Video card for custom PC build

[Thomas Wallis]

I'm working on a new PC build and am trying to decide on a video card. This is going to be to run Premiere and Resolve in a 6k and eventually 8k raw workflow.

Wondering if I should go with the 1080 or spend the extra money on the P5000. I've got a Red Rocket X which I would love to utilize if possible, and was thinking that it would suffice to go with the 1080 and the RRX working together. Does anyone have any insight on this?


Processor and motherboard:
Intel Core i9 10-core processor
Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard

Thanks!

 

[Chad Lancaster]

If you get the 1080 get the Ti version, better performance/$

Currently premiere will only use 1 card on playback, resolve will use multiple.

 

[Misha Engel]

I'm working on a new PC build and am trying to decide on a video card. This is going to be to run Premiere and Resolve in a 6k and eventually 8k raw workflow.

Wondering if I should go with the 1080 or spend the extra money on the P5000. I've got a Red Rocket X which I would love to utilize if possible, and was thinking that it would suffice to go with the 1080 and the RRX working together. Does anyone have any insight on this?


Processor and motherboard:
Intel Core i9 10-core processor
Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard

Thanks!

Do you need OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth (for 10 bits color in Premiere)?
When yes, AMD VEGA FE is the cheapest option
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-16gb,5128.html
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105073&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-VigLink2-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=8167422&SID=j65f6w5ia30035wt00053
AMD VEGA FE 16 GB $ 1000
NVidia P5000 16 GB $ 2000
NVidia P6000 24 GB $ 5000

When you don't need the 10 bits color depth the GTX 1080 ti with 11 GB VRAM would also be a good option.

Also have a look at AMD threadripper, the benchmarks will be released tomorrow (10th august 2017).

The one I want to build looks a bit like this

AMD Threadripper 1950X 16c/32t $ 1.000
AIO water cooler (thermaltake water 3.0 ultimate) $ 120
Case (corsair obsidian 900D) $ 340
128 GB DDR4-3200 cl14 (Gskill trident Z) $ 1.450
MB asrock with 10 gb/s ethernet (Asrock X399 professional gaming) $ 450
Cache/scratch drive Highpoint Raid SSD7101 $ 400 + 4 x samsung 960pro 512 GB $ 1.120 = $ 1.520
Samsung 960 evo 1 TB systemdrive $ 450
8 x WD Red Pro 4 TB(WD4002FFWX) in raid 10 on the MB for fast and safe onboard storaga $ 1450 (read speeds upto 1600 MB/s, write speeds upto 800 MB/s).
2 x VEGA FE 16 (support OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth) $ 2000
PSU 1500 Watt 80 plus titanium (CORSAIR AXi Series AX1500i Digital 1500W 80 PLUS TITANIUM )$ 450
Small material $ 200

my build will be around $ 9.500,- (pricing is from newegg in us$).

There is still space left for the RED ROCKET X which requires PCIe x 16 physical slot providing at least 8 lanes (x8).

I will put a DecLink card in the remaining slot.

Threadripper 1950X will be around 30..45% faster(depending on the used program) on stock speed compare with the equal priced i9-7900x.
Threadripper has 48 usable PCIe lanes vs. 44 for i9-7900.
i9-7900 gets kind of hot http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/-intel-skylake-x-overclocking-thermal-issues,5117.html

Just read some review about the threadripper tomorrow (10 aug), I bet a lot of reviewers will compare it with the i9-7900.

Misha

 

[Chad Lancaster]

base TDP on threadripper is higher at 180w vs 165w for i9-7980xe

 

[Misha Engel]

base TDP on threadripper is higher at 180w vs 165w for i9-7980xe

That means nothing these days, the power consumed by the CPU is all transfered into heat(end form of energy).

