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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Correction: Help me build a $2500-3500 computer

Peter Steele said:
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!
Click to expand...

Yes the Samsung Pro 512 SSD for OS and programs is good. 2x 2TB WD black drives in raid 0 would be fine as long as long as you keep the capacity used under 3TB. Once you get over that mark the performance on those mechanical drives will drop significantly.

The X99 is quad channel so you want 4x ram regardless. I would suggest 4x8GB if that is where the budget is and DDR4 2666 has dropped significantly in price. You want to look for ram with CL timings of 15 15 15 for the first 3 timings. If they have different timings for the first 3 I would suggest you avoid them.
 
In terms of case, cooling and power supply the ones from Kilgroe's build still seem like good options, but are there any other suggestions?

Corsair C70 Vengeance tower case
Corsair H100i GTX liquid CPU cooler

EVGA 1300G2 power supply

Would you need any extra fans with the H100i? Also how much less power, if any, could I get away with on the power supply?

I was getting tempted by Seagate drives for their prices but what I am reading about failure rates is making me hesitant.


 
Peter Steele said:
In terms of case, cooling and power supply the ones from Kilgroe's build still seem like good options, but are there any other suggestions?

Corsair C70 Vengeance tower case
Corsair H100i GTX liquid CPU cooler

EVGA 1300G2 power supply

Would you need any extra fans with the H100i? Also how much less power, if any, could I get away with on the power supply?

I was getting tempted by Seagate drives for their prices but what I am reading about failure rates is making me hesitant.


Click to expand...

The PSU and cooling should be fine. Seagates have had higher failure rates depending on revs. The current seem to be in the range of the WD drives though atleast that we have seen. Maybe little higher.
 
So I just may have underestimated what this whole RAID thing entails...I'm finding that the raid controllers recommended in these forums tend to be quite expensive. I found drastically cheaper ones but have no idea if they would be capable or not. So I guess my question is, what sort of price range am I looking at for a decent raid set up? What would be a sort of minimum level controller, and is there anything else, aside from the drives themselves, that I need for it?

Also, if you use the raid 0 do you want to, or can you, do anything for back up support?

Lastly, maybe I can just bypass that whole discussion and ask how important it will be for me to have a raid in the first place? Could it be something I do later down the road?
 
Raid performance depends on the raid level and controller. For example raid 0 runs the same onboard as it does on SAS controllers. However raid 5 or raid 6 does not. Riad 5 and raid 6 you want higher end SAS controllers for. How big of a volume size do you need for the raid. That is the first question.
 
Unfortunately, since this is my first RED and I haven't started the editing phase yet I don't totally know yet. I can only say that I will be using the Scarlet Mysterium and working on timelines that will probably end up being around an hour at most. I probably won't be doing too many projects at once, probably only one or two. But how much space I am going to need for all of this really is a mystery to me at this point. I guess I have been going more based on budget currently and just hoping that something like the 512GB SSD with 2 2TB mechanical drives would suffice. Is that enough information to determine an estimated volume size?
 
How much do you think I would need to add to properly build a X99 system? Right now this is what I am looking at. It falls within the budget, I just don't know if there is anything else I need, and am still trying to figure out the raid situation.

  • Asus X99-E WS chipset - $519
  • i7-5960X CPU - $1043
  • G skill Ripjaws V series 32GB DDR4 2666 - 235$
  • NVIDIA 980 Ti 6GB - $660
  • Samsung pro 512 - $259
  • WD Black 2 TB x 2 = 2 270$
  • EVGA 1300G2 power supply $220
  • Corsair C70 Vengeance tower case $110
  • Corsair H100i GTX liquid CPU cooler $105
  • Windows 8.1 - 80$
  • Keyboard - $35
  • Mouse - $35
  • DVD drive - Asus DRW 24B1 (can I get away with this cheap little thing?) - $20
  • Total Estimate=$ 3591
 
Peter Steele said:
How much do you think I would need to add to properly build a X99 system? Right now this is what I am looking at. It falls within the budget, I just don't know if there is anything else I need, and am still trying to figure out the raid situation.

