CPU Upgrade for AE + Gaming

[« VK »]

Hi all,

I currently own an i5 4670K - Overclocked @ 4GHz.

TL;TR: I think I need a new CPU with Hyper-Threading technology. Will this benefit me when it comes to high quality After Effects video production? Which CPU is best for this? Which CPU is best value for money/ performance? Will I have to swap to a different Intel architecture chip in order to achieve my desired outcome? I do a fair bit of gaming so I don't really want to go below what I currently have.

(Here's my full spec for anyone who's wondering what it is)

Spoiler

|| Intel 4670K @ 4GHz || Corsair H80i || 2x MSI NVIDIA GTX 770 2GB (2 way SLI) || MSI Z87-G45 ||
|| TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (CAS 11-11-11-28 Timings) || Samsung 840 (250GB) SSD ||
|| Seagate Barracuda 2TB (7200 RPM) ||
|| SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W || BitFenix Shinobi (German Edition) ||

My current setup is near enough perfect for my gaming needs. I see no issues with my current rig when it comes to playing video games at all. I do however, experience long waiting times when it comes to rendering videos in After Effects.

Don't get me wrong, the processor is more than capable of rendering 1080p @ 60fps Audio-Visual videos however they can take what seems like forever to render. I run/ own/ manage (however you want to call it) a YouTube channel which relies on new content to be uploaded relatively frequently and 100% of my work for this channel is done in After Effects. I don't really want to sacrifice video quality for the time it takes to render these videos nor do I have the expenses to build myself a workbench PC in order to do this for me.

A few Linus Tech Tips videos/ web articles later I came to the conclusion that I will most likely need a CPU upgrade in order to reduce the time it takes for my videos to be rendered. I don't have a set budget but I really cannot justify paying topside of £400-£600 for a CPU or full CPU+Mobo+RAM upgrade just to achieve this. Is there any way for me to get more performance on my current 1150 socket board without going overkill on the CPU price? Has anyone got any CPU's they'd recommend for this?

 

[joeyjojo]

Hyperthreading adds about 5% in AE CS6. Might be different for newer versions. Probably not a magic bullet that's going to hugely decrease your render times though.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-9.html

You could drop a 4770K or 4790K into that board to get a few % speed up, as long as it clocks the same. For £100+ on top of selling your i5 it's probably not a great value upgrade.

The only other option is a 6-core (or more) X99 system. But that's £650+.

Your 770 (one of them) is probably able to assist with ray-tracing in AE CC, but otherwise it's CPU only.

Bottom line IMO - overclock your i5 a few hundred MHz more and live with it.

 

[Armageus]

As joeyjojo's post really, however -

- Do you have enough RAM for the size projects you are dealing with?

- I assume your video files are on the SSD? if not then this may remove any bottlenecks if you run out of Ram etc.

- More cores is likely the answer, but you will only get that by changing to a different platform e.g. X99, or maybe a used Dual Xeon Server or Workstation.

 

[« VK »]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think I'll work with what I have at the moment. I've tried experimenting with using the 770 to help with the rendering however it's not officially supported in the version of CS6 I am using.

Realistically, 16GB of RAM should be more than enough for my projects so I guess I should probably wait for the x99 architecture to drop in price and stick with what I have at the moment then upgrade when I necessarily need to. Thanks again.

 

[Cyanide]

Drop in another hard drive. You should be running at least 3 - 1 for OS & Software, 1 for project assets and 1 for Output files.

 

[« VK »]

Drop in another hard drive. You should be running at least 3 - 1 for OS & Software, 1 for project assets and 1 for Output files.

Yep, I'm purchasing another Samsung SSD in the very short future (850 500GB). Will have to allocate some storage for my Uni work on there but yeah, I'll most certainly take up your advice on having separate drives for stuff. Will this benefit the render times much do you think (in comparison to having rendered to a standard hard drive so far)?