Building and buying for video editing

[rwillett]

rwillett - I've read with great interest your posts regarding your dual 280x. I was thinking of doing the same setup as my main interest is in a video editing rig for FCPX. Could I ask what size PSU you're running with the dual 280x's. From what I've seen, each 280x seems like it could pull more than 450 watts at full load.

Not sure where you read that a single 280X pulls 450W at full load as thats nonsense. Maximum load per PSU is around 250W.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7400/the-radeon-r9-280x-review-feat-asus-xfx/20

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1840230/amd-280x-power-requirement.html

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/10/09/msi-radeon-r9-280x-ge-oc-review/8

You might need a 500W PSU for your whole computer including a single 280X though thats a bit small.

I actually use an EVGA fully modular 1200W Platinum+ PSU as

1. I got it dirt cheap new (£100/$130) as a pricing mistake.

2. Its fully modular and has long cables.

3. The quality is great

4. Its super quiet

5. Its super efficient.

If I didn't have the 1200W I'd have an 800-900W PSU just so I had lots of headroom.

Rob

 

[golfleep]

Rob - thanks for the response. You're absolutely right, the 450 watts I saw was for total system power draw with a R9 280x

Thanks to your responses in various other threads, I was able to install the Vapor-X R9 280x and have it work OOB, and your help saved me a ton of time and aggravation. Since the single card worked well, I wanted to move to a dual card setup, which prompted my questions. I have a EVGA 850 PSU, which should be fine, but I also have a overclocked processor and potentially will have a 4-6 disc RAID. When I run the PSU calculators, it seems like I'll get pretty close to the limit of my 850, so we'll see if I upgrade the PSU. With your 1200 PSU, you obviously have more headroom to play with! $130 for a platinum 1200 EVGA? Wow, great deal!

 

[rwillett]

Rob - thanks for the response. You're absolutely right, the 450 watts I saw was for total system power draw with a R9 280x

Thanks to your responses in various other threads, I was able to install the Vapor-X R9 280x and have it work OOB, and your help saved me a ton of time and aggravation. Since the single card worked well, I wanted to move to a dual card setup, which prompted my questions. I have a EVGA 850 PSU, which should be fine, but I also have a overclocked processor and potentially will have a 4-6 disc RAID. When I run the PSU calculators, it seems like I'll get pretty close to the limit of my 850, so we'll see if I upgrade the PSU. With your 1200 PSU, you obviously have more headroom to play with! $130 for a platinum 1200 EVGA? Wow, great deal!

I think your 850W should be good enough. I looked at the calculations a few months and as I recall, 850W was fine. Don't forget thats at peak rates for BOTH GPU's. From memory even 4-6 disks consumes virtually no power, 4-6W each, thats 30W in total, thats negligible. Can't comment on your overclocking but I'd check those numbers very carefully in the power calculator and look at their underlying assumptions. They may 5 years old and waaaaay out now.

I don't overclock as moving from 4.3Ghz to 4.7Ghz simply wasn't with the hassle. 99% of the time my CPU is idle waiting for me to type, even when the system is doing real work, its pretty rare for all the cores to be flat out. Even when they are flat out doing a render, Handbrake or something else, moving the render time from 120 secs to 110 secs seems a lot of effort for less stability. YMMV.

I did think about adding another 280X in just for the hell of it, but I've actually run out of ports on the PSU Saved me a lot of money

Rob

 

[golfleep]

I don't overclock as moving from 4.3Ghz to 4.7Ghz simply wasn't with the hassle. 99% of the time my CPU is idle waiting for me to type, even when the system is doing real work, its pretty rare for all the cores to be flat out. Even when they are flat out doing a render, Handbrake or something else, moving the render time from 120 secs to 110 secs seems a lot of effort for less stability. YMMV.

I did think about adding another 280X in just for the hell of it, but I've actually run out of ports on the PSU Saved me a lot of money

Rob

I'm overclocking just because. Plus, I purchased a binned and delidded 4790K that had been tested as stable at 4.8GHz (mostly because I could get it for the same price as a stock 4790K), so I'm less worried about stability.

I think you should definitely go for the third 280x. Don't let the lack of PSU ports stop you, that's what those molex to 8 pin adapters that come with the card are for! I would like to see what your Luxmark and Bruce X scores go to! Too bad each PCIe lane will drop to 4x though!

 

[rwillett]

I'm overclocking just because. Plus, I purchased a binned and delidded 4790K that had been tested as stable at 4.8GHz (mostly because I could get it for the same price as a stock 4790K), so I'm less worried about stability.

I think you should definitely go for the third 280x. Don't let the lack of PSU ports stop you, that's what those molex to 8 pin adapters that come with the card are for! I would like to see what your Luxmark and Bruce X scores go to! Too bad each PCIe lane will drop to 4x though!

I know I have the head room on the PSU but its another £180 ($250) and I really don't need the card. I actually have zero ports available on the PSU as its fully used, but I could make it work.

When I benchmarked my Mac Pro I found the drop in the PCIe lane made zero difference to render speed. I suspect most people wouldn't notice any difference from 16x to 8x to 4x.

All the best,

Rob