1st video workhorse build - advice

[Bryceycle]

Hey everyone,
I am looking to build myself a video workhorse that I will be using for daily video editing/processing work, often with 4k files. I will primarily be using Adobe's Creative Cloud suite of software for this work and want to be sure that my build is optimized for this. It seems that January's CustoMac Pro Socket 2011 buyer's guide is best suited to my needs as it resembles the capabilities of the Mac Pro machines that I'm used to working with.

I wanted to post my shopping list here with some in-line reasoning and questions for the community's feedback:

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X79

• ​The price differences between the recommended motherboards seemed nominal and this one features a higher memory cap and more slots and ports for customization.
  

CPU: Core i7 4930K

• The 6-core CPUs are currently the most powerful option for my budget. Is the 6-core Xeon option worth the extra $125? It seems like the only gain would be a .1GHz increase in speed and that the i7 has more bang for the buck.

Cooler: Corsair H60 (water)

• Another option isn't listed for this build. Would anyone recommend that I look at others? This one seems great, but if there's something as good out there for a better price, I'm interested.

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 760

• The links provided in the buyers guide lead to unavailable or outrageously priced options. Would anything in the GTX 760 series work or do I need to be careful to locate the exact card being linked to? Are there other options that I should consider for my needs?

RAM: Crucial (not Corsair - guide typo?) Ballistix Sport XT 16GB (4x4)

• This is some fancy RAM! I haven't seen a "heat spreader" on RAM that I've bought before (cheaper laptop upgrades) It's the only type that's listed for this particular build - is it worth the extra money? I noticed that other (but only Crucial brand) RAM is listed under the general compatible RAM section, should I consider some of the others instead?
• Also: Other than buying in pairs, do I need to worry about the sizes that I buy (4x4 or 2x8 etc) for a hackintosh? I generally like to leave slots open for upgrading later, and though 64GB of RAM seems outrageous, I may want to be ready for it without having to toss what I'm currently using. I could definitely be interested in an upgrade to 32GB at some point at least.

System Drive(s): Help needed

• I'd like to utilize a SSD for my system/boot drive but I'm unsure if there's a good rule of thumb for leaving space in addition to the OS and applications to be installed. As SSDs are more expensive, I'd like to buy the smallest one that I can get away with.
• Also: I would like to work on SSD for current video projects. Would it be worth it to just buy one much larger drive that's dedicated to the OS, apps, and current projects?
• As for backing up/archiving data: Traditional spinning drives should be fine using the motherboard's option of a couple RAID drives.

Power: Corsair AX 760 Watt

• Same as the cooler, there isn't another option listed for this build. Anything else that I should consider?

Case: Corsair Graphite 600T

• Same as the GPU, the availability of this one isn't great. It looks like I could still get this exact housing from the manufacturer, but are there other cases that would be compatible that I should consider?

Wifi:TP-Link PCI Express Wifi Adapter

• Same as the cooler and power supplies, this is the only option listed on the build, but it's also preeeety cheap and fast. I think this'll do fine for the limited internetting that I'll be doing.

Thank you to those of you who made it through my newbie-rambling! Any insight or advice that you might have for me before I start buying would be greatly appreciated!

 

[trs96]

Yes, you're correct it's best for a first time builder to stay with what is in the Buyer's guide for
the most compatible hardware. If you want 4K video editing/rendering capability you'll want
to get the GTX 970. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NH5T1MS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tonymacx86com-20
It's really far superior to the 760 for not that much more money than the 760 (yes the prices have gone way up). It's performance is comparable to the 780.

The X79 hardware isn't the most current but it will still work fine and there are plenty of complete guides
to follow. So if you don't need the latest bleeding edge that choice is OK. Make sure to read Shilohh's Golden build thread if you haven't already to see all the steps for setting up and installing on an X79 system. He also has some alternative ram recommendations that you can look into.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/golden-bu...-iv-extreme-32gb-ram-gtx-770-4gb-success.html

 

[Bryceycle]

Thanks for the response, trs96; your advice and the resources you pointed me to are great! The GPU you recommended looks fantastic. I'm certainly willing to spend the extra dough on something so vital to Premiere and After Effects processing these huge video files efficiently.