With stock(base) speeds in prime95

Ryzen 7 1800X 8c/16t TDP= 95 watt prime95=118 watt
Intel i7-6900k 8c/16t TDP=140 watt prime95=148 watt
Intel i7-6950x 10c/20t TDP=140 watt prime95=145 watt
Intel i7-7900x 10c/20t TDP=140 watt prime95=229 watt
AMD TR 1950x 16c/32t TDP=180 watt prime95= look at tomshardware.com during 10 aug 2017

https://img.purch.com/core-i9-7900x-review/o/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmJlc3RvZm1pY3JvLmNvbS9JL1EvNjg0OTYyL29yaWdpbmFsLzA0LVBvd2VyLUNvbnN1bXB0aW9uLVRvcnR1cmUucG5n

The selected cooler should be able to cool the prime95 numbers when you want to be save to have a non throtteling cpu under all conditions.
With an air cooler you can go upto 220 Watt(noctua), with liquid AIO you can go beyond 500 Watt http://www.enermax.com/home.php?fn=eng/product_a1_1_1&lv0=109&lv1=118&no=369

Maybe more important is the heat that is generated.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-7900x-skylake-x,5092-11.html
And how to get rid of it. The biggest flaw(my opinion) of X299 Skylake-X is the TIM.

Misha

 

[Dominic Boudreault]

AMD Threadripper 1950X 16c/32t $ 1.000
AIO water cooler (thermaltake water 3.0 ultimate) $ 120
Case (corsair obsidian 900D) $ 340
128 GB DDR4-3200 cl14 (Gskill trident Z) $ 1.450
MB asrock with 10 gb/s ethernet (Asrock X399 professional gaming) $ 450
Cache/scratch drive Highpoint Raid SSD7101 $ 400 + 4 x samsung 960pro 512 GB $ 1.120 = $ 1.520
Samsung 960 evo 1 TB systemdrive $ 450
8 x WD Red Pro 4 TB(WD4002FFWX) in raid 10 on the MB for fast and safe onboard storaga $ 1450 (read speeds upto 1600 MB/s, write speeds upto 800 MB/s).
2 x VEGA FE 16 (support OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth) $ 2000
PSU 1500 Watt 80 plus titanium (CORSAIR AXi Series AX1500i Digital 1500W 80 PLUS TITANIUM )$ 450
Small material $ 200
Misha

Great build! I would swap the 2X VEGA FE 16 for the AMD SSG and maybe the case for a smaller one. This case is ginormous :scared:

 

[Misha Engel]

Great build! I would swap the 2X VEGA FE 16 for the AMD SSG and maybe the case for a smaller one. This case is ginormous :scared:

SSG = $ 7.000 Vs. 2xVega FE + scratch drive (7 GB/s sustained read/write) = $ 3.500 should both enable you to edit in real-time full res 8k 25 fps (File buffered on the SSG or on the scratch drive). 2xVEGA FE gives you more power in Resolve vs. 1 SSG and I'm on a budget of $ 10.000. I have $ 500 left to put EKWB full cover waterblocks on the VEGA's (I hate noise). I need the case to house all the components (I might end up with a smaller case when things fit in). I'm hoping this system will do 1/2 res good quality 8k 25 fps straight form the mini mag reader.

 

[Dominic Boudreault]

2xVEGA FE gives you more power in Resolve vs. 1 SSG

How so?

 

[Thomas Wallis]

SSG = $ 7.000 Vs. 2xVega FE + scratch drive (7 GB/s sustained read/write) = $ 3.500 should both enable you to edit in real-time full res 8k 25 fps (File buffered on the SSG or on the scratch drive). 2xVEGA FE gives you more power in Resolve vs. 1 SSG and I'm on a budget of $ 10.000. I have $ 500 left to put EKWB full cover waterblocks on the VEGA's (I hate noise). I need the case to house all the components (I might end up with a smaller case when things fit in). I'm hoping this system will do 1/2 res good quality 8k 25 fps straight form the mini mag reader.

Thanks Misha,
The threadripper won't support thunderbolt though, is that right?
My main raid is a promise Pegasus with thunderbolt so kind of necessary for me.

 

[Chad Lancaster]

Thunderbolt is an Intel technology, they have recently made it royalty free so we might see it on AMD but there is no hint of it. The AMD ceo is on twitter, i'd send her a tweet and lend your support https://twitter.com/lisasu?lang=en

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The way the open licensing works for Thunderbolt, we may see some integrated TB3 on AMD motherboards in the coming year. If motherboard makers seem to think it worthwhile. As for ThreadRipper — the biggest down side currently is the motherboard options available are all underwhelming. Can’t do > 128GB RAM with any current configuration and that’s too small for that 18-core CPU doing real work with all threads pumping on 4K+ image frames for serious compositing or color work. My Resolve system is a few years old but still kicking ass with dual 10-core Xeons and 256GB RAM. More motherboard options are coming, but depending on your needs, it may be too soon to jump onboard. 32GB DDR4 modules should also show up by 2nd Qtr, so that would presumably allow for double the RAM on these boards now, assuming they have proper memory support and firmware to handle it or can be upgraded.

