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Build help for 4k editing
  • monowavmonowav

    I have a Razer Blade 2015 with 970m w/3gb, 8gb of ram, 256gb ssd, and a 1080p screen. I was offered to trade for a desktop. Would this build be better than my Razer? I do mostly video editing and use DaVinci Resolve with BMD cDNGs. I game occasionally. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dBXzwP Thanks!

  • 16 Replies sorted by
  • AlexauwaAlexauwa

    I guess it all depends on you current performance. Can the razer handle 4k footage well?

    Of course, a desktop pc, is always a better choice in therms of cooling, reliability and performance. Your build looks fine. I think your PS is an overkill. 750 W is fine. Change SSD to Samsung 850 Pro series and possibly split the 1TB to 2 x 512 GB as it provides better performance for video editing as you separate footage files from cache & preview files. If you choose water or air cooling is up to you. You might have a look at the new be quiet! Dark Rock TF CPU cooler. Moreover, saved costs on the PS should be invested into 32 GB of RAM.

    Good luck! :)

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    Needs at least 32Gb.

    The PS isn't overkill if they think they might want to SLI at a later date or if they switch to an OpenCL favoring build, which would mean going AMD. Currently their cards are more power hungry. I couldn't get by with a 750W PS for a similar build I'm putting together featuring a 295x2 card.

    Staying Nvidia and Cuda-based, a 780Ti would be a better choice for GFX, if not going with a 980. None of the cards between the 780 and the 980 offer more performance than the 780, particularly where Cuda is concerned, single or double precision.

    For truly high quality 4K a dedicated video device should be an investment consideration, with lots of options from both Blackmagic Design and Aja, at the affordable end.

    edit: on that last point, even though Nvidia has supported 10bit color for a long time via Direct-X, most professional software, like Adobe, don't used this method and you're therefore limited to 8bit unless you spring for a Quadro. AMD boards don't have this limitation. Perhaps these newer video boards with HDMI 2.0 might offer a hardware path to better than 8bit from consumer Nvidia boards but it's actually been a software issue since Nvidia only supported 10bit OpenGL buffers on their professional boards. The 780ti doesn't have an HDMI 2.0 port, the ones I saw, so that could be a factor in buying a lower-spec but newer board.

  • robertGLrobertGL

    I just purchased a used supermicro 16-core opteron 6000-series workstation off of eBay for 200$$.. Didn't know about the bit-depth issue with Nvidia, so thanks for that. @BurnetRhoades

  • DrDaveDrDave

    You want a six core hyper-threaded CPU that can be overclocked, a GPU with a lot of CUDA cores like the GTX 780, 32gig ram ideally with slots for more, some fast hard drives.

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    And whether a board could output 10bit over HDMI 2.0 or Display Port is kinda moot if you aren't driving a monitor with a true 10bit panel. There's a lot of them that claim to be 10bit that are really 8bit with interpolation (just like, I recently found out, there were panels that had to interpolate to 8bit from even lower quality!). A true 10bit panel is going to cost you.

    But you don't have to get it all at once so having a good base, that mainboard and 5820K, leaves you room to grow.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @BurnetRhoades

    Small info. Real 10bit panels frequently are present in TVs, mostly in middle and top models.

    40" that do not have any issues being monitor (and some have :-) ) can be good option.

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    If you're doing stuff for broadcast or Bluray this would likely be a good option. You have to spend a lot of money for a computer monitor that can really do rec709, ironically.

  • AlexauwaAlexauwa

    @monowav If SLI is an option later on, sure 750 PS is not enough. Otherwise you'll be fine with that.

    For more infos, check out, Tweakers Page - a great guide for video build. Definitely have a look at the disc Setup there which is key to a successful build - it is not all about hardware. http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page

    Otherwise, I think you ready to go.

  • monowavmonowav

    @alexauwa It was a used build so I had to get the 1000w PSU. @Burnetrhoades I also bought another 2x8gb RAM for 32gb total. @vitaliy_Kiselev I already have a FSI cm17, I just need to get the proper BMD converter since now all I have is USB. @drdave I plan on overclocking the cpu eventually. Thanks guys for your input!

  • snoopdogg49rsnoopdogg49r

    Hi Guys,

    I was just curious if anyone had any input on editing the GH4 4k footage in Premiere with the system I have. I shoot mostly weddings so quick scrubbing is very important to me because I have to go through 600+ clips for each wedding. My system is below. I can only scrub through the GH4's footage in 1/8 resolution and even then it's a little slow. My 1080p footage from my A7s is usually fine but I know the h264 compression is hard on a processor. Should my rig be able to scrub through 4k clean or do I need to get a better processor? I believe that is my bottleneck. If so, what processor can cleanly scrub through 4k at full resolution without having to transcode to a different format. 6 core? If I get something like the Intel Core i7-5930K I would have to upgrade to DDR4 RAM and would rather not do that if I don't have to. Thanks so much in advance for any input! :)

    ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.0) LGA 1155
    Intel Core i7-2600K OC'ed to 4.5ghz
    Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB Kit (8GBx4) DDR3 1600
    750w Corsair PS
    Asus Strix Geforce GTX970 4GB
    Samsung 840 Pro SSD 256GB SSD
    Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD
    4TB (2x2TB) Western Digital 7200rmp in Raid 0
    3TB Seagate internal 7200rpm HD
    2TB Seagate Internal 7200rmp HD
    4TB Seagate external HD for backups

  • robbinrobbin

    Look for a i7 3930k cpu. It has 6 cores and overclocks to 4.4 ghz. Also supports 40 pci lanes and with right motherboard you can have 64g ddr3 memory. Im using this with premiere and gh4 4k files. Seems to work good. Where you store media cache files? Are they on the ssd? And make sure to copy all of the folders from gh4 sdhc card and not just the media files.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    Get the cheapo 6 core and plunk the savings down on 32gb DDR4. You could save a few $$$ by buying an older 6 core and DDR3 but I like the new chip. As robbin says the older i7 hexacore is OK.

  • robbinrobbin

    Think the new cheap 6 core only support 28 pci lanes. If you wanna try resolve when version 12 come along. You might want dual gpu and a card for monitoring. On your current rig do you use mercury tranmit to get picture to 2nd display. That might impact performance when using 4k display. Noticed better performance when i got the intensity pro 4k card for monitoring.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    Yup. There's a trade off in the PCI lanes, but I found the chip stayed cooler and overclocked better....it still is a good bargain.

  • snoopdogg49rsnoopdogg49r

    Thanks for the input! I do have the media cache folder on one of my SSD's. I'm not using a 4k display I'm actually just scaling it down to frame size for 1080p so I get a super sharp image that I can use for pulling still images for the video as well.

    So basically I would be best with this setup for the price (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9x2PWZ) and just use the current hard drives, GPU and accessories I already have.

    Robbin, what do you mean copying all the folders for the card on the GH4? Does that improve the speed? Thanks again for your time.

  • robbinrobbin

    No speed improvments. But there is info on spanned clips

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