Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Monster Computer Build for RED Editing around 10,000$?

M

Moc Nguyen

Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2013
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hi everyone,

First, I'm newbie in RED world, and about to get Scarlet-W. And my old computer are not capable of editing 4K R3D footage. So I ask here, pros with many experiences help me suggesting a specs for the computer, for at least 3,4 years to come. My Budget is around 10,000$.

Thank everybody.
 
three ways to go as i see it.
Buy second hand quadro k6000 cards on ebay or wait just a little bit and get the nvidea cards thats about to be released. As i understand those will be... i heard even 10 times faster.

But one or two second hand quadro k6000 cards a hp840 or even z820 with good cpus. and then i would get a couple of ssds and a thunderbolt card.

I also recently picked up a fusionioII pci card used from ebay which i can recomend. Its uber fast and only takes a small slot in the machine. really nice for fast read write times.


Then a pegasus raid x8 or more to work from.


Think possibly a bit difficult to get together the above with 10k usd but not so far from it.


the other way to go is to just get a 5k imac and buy a red rocket x and external tb enclosure for it and a tb raid. if you like mac thats what i would do.
 
How about buying a $2.5K workstation, edit on a 2K timeline, export a 4K master, and put the $7.5K you saved towards a Weapon instead of S-W?
 
Akin A said:
How about buying a $2.5K workstation, edit on a 2K timeline, export a 4K master, and put the $7.5K you saved towards a Weapon instead of S-W?[/QUOTE


true. works well on our 2010 macpros with a 400 usd envidia card in premiere to edit at 1:4 and then coffe break for rendering out 10 minute edits to 4k prores. If just done right and not to many layers pretty much any computer will do.

But the z840 with 36 cores and dual quadro cards and half a tb of ram and fusion io just feels better. :) I saw now the new nvidea tesla cards ar available on the hp site. Anyone know the real preformance boost in such compared to having a quadro card?
Click to expand...
 
A few things I might consider if building a system within the next 6 months: The new Broadwell-e CPU is due out very soon. That's the workstation "enthusiast" single cpu with 10cores ($1500 expected price) if you want to save on the cost of dual Xeons. The new Nvidia Pascal GPUs are due out (around June?) which are supposed to be a big improvement.
 
The K6000, even used ones, are a waste of money. Titan X cards can be had for much less and are more powerful in Resolve, Premiere, and most anything else you're going to be using. I would recommend the Quadro cards for those times you need double-precision in specific render or simulation apps -- not R3D workflow.
 
@ Jeff K. Any indication that HP will rejigger their workstations to handle more power draw and cooling issues for users thats want to tap out with GPUs?
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The K6000, even used ones, are a waste of money. Titan X cards can be had for much less and are more powerful in Resolve, Premiere, and most anything else you're going to be using. I would recommend the Quadro cards for those times you need double-precision in specific render or simulation apps -- not R3D workflow.
Click to expand...

I second this.
 
It's really about what kind of workflow you have? are you planing to have a station for colour grading, if so, get a professional that works in the field, pay him and it will save you money and headaches.

If it's just for editing, Almost any iMac 27" from 2011 and up will work, as well as any used Mac Pro from 2010...I would say invest every bit of excess money you got in lenses or good tripod or Dana Dolly, stuff that last for 10 years...;-)

Even though I don't edit, just for reviewing rushes and looking at some shots I use my 2012 2.9Mhz i7 macbook pro 13" and it works nicely on Premiere cc and FCPX.

IMHO, 10K for offline editing sounds too much, even for online/grading unless you are a post house, my latest grading session was in a very good central London post house and they had a Mac Pro from 2013...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The K6000, even used ones, are a waste of money. Titan X cards can be had for much less and are more powerful in Resolve, Premiere, and most anything else you're going to be using. I would recommend the Quadro cards for those times you need double-precision in specific render or simulation apps -- not R3D workflow.
Click to expand...

Can you explain my 3D guys does not want me to buy them Titan X´s cards they had some long elaborate explination why they where no good. I would love to be able to save and buy Titans X instead as they are about half the price. As I understand they do not preform as good in clusters, or they are simply not that reliable / only good for bringing graphics to the screen not for heavy renders where every pixel needs to be ok and every card need to deliver the same result.

But then I also heard they are identical the Quadro and the Titan X and it´s only a sales thing. One expansive for computing and one lower priced for gaming. If that so I really could get rid of a few quadro cards and get Titan X´s in stead.

Now we do both r3d renders and 3D renders on those cards I guess that makes difference as the 3d reders split up in frames and as I understand r3d´s are rendered on separate cards, no?