On the flip side, there really are no good Thunderbolt 3 solutions for the Intel desktop now either. I have the ASUS TB3 card and it is very flaky. Their TB2 card is OK. Thunderbolt has unfortunately not made any real appearance in the desktop/ workstation world. It’s proving to be a real hassle with people who are on MacBooks or iMacs who need to step up to a more powerful system and bring their existing storage with them. There are solutions, but it’s not always simple or cheap as installing a Thunderbolt port and plugging in.

For GPU, the Quadro cards do offer 10bit and a few other nice features, but I would recommend going with the 1080TI or Titan Xp. You will get the same or in many cases better performance for a lot less money. Do your monitoring through a DeckLink card to a dedicated display. You can set up dual Titan Xp GPUs, DeckLink 4K Extreme I/O card and a 50” Samsung QLED or LG OLED display for the price of one P6000. The SSG and recently demoed nVidia alternative are onboard caching solutions for these GPUs. It’s kinda cool but not really available and not applicable for all situations. Nice for playback and looping of material that is being repeatedly worked on for coloring or compositing. For computational work, real-time dynamic rendering, etc.. you will get better performance out of the regular multiple GPU approach.

 

[Misha Engel]

Thanks Misha,
The threadripper won't support thunderbolt though, is that right?
My main raid is a promise Pegasus with thunderbolt so kind of necessary for me.

Hi Thomas,

I don't know the size of your promise pegasus but when it's 8 drives or smaller you can put those drives in the onboard sata controller in raid 10.
Or you can use it over USB ?.? when you have that on your pegasus and use it as a back up.
Or sell it to an apple adept and buy an 8 bay NAS https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108488&cm_re=synology_ds1817%2b-_-22-108-488-_-Product for $ 950 + a compatible network card for 10 Gbit https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD5G5DM5983&cm_re=x540-_-33-106-179-_-Product for $ 225. It has pretty good performance for the money https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/performance#5_10bay

The problem with proprietary stuff is that it is proprietary, this is one of the reasons thunderbolt never made it to the local network I work for (we do have macs) except for thunderbolt to ethernet adapters.

 

[Misha Engel]

My Resolve system is a few years old but still kicking ass with dual 10-core Xeons and 256GB RAM. More motherboard options are coming, but depending on your needs, it may be too soon to jump onboard.

For GPU, the Quadro cards do offer 10bit and a few other nice features, but I would recommend going with the 1080TI or Titan Xp. You will get the same or in many cases better performance for a lot less money. Do your monitoring through a DeckLink card to a dedicated display. You can set up dual Titan Xp GPUs, DeckLink 4K Extreme I/O card and a 50” Samsung QLED or LG OLED display for the price of one P6000. The SSG and recently demoed nVidia alternative are onboard caching solutions for these GPUs. It’s kinda cool but not really available and not applicable for all situations. Nice for playback and looping of material that is being repeatedly worked on for coloring or compositing. For computational work, real-time dynamic rendering, etc.. you will get better performance out of the regular multiple GPU approach.

Looking at Jeff's comment, Intel and Adobe's statement https://www.thailand.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/workstation-adobe-4k-guide.pdf information from Blackmagic that Resolve works perfect with 16 GB for Resolve and an other 16 GB for other tasks and the video's from AMD about SSG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vxpt43ZR8s&feature=youtu.be and the video from Nvidia and Kingston https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vxpt43ZR8s&feature=youtu.be about real-time editing in Adobe PP I think my to build system in 2017 (budget for 2017) should be able to deliver it all.

