My PC - what to upgrade.

[Timothy Cole]

Hi, I'm fairly new to the world of RED. I get my first camera this week, a RED One.

I built a new PC for myself a few months ago, and I'm just wondering how it would go with 4K video. I'm currently using CS 5.5.

The specs are:

2600K CPU OCd to 4.4GHZ
16gig RAM
GTX 680
Gigabyte Z77-D3H MB
A few SSDs etc.

I guess the things I could update could be, adding more RAM, adding another GTX 680, and updating the CPU. What do you think?

Thanks,
Tim.

 

[Paul J Steinberg]

First thing I'd get is the Red Rocket card. 4K footage will playback as if it's 1080p in Premiere when you have a RR card.

 

[R.Lee]

You can also get an Nvidia 6000, that also plays 4k back real time, and it helps a lot with rendering in After Effects , Maya etc.

 

[Timothy Cole]

Thanks, the 6000 looks good. At the moment there's someone on eBay selling new ones for around $1830, which is a lot cheaper than the Red Rocket.

 

[Jean Wallez]

With your configuration,you can work in real time at 1/2 resolution with 4K R3D in CS5.5;more ram and an other graphic card won't change anything.For the CPU to achieve real time 4K full resolution,even 2 latest 6 core CPU won't be enough.

 

[Timothy Cole]

Aah ok, thanks. I think I'll save my pennies for a Quadro 6000, along with some batteries, some more glass, and another RED Mag.

 

[Jean Wallez]

The Quadro 6000 has 448 cuda cores like the GTX 470...
The best actual card for CS6 is the GTX 580 with 3go RAM.
Since the R3D decoding is made by the CPU you will still work at 1/2 resolution which is 2K!
For full hardware 4K decoding,the Rocket is the solution.

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

Indeed, you should be able to easily run at 1/4 res as long as your storage is fast enough, and might be able to run at 1/2. For full res you need a rocket.

Skip the Quadro and change the 680 to a 580 to get the most out of CUDA processing. I don't think Adobe software can use more than one GPU, so you wouldn't get anything out of adding another 680.

 

[R.Lee]

I'm building a new station with
dual 8 core 2.4gh
supermicro x9dai
64 gb ram
quadro 6000
ssd system drive

Ill let you know how it performs with r3d's, hopefully by Friday.

 

[Paul Toth]

The 1/4 & 1/2 res is not the resolution you are actually working in, but the rez you are viewing. You are still working in the original res of what was shot.

I'm running a dell machine that's 5 years old that features 2 Xeon processors with 24 gb ram on windows 7 with a quadro fx 4800 nvidia card and CS6 and I have no problems working with or viewing my 4k footage.

 

[R.Lee]

Ok, PC is up and running today.
Playback of one stream of 5k full res in real time. 2 streams and it stutters playing back at about 14-18 fps
Playback of 7 streams of 4K (pic in pic) at 1/2 res in real time.
Playback of 12 streams of 4K (pic in pic) at 1/4 real time.

This is one powerful PC, will be testing render times as compared with my i7 3.2gh 6 core machine later in the week.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Take a look at the GTX 680 card with 4GB RAM. That extra RAM is huge for 4K editing.

 

[R.Lee]

For all who need a similar workstation check out these guys you won't be disappointed, videohardware.com
they have been building workstations for me for the past 12 years and I've never been dissatisfied. Ask for Blaine, he'll get you what you need.