Also Jeff, another question, not to derail the thread, but how does it work with the new tesla cards can I run such card alone or do it need a graphics card like the quadro to run the screen. as I understand the teslas are only computing card no?
 
Björn Benckert said:
Can you explain my 3D guys does not want me to buy them Titan X´s cards they had some long elaborate explination why they where no good. I would love to be able to save and buy Titans X instead as they are about half the price. As I understand they do not preform as good in clusters, or they are simply not that reliable / only good for bringing graphics to the screen not for heavy renders where every pixel needs to be ok and every card need to deliver the same result.
Click to expand...

There are some differences between the Titan X and Quadro cards. Biggest difference is the hardware level support for higher precision and a few other features that are more obscure, but still used by a lot of pro OpenGL 3D/ CAD applications. Other than that, the primary difference is firmware and software tuning. Quadro cards undergo a more rigorous quality control process and carry a better warranty. They are clocked slower than the Titan X cards and have a more robust memory architecture. All things to make them better in certain environments like compute and render clusters or mission-critical workstations.

Depending on which software you use most, the Quadro cards may or may not be the best choice. Same with the Titan X cards.. For someone who primarily runs Pro/E or SolidWorks, I would recommend the Quadro. For someone who primarily runs Resolve and Premiere, I would recommend the Titan X. Other apps or various app combinations may work better with one or the other and the waters actually become quite muddy.

Each version of the GeForce / Titan cards is different. They evolve a lot faster than the Quadro line and evolve differently. Original Titan had support for dual precision like the Quadro. Titan X does not. As an example. Many of the OpenGL functions that the Quadro cards accelerate better or support that the GeForce or Titan cards do not are deprecated functions used by legacy apps or some that have not bothered to fully bring their code base up to current spec.

If you're doing GPU-accelerated 3D rendering that can take advantage of the multi-point precision of the Quadro, then that would be your better choice. If you're spending most of your time in something like Resolve, then the Titan X is your better choice.

The Tesla cards are like Quadro cards without video connectors and used for compute only. You will need another GPU to run your display(s).
 
Björn Benckert said:
the other way to go is to just get a 5k imac and buy a red rocket x and external tb enclosure for it and a tb raid. if you like mac thats what i would do.
Click to expand...


Thats what I have, the late 2015 5k imac is surprisingly fast. After external raid 0 ssds, it only cost around $5k for the comp plus you get builtin 5k monitor. It renders 4k like a champ. I reccomend Akito enclosure and samsung pro ssds, not owc. around 1600 MB/s write and read.
 
jake southard said:
2013 Mac Pro 6-Core working great for me. Edit in a 4K timeline usually. 1/2 res timeline. No need to spend 10 grand. maybe 5 or 6
Click to expand...

I'd have to disagree with that one. the new macpro trashcans are exactly that, TRASH! Such a waste of money. Wish I would of bought the 27" 5k iMac. WAAAY better deal and more functional system.
I have a 3 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5 macpro with 64gb Ram and a pegasus2 R6 and this thing can barely keep up to a few streams of 1080/2.5k CinemaDNG's from my BM cameras.
The GPU's are crap as well. I have to export using the internal Premiere exporter because Media encoder ALWAYS outputs glitches in the video. Green and purple lines throughout the footage.
Save your money and buy something else.
 
I need to upgrade my video card soon. I was going to go for the Titan X but my guy said to wait for the Nvidia Pascal based GPUs. They're due out later this year.
 
Brody_B said:
Thats what I have, the late 2015 5k imac is surprisingly fast. After external raid 0 ssds, it only cost around $5k for the comp plus you get builtin 5k monitor. It renders 4k like a champ. I reccomend Akito enclosure and samsung pro ssds, not owc. around 1600 MB/s write and read.
Click to expand...

These specs are a good recommended baseline system for Raven users shopping around, reasonably priced and surprisingly good performance.
 
I also think you can't do everything in one computer. You need one computer for editing, and one computer for color correction. And you need skilled people for each job who know what they're doing.

Note that just a great monitor for 4K color correction is gonna set you back far more than $10,000. The computer itself is only the beginning.

jake southard said:
2013 Mac Pro 6-Core working great for me. Edit in a 4K timeline usually. 1/2 res timeline. No need to spend 10 grand. maybe 5 or 6
Click to expand...
That worked for me as well, but I had to take the computer back a few times in order to get the GPUs replaced. My experience is that there's quite a few bad AMD GPUs out there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top