$1600 budget for video editing computer - Question on graphics/Tbolt

[Akat4]

I edit video for a living, using Premiere CC daily, and Resolve on occasion.

At my freelance gig and main office, we all use Macs with Thunderbolt connections for hard drives all formatted for Macs. I'm looking to build a desktop for editing at home, because my MacBook Pro is around 2.5 years old, and definitely not up for daily use any longer.

I have researched this site for weeks now and am finally ready to get started. I've built over 20 PCs over the last ten years, and this will be my first Hackintosh. I am using the July http://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/july/2016#CustoMac_Pro CustoMac Pro as a baseline.

I'm by no means an expert, and would love to hear some of your experiences in building before I make my buying selections. Specifically, anyone who works with video that can offer feedback, please feel free to do so. So before I go for it, I had some questions.


1 - Graphics Card - The 980 TI is looking like the best option here, as there isn't current or expected support for the Pascal-based cards. I've heard nVidia cards have issues with Final Cut Pro, any idea if this is the case with Premiere as well? Or should this offer performance equal to a PC?

2 - Thunderbolt compatibility - is this a thing? Would it be possible to have true thunderbolt connections on this build.

3 - Case - Would something like this work fine, or must I stick to the one listed? In other words, are there case drivers/requirements I should be on the look out for to remain compatible?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cases/carbide-series

4 - Ram is another consideration I've been looking at. I was considering 32gb, what makes the Ballistix Sport the choice here, when there are some faster options.

5 - Raid suggestion? I currently have about 3.6TB of media assets I pull from regularly. Would love to figure out the best way to back this up while still pulling from multiple drives. I have 3 4tb drives at my disposal, so any way to incorporate those would be great.

I thank you so much for your assistance and taking the time to offer some guidance before I begin this build. I'll update regularly with images and build process once I get going.

 

[pastrychef]

1 - Graphics Card - The 980 TI is looking like the best option here, as there isn't current or expected support for the Pascal-based cards. I've heard nVidia cards have issues with Final Cut Pro, any idea if this is the case with Premiere as well? Or should this offer performance equal to a PC?

Recently, Adobe began trying to adopt Metal in to at least some of their apps. Their implementation caused crashes when using Nvidia web drivers. Adobe is aware of the problem and has a workaround where users just have to delete a folder. Once done, the apps will behave normally. They should be working on a permanent fix, if they don't already have one.

As far as I know, Nvidia video cards don't have any "issues" with FCPX other than not performing as well as AMD cards.

2 - Thunderbolt compatibility - is this a thing? Would it be possible to have true thunderbolt connections on this build.

At least some users have gotten Thunderbolt 3 working. But it involves a weird workaround that involves the use of Windows. I don't have any personal experience with this, just what I've read from the following thread:
Skylake Thunderbolt 3 for Music Production | tonymacx86.com

3 - Case - Would something like this work fine, or must I stick to the one listed? In other words, are there case drivers/requirements I should be on the look out for to remain compatible?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cases/carbide-series

Use whichever case you like. The listed ones are just recommendations, not requirements.

4 - Ram is another consideration I've been looking at. I was considering 32gb, what makes the Ballistix Sport the choice here, when there are some faster options.

It is best that after choosing your motherboard, go to the motherboard manufacturer's website and find out which sets of RAM are on their "qualified vendor lists". This will ensure that the RAM is compatible with your motherboard of choice.

5 - Raid suggestion? I currently have about 3.6TB of media assets I pull from regularly. Would love to figure out the best way to back this up while still pulling from multiple drives. I have 3 4tb drives at my disposal, so any way to incorporate those would be great.

Personally, I like using NASes with some sort of drive redundancy. Single drive redundancy will protect against the failure of one drive, dual disk redundancy will protect against the failure of two drives, etc.

If you incorporate the use of 10GbE, you can achieve very good read/write performance. On my personal NAS, I use notoriously slow drives and manage to get:

I have no doubts that anyone can achieve better performance with the use of faster drives.

Before the nit-pickers and zealots jump on me, I will remind you that redundancy is not backup. That being said, I (me, personally, not anyone else) have not lost any data to failed drives since I began using RAID arrays with redundancy.