AMD Threadripper 1950X 16c/32t $ 1.000
AIO water cooler (thermaltake water 3.0 ultimate) $ 120
Case (corsair obsidian 900D) $ 340
128 GB DDR4-3200 cl14 (Gskill trident Z) $ 1.450
MB asrock with 10 gb/s ethernet (Asrock X399 professional gaming) $ 450
Cache/scratch drive Highpoint Raid SSD7101 $ 400 + 4 x samsung 960pro 512 GB $ 1.120 = $ 1.520 (7 GB/s sustaind read and write)
Samsung 960 evo 1 TB systemdrive $ 450
8 x WD Red Pro 4 TB(WD4002FFWX) in raid 10 on the MB for fast and safe onboard storaga $ 1450 (read speeds upto 1600 MB/s, write speeds upto 800 MB/s).
2 x VEGA FE 16 (support OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth) $ 2000 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-16gb,5128.html
2 x full waterblocks for VEGA FE 16, radiators, resevoir and pump $ 500 (to have a silent system and maybe overclock in the future).
PSU 1500 Watt 80 plus titanium (CORSAIR AXi Series AX1500i Digital 1500W 80 PLUS TITANIUM )$ 450
Small material $ 200

this build will be around $ 10.000,- (pricing is from newegg in us$ and EKWB).

I will put a DecLink card in the remaining 16(8) PCIe slot, the declink card and the OLED TV are already bought (DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G, calibrated LG OLED55C7V TV).

Jeff's systems sounds as a dual socket Haswell E5-2687W v3 10c/20t 3.1 GHz base and 3.5 GHz(turbo at 1 core) with 256 GB DDR4-2133 CL15 and a max memory bandwidth of 68 GB/s and 2 9.6 GT/s QPI (2 x 9,6 GT/s x 4 = 76,8 GB/s), Haswells IPC in single thread cinebench R15 is 133 at 3.5 GHz http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-threadripper-1950x-review,10.html

Threadripper system 1950x 16c/32t 3,7 GHz all core (stock speed as long as the cooling is sufficient) with 128 GB DDR4-3200 CL14 and a max memory bandwidth of 102 GB/s and an interconnect speed of 102 GB/s between the 2 dies in the socket. TR IPC in single thread cinebench R15 is 146 so about 9% higher then Haswell.

TR-system has faster mem, lower CL latency, faster interconnect and about the same compute power as Jeff's system (TR 16x3.7x2x1.09=129 ~ Jeff's 2x10x2x3.1=124) with some room to overclock to 4GHz http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_threadripper_1950x_review,29.html it has a scratch drive to mimic the NVidia/Kingston video, 2 GPU's (with support OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth) for speed in Resolve with the same pro drivers as the WX9100 and SSG so it works with Adobe, enough memory to work with Resolve,PP and AE according to Adobe(96+16GB) and Blackmagic(16+16GB).

Unless I miss something it should be able to mimic both jeff's system and the nvidia video(or SSG video).

Suggestions are welcome to improve the system within the $ 10.000 budget.

Misha

 

[Thomas Wallis]

AMD Threadripper 1950X 16c/32t $ 1.000
AIO water cooler (thermaltake water 3.0 ultimate) $ 120
Case (corsair obsidian 900D) $ 340
128 GB DDR4-3200 cl14 (Gskill trident Z) $ 1.450
MB asrock with 10 gb/s ethernet (Asrock X399 professional gaming) $ 450
Cache/scratch drive Highpoint Raid SSD7101 $ 400 + 4 x samsung 960pro 512 GB $ 1.120 = $ 1.520 (7 GB/s sustaind read and write)
Samsung 960 evo 1 TB systemdrive $ 450
8 x WD Red Pro 4 TB(WD4002FFWX) in raid 10 on the MB for fast and safe onboard storaga $ 1450 (read speeds upto 1600 MB/s, write speeds upto 800 MB/s).
2 x VEGA FE 16 (support OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth) $ 2000 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-16gb,5128.html
2 x full waterblocks for VEGA FE 16, radiators, resevoir and pump $ 500 (to have a silent system and maybe overclock in the future).
PSU 1500 Watt 80 plus titanium (CORSAIR AXi Series AX1500i Digital 1500W 80 PLUS TITANIUM )$ 450
Small material $ 200

Misha

Thanks for all this info guys! It is incredibly helpful.
Because of this thread I have basically re thought my whole system and am going to go with the AMD processor and much of what is listed in this build. Ditching the external raid for internal raid 10

