General Video Editing hackintosh advice.

[D-One]

Hello. I recently got into video recording/editing and I need some advice.
My current hack has an i7 4790k + GTX970 + 960evo NVME, my main question is:

1. Is it worth upgrading to a more recent CPU+GPU generation? Will that have a significant impact on performance/render times? If it only makes rendering a few seconds faster I won't bother and rather wait.
2. Since I'm new to video both Premiere and Final Cut are an option, whats the easier to learn for a noob and what GPU would give me the best performance? I'm assuming the 1080ti for Premiere and the RX Vega for FCP.

 

[LasseBauer]

Hey D-One,
IMO it´s a jungle out there, and I´m also searching for answers to this question, because it really depends a LOT on exactly what kind of video editing you´re doing.
The only conclusion I have come to this far, is that the i7 8700K seems to be an affordable and very fast CPU for Video Editing in AE and PP (I didnt research FCP since I dont use that program much).
As for the GPU it´s NOT a clear-cut answer, and just getting the fastest GPU for general/gaming use MIGHT not give you the performance boost you want depending on GPU activation in CC 2017.

You might wanna check out these two interesting articles.
Bare in mind that Puget systems SELL PCs, so their recommendations might be biased.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...ormance-Core-i7-8700K-i5-8600K-i3-8350K-1047/
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...017-GeForce-GTX-1080-Ti-11GB-Performance-912/

 

[D-One]

For CPU it's a bit easier to make conclusions but for GPU it's really a jungle.
For example, in FCP I find it odd that a 2011 iMac is faster in rendering than my system when my CPU and GPU are much faster, desktop-grade and overclocked...

 

[chmiola]

Hello. I recently got into video recording/editing and I need some advice.
My current hack has an i7 4790k + GTX970 + 960evo NVME, my main question is:

1. Is it worth upgrading to a more recent CPU+GPU generation? Will that have a significant impact on performance/render times? If it only makes rendering a few seconds faster I won't bother and rather wait.
2. Since I'm new to video both Premiere and Final Cut are an option, whats the easier to learn for a noob and what GPU would give me the best performance? I'm assuming the 1080ti for Premiere and the RX Vega for FCP.

Hi D-One, I'm a video editor and am upgrading a very similar system to yours. I went from a i7 4790k / GTX 780 / 950 Pro NVME and am just about finished with my new system that is a 7820x / 1080 / 960 Evo NVME.
Yesterday I ran a long compression job using Adobe Media Encoder simultaneously on both machines to test. I took a ~3 hr long 4k 100mbps mp4 and compressed it to 1080 mp4. The 4790k system took 2hr 19 minutes. The 7820x system took 1 hr and 3 minutes.
So yes, there is certainly room to move up from a 4790k system.
I'm still in the process of building my new system, and don't have my RAID array set up yet or all of my plugins installed, but from my initial testing it's been a worthwhile upgrade for me. I do this professionally so the cost is worth it to me. If it's a hobby for you the cost to benefit calculation may be a little bit different. You certainly don't NEED that type of power to learn to edit.

 

[D-One]

Hi D-One, I'm a video editor and am upgrading a very similar system to yours. I went from a i7 4790k / GTX 780 / 950 Pro NVME and am just about finished with my new system that is a 7820x / 1080 / 960 Evo NVME.
Yesterday I ran a long compression job using Adobe Media Encoder simultaneously on both machines to test. I took a ~3 hr long 4k 100mbps mp4 and compressed it to 1080 mp4. The 4790k system took 2hr 19 minutes. The 7820x system took 1 hr and 3 minutes.
So yes, there is certainly room to move up from a 4790k system.
I'm still in the process of building my new system, and don't have my RAID array set up yet or all of my plugins installed, but from my initial testing it's been a worthwhile upgrade for me. I do this professionally so the cost is worth it to me. If it's a hobby for you the cost to benefit calculation may be a little bit different. You certainly don't NEED that type of power to learn to edit.

Hello, Thanks for your reply! Well... that's quite an improvement, around 40% faster. It might be expected since its quite a jump from a 780 to 1080.

I made up my mind and in a few months i'll upgrade to Coffee Lake, just waiting until there are more hack documentation and guides. In the meanwhile, I guess I will have to decide between an AMD GPU+Final Cut or NVIDEA+Adobe.

A couple of days ago i overclocked my 4790k to 4.5GHz and the BruceX FCP benchmark went from 90s to 30s... which is quite an improvement.

 

[luke_s]

@chmiola
I came across your post. I am in search of building (or upgrading) for a powerful machine for (professional) Video-editing (PP+AE) and occasionally some 3D stuff. Your build seems to be good for that, no?
Can you make recommandations on parts to get a trouble-free build and balanced system?
Also: you use a 960 Evo NVME. Is that you boot-drive or a media-drive?

thanks!
luke

 

[chmiola]

@chmiola
I came across your post. I am in search of building (or upgrading) for a powerful machine for (professional) Video-editing (PP+AE) and occasionally some 3D stuff. Your build seems to be good for that, no?
Can you make recommandations on parts to get a trouble-free build and balanced system?
Also: you use a 960 Evo NVME. Is that you boot-drive or a media-drive?

thanks!
luke

Hi luke_s, So far I'm really pleased with with my 7820x build. There is excellent X299 build thread with instructions for that platform. My x299 build is still new so I can't comment on it'd long term durability, but so far it's been rock solid on my mostly Premiere and occasional AE and ProTools workflow. My 960 Evo is boot only, I wish I could afford to have NVME media drives! My media is on a 2x4TB RAID 0 array. Most footage I work with is 4k or 1080 ProRes 422, with the occasional mp4, and that array meets my needs just fine.
X299 takes a little more work than the Z270 stuff recommended in the Buyers Guide, and it's more expensive. Do you have a need for more than 4 cores with your workflow? Puget Systems has a series of comparisons of various processors that look specifically at Pro apps like PP / AE / DaVinci.