When building a hackintosh, the physical act of building the computer is no different from building any other PC. The most difficult part is installing OS X and getting everything to work properly. Choosing a motherboard with a high level compatibility will make life much easier for you. For example, I would have liked to go with a 6 core Haswell-E or Broadwell-E system whose motherboard chipset isn't officially supported by OS X but, instead, went with a Skylake system for its high level of compatibility with OS X. Yes, there are some who have gotten them to work but they had to work much harder and incorporate many more workaround, patches, fixes, etc. Being a neophyte at hackintoshing, I dared not attempt it.

Again, all of this is just my personal opinion.

 

[kiiroaka]

Since you work with video, get the fastest i7 you can afford, either the i7-6700K, i7-6800K, i7-...

Buy a single kit of max RAM, 64GB. If money is an object then one speed higher than base, 2400 vs 2133; if max performance is what you want then 3200, so seeing which mobo can take 3333 or 3400 RAM would be prudent.

One doesn't just buy RAM, one has to consider the mobo and RAM as a package. Certain mobos don't work with certain RAM, or they are not available in all speeds, or they don't run at the advertised speed, or the RAM they can use is overly expensive (whatever that means) compared to another mobo with the same memory speed ratings but using a less expensive RAM kit. Some lower speed RAM will cost more than faster RAM, some Value RAM will cost more than the better RAM at the same manufacturer. - It takes a little work but you can probably find just the right cost effective solution. For video work, faster RAM with the fastest CPU and the most reliable robust PSU are probably the best way to go since reliability is what you are after.

So figure
$350 to $450 - CPU
$75 - CPU heatsink w/fan (i7s don't come with Intel heatsinks)
$250 to $350 - RAM
$250 to $400 - GPU
$125 - PSU
$125 - Thunderbolt card
$75 - case
$? - drives

 

[Akat4]

Bumping this - Any idea whether Sierra or el capitan is better to unlock full potential of the 980ti?

I wanted to say thanks to each of you for your input, made the order.

980ti hybrid, corsair 750d full tower, + this stuff.


1 x ($319.99) Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
$319.99

1 x ($254.99) Ballistix Sport LT 64GB (4 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Desktop Memory Model BLS4K16G4D240FSC
$254.99

1 x ($198.99) GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD5 TH LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
$198.99

1 x ($119.99) CORSAIR RM Series RM750 750W ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC 80 Plus Gold RoHS WEEE EuP Modular ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply Power Supply
$119.99

1 x ($74.99) CORSAIR Hydro Series H75 CW-9060015-WW Water / Liquid CPU Cooler 120 MM
$74.99

1 x ($38.72) TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter, 2.4 GHz 450 Mbps / 5 GHz 450 Mbps, IEEE 802.1a/b/g/n, WEP / WPA / WPA2, Plug & Play in Windows 8
$38.72

1 x ($13.00) 1 Year Extended Replacement Coverage Plan For Item#N82E16813128839
$13.00

1 x ($6.49) Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-3.5G - OEM
$6.49

1 x (-$122.00) DISCOUNT FOR PROMOTION CODE
-$122.00

 

[pastrychef]

Bumping this - Any idea whether Sierra or el capitan is better to unlock full potential of the 980ti?

Your guess is as good as ours since Sierra hasn't been released yet...

 

[Akat4]

Your guess is as good as ours since Sierra hasn't been released yet...

Gotcha, I meant the beta. But the research said the el capitan nvidia drivers are just as good.

I finished the install, but had some hiccups. Got the black screen after updating the drivers, but ended up using a patch I found to edit AppleGraphicsControl.kext, which solved the issue.

I use a 29" widescreen and the hdmi won't fill the screen. Tried another app. Looks like i'm picking up a displayport cable tomorrow.

The ram is recognized as 64gb and everything shows as okay, but my motherboard gives an error code of 51, referring to a ram discrepancy. Everything is installed correctly. Is this a common thing with the gigabyte motherboards? Any idea how to correct it?

And Also I did a benchmark test before bed. Scores look lower than expected. Am I missing something here?

 

[pastrychef]

I don't know about the RAM error code. I don't have a Gigabyte motherboard.

Your Geekbench scores look fine. That's about what I would expect from an i7-6700K without any overclocks.