Misha,
Just a couple questions for you on your list.
-It seems that this motherboard will support up to (3) M.2 drives. Are you planning on taking advantage of that?
-Your cache/scratch drive...Is that kind of speed/capacity really necessary? Do you think I could start with just an additional 960pro on the motherboard and eventually expand as needed? The Highpoint raid looks interesting but that seems like a good place for to save some money (I'm a bit over budget right now).
-Do you have a specific water block system in mind for the Vega FEs? I'm not familiar with any sort of video card cooling systems. I see there is a liquid cooled version of the card but I guess you can do it cheaper with third party coolers? Do you need one for each card?

 

[Misha Engel]

Misha,
Just a couple questions for you on your list.
-It seems that this motherboard will support up to (3) M.2 drives. Are you planning on taking advantage of that?
-Your cache/scratch drive...Is that kind of speed/capacity really necessary? Do you think I could start with just an additional 960pro on the motherboard and eventually expand as needed? The Highpoint raid looks interesting but that seems like a good place for to save some money (I'm a bit over budget right now).
-Do you have a specific water block system in mind for the Vega FEs? I'm not familiar with any sort of video card cooling systems. I see there is a liquid cooled version of the card but I guess you can do it cheaper with third party coolers? Do you need one for each card?

-It seems that this motherboard will support up to (3) M.2 drives. Are you planning on taking advantage of that?

Mayby yes in a later stage and convert them to normal PCIe slots with this https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4RE5Y03473&cm_re=m2_pcie_ssd_adapter-_-9SIA4RE5Y03473-_-Product and riser cables https://videocardz.com/review/pci-express-riser-extender-test or swap the Highpoint into these unit and put something different in the normal PCIe slot that needs an exit.

-Your cache/scratch drive...Is that kind of speed/capacity really necessary? Do you think I could start with just an additional 960pro on the motherboard and eventually expand as needed? The Highpoint raid looks interesting but that seems like a good place for to save some money (I'm a bit over budget right now).

No it is not necessary, just pick any samsung pro 960 that fits your needs and budget (it's more of a gadget that fits the budget).


-Do you have a specific water block system in mind for the Vega FEs? I'm not familiar with any sort of video card cooling systems. I see there is a liquid cooled version of the card but I guess you can do it cheaper with third party coolers? Do you need one for each card?

Yes https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fc-radeon-vega-nickel when you do it, use it on both of them.
The aircooler is pretty good to be honest http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-16gb,5128-11.html. When you don't want to make use of support for OpenGL overlay at 10-bit color depth, the GTX1080ti (11GB) is a better choice (or when budget really kicks in: VEGA RX 56 (8GB) or GTX1080 (8GB).

Since threadripper runs better on fast memory, don't try to save money on that.
Guru3d made a nice article about this http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_agesa_1006_performance_update_review,1.html for Ryzen, but the same is applicable for threadripper.

 

[Thomas Wallis]

Doesn't seem like the Asrock X399 Pro gaming MB is available anywhere.

Any suggestions for a different option?

Losing the 10Gb/s Ethernet isn't great but not the end of the world.

Seems like the Asrock Tachi could be a good option. Also been looking at the MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon.


Also wondering on the GPU side of things...which version of the 1080 Ti would you guys recommend? Lots of options it seems. I'm thinking that I may just start with one GPU and add the second if I find I need it.

Here's the full build I landed on:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YXTwBP

 

[Sterling Williams]

I would think the 1080 should do everything you want to do.....

 

[Dominic Boudreault]

Interesting article claiming Intel has still better performance, especially when using Temporal Noise Reduction:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-14-CPU-Performance-Skylake-X-vs-Threadripper-1063/

 

[keith soucy]

Following. How'd these builds workout? Happy with performance or wish you did something else?

 

[Aaron Lochert]

Interesting article claiming Intel has still better performance, especially when using Temporal Noise Reduction:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-14-CPU-Performance-Skylake-X-vs-Threadripper-1063/

Looks fairly straightforward for the most part. Spend more money, get more performance. I'd be curious if the issue with temporal noise reduction is an optimization problem with the plugin or perhaps AMD chipset drivers. Everything else seems to scale right.