  • Asus X99-E WS chipset - $519
  • i7-5960X CPU - $1043
  • G skill Ripjaws V series 32GB DDR4 2666 - 235$
  • NVIDIA 980 Ti 6GB - $660
  • Samsung pro 512 - $259
  • WD Black 2 TB x 2 = 2 270$
  • EVGA 1300G2 power supply $220
  • Corsair C70 Vengeance tower case $110
  • Corsair H100i GTX liquid CPU cooler $105
  • Windows 8.1 - 80$
  • Keyboard - $35
  • Mouse - $35
  • DVD drive - Asus DRW 24B1 (can I get away with this cheap little thing?) - $20
  • Total Estimate=$ 3591
Click to expand...

That configuration is good enough for X99 and Red media. The Z170 is already available but the X99 still is the better platform. The 4TB should be enough for the workflow intended. It will depend how many raw hours of media overall you have to work with but that should do it. If you have a little more in the budget 3TB drives should not be much more than the 2Tb WD drives. If you get the Thunderbolt card for the X99 board then you can add external TB storage later as well. I would suggest Win 10 over 8.1 as well.
 
Last edited:
So I am about ready to make the purchase for the above listed specs. I am only still debating on the last 2 pieces of the RAM and the mechanical hard drives. It seems that most have said that 32 GB RAM will work but as a kind of minimum if working with Premiere, but, as Eric said, if I want to do something like After Effects work I would probably need the 64gb. So I guess I'm asking if I could get some extra money together for the 64gb is that something that would be really recommended as making a big difference in performance? Or is it just sort of a nice benefit to have if affordable to speed things up a bit more? If it really is going to be the difference between being able to use After Effects or not I think I will decide to splurge for it. If that is the case I would also ask, do I still want to do the DDR4 2666 with the 15-15-15 but in 4x16 rather than 4x8 sticks? Or do I want to look at different speeds if I am going with 64gb?

Lastly, I am thinking about just starting off with a 4 TB WD black (in addition to the Samsung 512gb ssd) and later trying to put in the work to set up a raid once I'm really up and going and have a bit more money. Do you think that would work ok?
 
32GB is definitely the minimum for AE and where you want to be for Premiere. 64GB would offer longer ram preview playback before AE has to write to the disk cache. If you get 64GB I would suggest 8x8GB 2666 sticks at this point. The 16GB sticks at 2666 just released but they are for Dual Channel systems and may not work for Quad channel. Starting with 4TB black drives in raid 0 would be good to start with. Just make sure you have a solid backup process.
 
Haha that just might solve everything...if I am still going with 8GB 2666 sticks I could just buy 4 and then if I want/need the extra RAM add in the other 4 sticks later right? I was originally thinking I would have to re-buy it if I wanted to upgrade because I thought I would need 16GB sticks...

For backup drives do you usually use an external drive, like an external WD? Thanks again Eric!
 
want to buy a excellent computer with cheap price wouldn't be easy:001_smile:
 
When you buy ram now and upgrade later you have to get the exact same model with the same primary timings ie 15 15 15 35 for example. Even then due to Dimm manufacturers changing chip manufacturers from 1 production run to the next or the stepping changing on the die, the ram from a later production may not work with the ram you bought earlier. However the Gskill ram I recommended has been relatively consistent comparatively to the other manufacturers so it works more than it doesn't. One key though is you have to make sure all of 1 kit is in slots A1, B1, C1, and D1 while the other kit goes into the 2 slots for A through D. I would suggest a USb3 docking station for external backup and using internal drives such as WD Black or Red. The drives put in the all in 1 packages are the highest power management cheap drives which also have a higher failure rate like the green drives. Just make sure you spin any hard drives up every 6 months to a year. If you dont the chance of failure or data corruption is extremely high due to the magnetic field starting to break down.
 
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