That X79 build is a web of help! I hadn't heard that it isn't advised to install RAM from different kits before. I'm guilty of doing this and am glad that I saw this considering the clear pickyness of the X79.

Speaking of the X79, however, this was merely the best seeming option of the three listed with this particular build. Would you recommend that I look into another board? I don't need bleeding edge, but would like to avoid a rebuild/upgrade for the next few years. What kind of price jump would there be for a more current board? What kinds of advantages would it have in terms of performance and future-proofing my system?

 

[Bryceycle]

Anyone have a motherboard recommendation that's outside of the three featured in January's CustoMac Pro Socket 2011 buyer's guide? There's an overwhelming number of them to consider in the compatible motherboards section and this is my first time shopping for one.

 

[rwillett]

Confuscious, he say

"The more you stray from the path that other people have trodden down, the more danger there is that you will find something doesn't work. Tread at your peril"

Ok, he didn't but you get the idea.

Whilst the list of recommended boards is just that, a recommendation, a lot of people have used those boards and have got them to work. If you choose a board that may be theoretically better (e.g. it may cheaper, it may be faster, it may have the latest gee-whizz option), it may also simply not work or worse, be unstable and be impossible to track down the issue. e.g. the Ethernet chip may be a 10Gbps chip which is brilliant but nobody has the right driver, it works fine for three days and then a buffer overflows, your system crashes but you have no idea why (this is just a hypothetical thought). Nobody else has this particular board so nobody else can help. The potential for problems is large, you have to decide what your appetite for risk is. As an example, my appetite for risk on my main development machine is low, so I've gone mainstream four core i7 and Z97X MB. Lots of people have the same kit, so safety in numbers.

The way I approached my latest build which needed to include video editing, was to go top down rather than bottom up. Work from what your workflow will be rather than the spec of the RAM

I built for FCP X rather than Premiere but the logic still stands.

1. What GPU cards are best supported for my software needs? At the end of the day your GPU will decide what your video editing speed will be. Most CPU's are quick enough so the GPU will make a big difference. Premiere works well on nVidia (apparently) so they have good price/performance. AMD cards work significantly better with FCP X so I ignored nVidia. Nothing personal, they're great cards.

2. Do I need multiple GPU's? Can Premiere take advantage of doubling up or even tripling up GPU's? I personally do not know the answer for Adobe products but FCP X can handle multiple graphics cards which dramatically speeds up rendering. If this is an option give it some serious though.

3. How do I support multiple monitors? Whilst many cards can support two monitors there are issues sometimes with supporting three monitors on a single card (depending on the model). I needed three monitor support as my development routine needs a lot of windows. I'm a UNIX developer first, a video editor 4th

4. Once I'd worked out the likely GPU's, look to the Motherboard/CPU/Ram combination. The X79 boards are nice but not quite as well supported as the Z97X boards. To be honest the Z97X boards are really Z87X boards in fancy dresses so don't dismiss the Z87X series.

Ask yourself the hard question "Am I really technical enough to take on a potentially difficult build to get the X79 to work?".

Whilst there are people who have done it, you make not find a golden build where somebody has gone through every single step for exactly the same combination of hardware that you want. You *may* be the only person in the world who is doing your exact build. Only you can answer this question. My personal choice was not to do this, as I would rather take a small percentage hit in possible performance for a guaranteed productivity gain of the machine being up and actually running as opposed to me trying to debug a DSDT file to get it to work. YMMV.

Assume you will have two GPU's at some time in the future and get a motherboard which supports multiple GPU's. This would mean it will have masses of PCIE lanes for the first two slots. Some Z97X and Z87X boards allow you to run two GPU's at 16x speed which is great. However many don't (mine for instance). I run my 2 x 280x at 8x and can't actually see any difference at all in use or in benchmarks. Its an example of how you can get so absorbed in the specs whereas the real world isn't quite so black and white.

