New build for 4k video editing

Associate
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Hi all,

Looking for a build (from scratch, no parts to cannibalise), for a quick-working 4k rig.

The software I'll be using is DaVinci Resolve (and occasionally Adobe Premiere). Currently using my old PC which is taking somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes to complete a render of a 5 minute video. I've got a great deal of content to be able to process (multiple videos a day as I have a 5/7 9 to 5 other than this so have to work weekends), and I just don't have time to sit around waiting for a render to finalise. Using an external USB audio interface, so I don't need a fancy soundcard!

Am I right in thinking that the focus should be on processor, RAM and making sure I'm using an SSD for the 'live' files that are being processed? Obviously the storage is simple enough (I'm planning on using two mirrored backup HDDs for this, probably 2 TB each - don't want to lose the material).

Would be really grateful for any build ideas if you want, or just some general advice. I know what I need the system to do (quick 4k video processing), but no idea exactly what I need for it!

Additionally (thought it'll probably wreck my business expense claim, it would be great to make this my main PC for gaming too (due to space considerations). I mostly play FPS, action RPGs and sim-racing games.

For the build, I need everything including OS, except for the monitor and peripherals. Budget around £1,000, unless I'm way off the mark with this and need to revisit (could potentially look at £1,500 if it's essential. There is capital available, just want to keep the cost down.

I'll need space for the internal storage in the case too as I don't have much spare desk space, and want to avoid using external HDDs.

Sorry for rambling, if I've missed anything essential out please ask, and I'll try to be clearer!

Ta,
SD
 
Soldato
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Video editing and especially encoding can certainly eat all CPU power available as appetizer and ask where's the main course.
Though also GPU can be used for various things depending on software.
AMD's Vega cards should be apparently good for their price in DaVinci Resolve.

For CPU next month should bring good price comperition with Zen2 Ryzens becoming available.

For RAM having more than enough is certainly better than less but some super fast memory.

And SSD is certainly needed for video clips under work.
Though not sure if there's how much speed benefit from NVMe drive.
But suspect at least highest marketing numbers don't give real cost effective benefit, because lots of stuff being computationally demanding.
(only pure "cutting and joining" without any effects or re-encoding is low in computational demands)
Anyway highest benchmarketing numbers NVMes are likely expensive for budget.
This is only one quick Googling got:
https://www.4kshooters.net/2018/03/25/can-an-nvme-drive-really-enhance-your-video-editing-workflow/
 
Soldato
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as @EsaT has mentioned, Ryzen 3*** series!

Resolve- GPU and CPU power are linked Directlty!!! powerful GPU and lessor CPU and you lose performance/waste cash and vise versa! with 4k and Resolve , you WANT to through in the best performing hardware you can at it, SPECIALLY at 4k !!! Flagship GPU- then add another for near perfect scaling ( this doesn't happen with games sadly), As much cores/thread with core speed! high amounts of ram and SSD that is based around NVMe!

@standarduck , the above should help you with your business claim in slapping in a gaming GPU ! unlike adobe , its 50/50 based on GPU and CPU

as a rough guide... used Intel 8 core 8 thread 9700k and z390 Aorus Pro as placement for pricing of Ryzen 3700/800x 8 core 12 threads and x570 Aorus Elite board, along with fast 3600hz ram and Vega 7


CODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,326.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)

can see your hitting at £1300 right there !

if you couldn't get away with Geforce cards on expensive forms, and can with Workstation cards - with deep pockets then !

RTX 5000 for 16gb of VRAM!

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-15-NVIDIA-Quadro-RTX-Performance-1388/

Consumer cards - Vega 7 helps with 16gb of VRAM! again, specially at 4k!

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-15-AMD-Radeon-VII-16GB-Performance-1382/

Needing to save cash, then RX 5700 XT which levels out as same performance as rtx 2070- only problem is you'll be buying a blower card design !

here's CPU performance, again the test system is dual 2080ti so showing any CPU weaknesses

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-15-CPU-Roundup-Intel-vs-AMD-vs-Mac-1310/

Ryzen 3800x will have the high thread count, along with speed and price undercut to make it a good option against 9900k
 
Soldato
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FWIW: Editing footage doesn't really require much compute power. In my experience as a professional editor and motion graphics designer (work machine is a i7 iMac 5k, at home I use a 5820k with a 970gtx, and a 2010 MBP), the normal limiting factor for playback is the read speed of the drive your footage is on. Typically all our shoot footage from 1080 to 6k resolution lives on USB 3 Samsung T5s or internal SSDs. We use Adobe products rather than DaVinci, and it's great at downsampling original footage, though most of the time we don't have to as the drives are fast enough.

Where your spec will come into it's own is if you start doing a lot of effects work, colour grading, stabilisation, or you're exporting to lots of different deliverables. That's when you need power. Not for a simple 2 minute edit being exported as a 4k h264. :)
 
Soldato
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@bloodiedathame Resolve and Pre are coded very differently . Resolve will eat anything you can through at it. Prem doesn't use GPU power as much, GTX 1060 is fine for it .

only in recent updates has ryzen 8 core matched intel 8 cores, but with resolve, it was top dog and continued to match
 
Soldato
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I'm well aware :) My point was, you don't need to throw the latest greatest tech at 4k video in order to edit it. Spanking £1k on a system to top and tail a bit of home video (making an assumption here) is way overkill. If your day job is doing video, hell yeah, go balls deep and spank the money, if not, it's a bit of a waste. Just my opinion.
 
