Xeon boxes and 2TB+ in some of the larger E7 builds.

As for the budget build here, I would also recommend a Z170 configuration. I'm liking the new ASUS Z170-A motherboard that has USB 3.1 along with a USB-C connector for one of the ports. I have not looked at the Gigabyte motherboard you listed. Seems like a good build though, I would recommend a larger PSU, especially if there is potential for adding another GPU down the road.

OTOH, the x99 platform with the 5960X is still where it's at. While it unfortunately will use up almost half of the OP's budget just to get the 5960X and a reasonable motherboard, maybe a case and/ or CPU cooler too...

Win 8.1 seems to be performing the best for us these days, even though I prefer Win7 Pro. Actually I like Win 10 a lot, but not all of our software is happy there yet... Also not so sure about the Google-esque information harvesting and cloud focus of many aspects of it. If building a new system, I would definitely go Win 8.1 and sign up for the free 10 upgrade.

 

[John Bellari]

Anybody here seeing noticeable real-world specific benefits to DDR4 RAM above 2400-2666MHz besides benchmarking in comparison to 2133Mhz DDR4, be it ECC or non-ECC?

Just loaded up a new Z170 build with 64GB DDR4, looking to perform some app specific testing as time permits...

Based on very brief initial Z170 platform testing of DDR4 at 2133 and higher speeds,
increasing the 6700K CPU frequency seemed to have a much bigger impact on system RAM performance
than spending more money for higher rated speed RAM. (Ex: overclocking CPU from 4.0 to 4.6GHz or above)

Just a thought for those pinching pennies for other system components
like upgrading GPU to 980 Ti / Titan X or adding more 2133MHz RAM versus faster RAM
(Ex: upgrading to 64GB from absolute minimum 32GB),
which would have a more noticeable impact on your system performance.

For similar cost of course I'd take the faster RAM, but I'd stick with 2133MHz on a low-cost build if
that means better other components or if you want to upgrade
to more matching speed memory at lower cost later...

Just initial thoughts...

 

[Eric Bowen]

The speed of the ram effects how high you can push the realtime load before frames start dropping. GPU acceleration is impacted by this greatly since all of the data piped down to the GPU's goes through ram. What this means is the greater the load or complexity of the timeline the more impact the ram speed will have. This also shows when going from 1/2 resolution preview to full. Clock speed of CPU will always be the or one of the largest components to Realtime playback capability. That doesn't mean the ram doesn't have a significant impact to performance. Slower speed ram will also be lower grade which means higher chance of failure and errors down the road. Keep that in mind before buying 2133 ram just because it's cheaper. Ram is one of those components you get what you pay for.

 

[John Bellari]

The speed of the ram effects how high you can push the realtime load before frames start dropping. GPU acceleration is impacted by this greatly since all of the data piped down to the GPU's goes through ram. What this means is the greater the load or complexity of the timeline the more impact the ram speed will have. This also shows when going from 1/2 resolution preview to full. Clock speed of CPU will always be the or one of the largest components to Realtime playback capability. That doesn't mean the ram doesn't have a significant impact to performance. Slower speed ram will also be lower grade which means higher chance of failure and errors down the road. Keep that in mind before buying 2133 ram just because it's cheaper. Ram is one of those components you get what you pay for.

I have always stuck with Kingston RAM as they have stood by their product over time for my builds, and I think 2133MHz ECC is still official spec for the short term future
of new releases of E5 and E7 Xeon for the time being in 2016, unless you are hearing different.

Is the bottleneck you are describing primarily true for Realtime Video software timeline playback only, ie: Adobe CC Pro, AE and BM Davinci Resolve?

Love to hear your thoughts in detail about SSD useage for those apps, NVME vs Sata SSD RAID 0, as I have been debating a RAID 0 of Samsung 950 Pro 512GB NVME SSD vs 512GB 850 EVO or 850 Pro, vs Intel 750 800GB, possibly in another thread if you have the time

 

[Timo Teravainen]

I'm running a 5960X/2666Mhz 32 GB RAM system at the office and a Z170 Deluxe/6700K@4,5Ghz/2400Mhz 32GB RAM at home. With RED material, the main difference (in Resolve) is:

- With 4K clips on HD timeline, the 5960X with a 4-disk RAID setup runs realtime at Full Res Debayer. The 6700K barely does the same at Half Res Good.
- With 6K clips on HD timeline, 5960X struggles with realtime playback at Half Res Good, and smoothly runs 1/4 res. The 6700K does 1/4 res but drops frequently from realtime playback if there are many nodes.

GPU:s are on the same ballpark, 780 6GB on the 5960X and 970 4GB on the 6700K.

Having crashes with the 6700K in Resolve sometimes when doing tracking, otherwise it's very stable. Running Windows 10 on the 6700K system, Win 7 on the 5960X system.

Both are ok systems to work with especially with HD footage there's not much difference. The 6700K is a good budget solution but it struggles with high-res footage.

 

[Eric Bowen]

I have always stuck with Kingston RAM as they have stood by their product over time for my builds, and I think 2133MHz ECC is still official spec for the short term future
of new releases of E5 and E7 Xeon for the time being in 2016, unless you are hearing different.

Is the bottleneck you are describing primarily true for Realtime Video software timeline playback only, ie: Adobe CC Pro, AE and BM Davinci Resolve?

Love to hear your thoughts in detail about SSD useage for those apps, NVME vs Sata SSD RAID 0, as I have been debating a RAID 0 of Samsung 950 Pro 512GB NVME SSD vs 512GB 850 EVO or 850 Pro, vs Intel 750 800GB, possibly in another thread if you have the time

Yes 2133 is the locked frequency for ram on Xeons. Intel decided that for some reason though it really doesn't make sense other than staying with official Jedec specs for ECC Reg. Yes I am describing realtime playback on media applications only ie apps with a realtime process requirement. Premiere and Davinci would be in that category. AE would not be. It actually still renders to ram in the background so it;s not a realtime media app.

SSD Raid 0 with Samsung Pro drives for example average around 1GB/s which is enough for almost all high bandwidth media. Only DPX really is above that at 4K+ at about 1.2GBs or more based on framerate. SSD's will always be the better choice right now though since I can add more SSD's to the system either via onboard controller and put them raid 0 if backups are perfect or on a raid controller in raid 5 or 6 if realtime data protection is required to get the higher speed and volume size for DPX. NVMe drives average 800MB/s to 1.6GB/s but take a slot which are far more valuable in media applications for GPU's, controllers, and expansion. Besides this the SSD route gives far greater volume size. So overall the SSD route is the much better buy. PCI-E lanes are the most valuable expansion to media editing workstations so save those for those devices.

 

[Peter Steele]

If I were to go with the 5960X which, as Kilgroe said, with the mother board etc will take up most of the budget, where would be the best places to shave some money off?
As it stands right now I'm thinking of the 5960x, Asus X99-E WS, and the gtx 980 ti.
Then for the hard drives and RAM I was thinking of taking your suggestion Eric and doing the Samsung Pro SSD and the 2 WD black's for the mechanical's. Now as for sizes, would something like 512GB for the SSD and 2 2TB mechanicals for the Raid 0 be sufficient? I guess I'm still looking for recommendations here.

And then the final(ish) piece would be the RAM. I am thinking I will probably have to do the 32GB at least for starters, but after reading your posts on RAM speed I am not sure what speed I should aim for? Also, would I be better off doing 2x16GB to leave open the possibility of adding more later, or would I have to do 4x8GB and then re-buy all new RAM later?

Sorry to load so many questions on you guys heh, it's just that it's not my field at all and so I'm really leaning on the support you've been given, so thanks for all the help!