Check the placement of the GPU's on the motherboard. What other slots do they block? Will this be a problem for you later? e.g. will you add another PCIE card in? e.g. a Blackmagic card? No idea but you need to think it through. My dual 280x cards take up all of space bar two slots and I can't seem to use the top slot without it affecting the GPU bus speed which is annoying

CPU's are easy, get the best you can afford if you are going with the Z97X then a i7 4790K will allow you the option to overlock at a later stage. If you go the X79 boards you'll need to work it out yourself and juggle the price/performance function to work out what you can afford. Lots of cores are normally good though. Check if Premiere actually supports more than 4/6/8 cores in real use and does it make a difference. Suspect you need to hit a different forum for that question.

Get the most RAM you can afford at the time. If you have four slots, get 4x8GB now as opposed to doing it later and you 100% must buy it from the same place at the same time to ensure its the right stuff. Use any of the big manufacturers and their compatibility checkers to make sure its right. Ignore all the idiots who say that only brand X will work or that sort of nonsense. Any decent manufacturer will have memory that works. I've used most of them and so long as you stick to their compatibility guides you should be fine.

Try not to get too involved in the specs and think that because board A has 1% better this or board B has 5% worse that, one is better than the other. Also forget the idiots who say that Asus is better than Gigabyte or vice versa. I've had them both and they are both great manufacturers.

For future proofing, get the biggest CPU and the most RAM you can know. The chances of you upgrading a CPU in a years time is low. Whilst Adobe may bring out new software in the next three years, it will still have to work on existing kit so you're not losing out. Would Adobe bring out new software that doesn't tun on their supported user base? Bit unlikely.

5. Get a decent, quiet and large PSU. Whilst you may have only one GPU now, you may want another one in the future and they are quick and easy to install, unless your PSU is too small. Assume as a minimum modular 850W with LOTS of output ports to drive lots of things. I use a 1200W EVGA and am delighted with it. Its basically silent and never breaks a sweat doing anything. Overkill but bombproof.

6. Watercooling - matter of taste. I don't use water-cooling and my machine is silent.

7. Overclocking - Don't. Buy the potential to overlock but don't until you have a stable system. Too many things to go wrong and you'll chase your tail trying to fix them. Stability is key to what you want to do, which is I assume make videos (or make money).

8. Storage - Use SSD's for the main storage and HDD for backups. Get a decent SSD which reads and writes around 500MB/s. Don't get worried over a few % here and there, you really won't notice it. You will notice it when your cheap and crappy SDD fails though, so buy quality now. You won't regret it. I use 2 x 512Gb SSD's for main storage, 1 x 3TB HDD for lower priority stuff such as music and a 2TB USB 3 backup disk thats backed up every day. A single 512GB disk is OK for your main storage. I personally think a 256GB SSD is too small but YMMV.

Forget using Time Machine. Its brilliant until it fails and then you've lost everything. I know people love its fancy interface but the way it works means it all works or all fails. Put your trust in verifiable copies that you can actually individually access through the finder. I splashed out on Chronosync and think its great. I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to take copies of the main system SSD.

9. Wifi - Personally speaking, wifi is great for the iPhone, but try and move a 60GB FCPX project which for me is around a five minute video with all the media, across a wifi link. Great way to get old quickly. Get a decent wired network if you need to move lots of data or use SSD USB 3.0 drives.

Confuscious, he also say

"Forget the bling and the specs, get the best you can afford thats stable as the best system is the one that you actually use".

Hope this helps,

Rob.

 

[Bryceycle]

Thanks so much for the thoughtful and thorough response, Rob! I really appreciate that you took the time to walk me through your own thought process; it's helpful for me to see the reasoning behind the decisions you've made! I'll be taking your input to heart as I continue to refine the blueprint of my own build.