Soldato
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I'm well aware :) My point was, you don't need to throw the latest greatest tech at 4k video in order to edit it. Spanking £1k on a system to top and tail a bit of home video (making an assumption here) is way overkill. If your day job is doing video, hell yeah, go balls deep and spank the money, if not, it's a bit of a waste. Just my opinion.

and thats were amd will sweep up intel sales :D

hopefully adobe keeps on top of updating their software :D

and then theirs the gaming aspect to OP's needs... POWER! haha looking forward to seeing how 5700 fairs, know XT is rtx 2070 level and not to believe AMD slides. also with business expense comment , sounds like its their bread and butter
 
Soldato
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hopefully adobe keeps on top of updating their software :D
I'm sure Intel has already offered some.. err "monetary transaction" for Adobe to not change coding quality.
Intel even tried to pribe finders of last releasead vulnerabilitities quiet for another 6 month "fixing" period...
 
Soldato
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I'm sure Intel has already offered some.. err "monetary transaction" for Adobe to not change coding quality.
Intel even tried to pribe finders of last releasead vulnerabilitities quiet for another 6 month "fixing" period...

intel or apple? since adobe and mac's are a MUST for 90% of companies that do media creation (and company image) haha

dont think AMD is ditching intel anytime soon for AMD , until they can charge even more for same performance as intel
 
Soldato
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The irony being that creatives want Macs, but Macs aren't 'best' for the task at hand since the big rift with Nvidia (and the eye watering cost of the hardware).

envious at them getting 7nm vega chip though ! and the extra effort to stop it from being taken out and used else where . actually liked the trash can . should have had both the new cheese grater and can for workstation markets, ITX and add on desktop
 

Kei

Kei

Soldato
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I've worked on xavc 4K 50fps footage from an FS7 using resolve with a threadripper 1920x and vega 56. I had no trouble working with it.
 
Associate
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Back on topic . . . I am in no way a professional, and anything I do is really only for self interest / family things. You'll need to expand a bit on the type of footage / edits your going to be doing ... otherwise its guess work for repliers.

SSD - yes - for the source working footage, I would say so ... although exporting a finished product seems to be fine to a normal HDD. Unless you're into it professionally, nVME is not needed. SATA will suffice.

Memory - personally, I upped mine to 32Gb from 16Gb, (3000 speed) as previously I found i was approaching the full usage of 16gb at times using Premiere Pro and others things so I thought I would give myself a buffer. Since then, I've moved to resolve and as you'll see below, I'm not using that much during a basic edit ( about 10Gb ).

CPU - I currently have a 2400G ... so thats a quad core Ryzen running at stock 3.6Ghz. A leftover from my original build, and I will change it later to something like a 1700 or 2700 eight core. however, it seems to do the job fine as a quad core. I dont feel that the system is particularly slow in any manner. So anything more than that will see you fine.

GPU - I have 1080ti ... I'd say that on export for simple(ish) stuff using the hardware accelerated encoding ... this is where you'll save the time. Maybe better exampled below in the picture.

Below image is a screenshot of exporting a very quick edit in resolve thrown together.

Source is an 1080p H.265 file which was a capture from the TV card.
Timeline is 4K 25fps ( just to match the fps of the source )
Exported as a 4K 25fps H.265 file.
3 clips from the same source file inserted to make an 8min edit.
Clip 1 - had a LUT applied
Clip 2 - had colours adjusted and messed around with randomly
Clip 3 - had a sharpening filter applied.

Screenshot is taken during export of the 3rd clip. Looking at the task manager window - Its the GPU thats being pegged at max due to the sharpening filter, with the CPU hovering at 35% ... so my GPU is the limiting factor here... and thats a 1080ti. The more filters you add, the more thats going to hurt the GPU. Exporting during this clip was just a little bit faster than realtime. Resolve doesn't seem to give you an fps encode rate.

Clips 1 and 2 had the GPU down about 50% and CPU about 50% - so basic colour editing was quick to export and way faster than realtime.

During all this, the source footage and export directory were both on D: which is a SATA SSD ... which is being used at 1% ... so I wouldn't say nVME is needed for me.

Overall export time for an 8min clip - about 6m30s - so a lot better than your 40minutes.

Lastly, remember that the free version of resolve does not have any hardware acceleration on the export ... you need the studio version to make use of that ... so you'll not really be able to test its export speeds fully with a new setup without buying the full software. That being said ... compared to Adobe subscription, imho its: A) waaay faster and more repsonsive B) waaay cheaper longer term.

If any of that helps to give you food for though, great. Any questions, just ask.

NW8zOD8.jpg
 
Last edited:
Associate
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Yeah, I'm not sure that there would really be that much difference in times between the mid/high NVidia and the mid-high AMD sides. It really would be down to a few seconds here or there ... which frankly, for the OP ... who cares. The 1080ti in mine was a good deal at the time for me, but I think I'd be just as happy with a 1070, or a vega to be honest.

That being said, I have read a good few times now that for 4K in resolve, it can run out of GPU memory if you're doing fancy things to the edit ... and as such, you're really wanting GPU's with 6Gb or more of RAM
 
Associate
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Am I right in thinking that the focus should be on processor, RAM and making sure I'm using an SSD for the 'live' files that are being processed?
I'm not an expert on this but that definitely sounds correct. I haven't kept up to date on this but I am pretty sure most video editing softwares benefit from more cores/threads and more RAM (they'll eat into that really quickly).

Also, regarding the SSD - I think the general consensus is using a fast (NVMe) SSD purely for cache and not for anything else. That said, I don't think it needs to be particularly large (although I may be wrong here) depending on the length of footage.
 
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