2016 Build for Video/Audio

KristopherF · 6 Apr 2016 at 17:48

Hi all,

So some of you may remember back in 2012 I built a rather large rig for audio processing. This rig is working great, however it needs some more CPU power and graphical processing.

Right now my setup is 3x 1080P monitors and 1x 4K monitor - something which my current GTX 670 struggles to work with when doing anything graphically heavy.

Im no new comer to building machines, specs and all the other bits that come with it, however I've been out of the loop for a while and would love to know you recommendations.

My budget is £1800-£2500.

First port of call for me is a processing architecture which is aimed at multithreads and intense processing, rather than games. Currently Im using a 3930K i7, but this is not cutting it at the moment.

The second area for me is then the Motherboard, this needs to handle ECC RAM, with a 128GB+ RAM capacity, it also need to provide a high number of SATA3 and USB3 connections.

Thirdly are the graphics cards, I'd like to go for dual or triple setups, but I have never done this before, and as the GPUs are aimed at video editing i'd like to hear your thoughts on which ones to get. Ive heard some great things about the 980Ti cards.

Any recommendations on CPU/MB/GPU would be appreciated.
I'll be sticking it all on a finance deal like I did with the last build and paying it off before the interest starts, so the budget can stretch a little if need be.

Cheers!

stulid · 6 Apr 2016 at 18:29

this needs to handle ECC RAM

Thats a problem as it rules out X99 leaving you a bit stuck for options here as I dont see any server stuff.

Is ECC really necessary?

joeyjojo · 6 Apr 2016 at 20:00

stulid said:
Thats a problem as it rules out X99 leaving you a bit stuck for options here as I dont see any server stuff.

If his 3930K (6C12T 3.2 GHz) is struggling then X99 probably won't cut it anyway. A 5960X is only 8C16T 3.0 GHz. At best it's a 35% improvement. Is that enough OP?

If you really want a jump (and to stay in budget!) you'll probably have to go dual 6-core. Perhaps:

A pair of E5-1650 V3 (6C12T 3.5 GHz, about £825)
A motherboard that can do 128 GB+ memory (many are limited to 64 GB) e.g. Supermicro X10DAi (£300) (10x SATA3, 6x USB3)
128 GB ECC DDR4 memory (4x32 GB) about £550, or 16x8 GB about £350 (use all the slots)

(All prices ex VAT as presumably work expense.)

GPU is very tricky as it depends so much on your software. Some requires pro card(s), some is happy with a single consumer card, some can use multiple consumer cards. It also depends if you need certain technologies (e.g. CUDA) and if single or double precision performance is more important.

stulid · 6 Apr 2016 at 20:07

joeyjojo said:
If his 3930K (6C12T 3.2 GHz) is struggling then X99 probably won't cut it anyway. A 5960X is only 8C16T 3.0 GHz. At best it's a 35% improvement. Is that enough OP?

If you really want a jump (and to stay in budget!) you'll probably have to go dual 6-core. Perhaps:

A pair of E5-1650 V3 (6C12T 3.5 GHz, about £825)

A motherboard that can do 128 GB+ memory (many are limited to 64 GB) e.g. Supermicro X10DAi (£300) (10x SATA3, 6x USB3)

128 GB ECC DDR4 memory (4x32 GB) about £550, or 16x8 GB about £350 (use all the slots)

(All prices ex VAT as presumably work expense.)

GPU is very tricky as it depends so much on your software. Some requires pro card(s), some is happy with a single consumer card, some can use multiple consumer cards. It also depends if you need certain technologies (e.g. CUDA) and if single or double precision performance is more important.

The E5-1650 cant run dual cpu, it has no QPI link.

joeyjojo · 6 Apr 2016 at 21:36

To explain where I'm coming from here OP, unfortunately CPUs haven't moved on much from your 3930K. If you're willing to overclock and can forego ECC RAM then the "enthusiast" platform (2011-3 X99) would be OK - you could drop £750 on a 5960X (8C16T) and overclock it - and gain 2 cores and some clock speed. If not you'll have to dig into Xeons, and the way they're priced dual 6 or 8 cores are the sweet spot from what I've seen. Read on...

stulid said:
The E5-1650 cant run dual cpu, it has no QPI link.

Good spot. Pity, it's a good product otherwise. Typical Intel.

I think dual Broadwell-EP might be the answer then. For example, 2x E5-2620 v4 (8C16T 2.1 GHz) would set you back about £600 ex VAT. The previously-mentioned mobo has support.

The higher speed parts are totally unaffordable, and the higher-core 1P parts (e.g. the 12 core+ models) are bad value compared to dual octos.

stulid · 6 Apr 2016 at 21:38

Now I was looking earlier and I think this works - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...socket-workstation-motherboard-mb-633-as.html

Its not X99 but server chipset, I think the memory support list said ECC RAM was supported (but worth double checking).

Combine with some xeons That start with a code of **-2*** (the 2 means its capable of dual cpu, and that are socket 2011-3 compatible) and you could be on the way to something.