Differences between gaming and video editing machines.

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Looking to get a new PC, mine is now well over 10 years old and even with it's upgrades can't handle today's requirements.

I want to use it primarily for video editing, using programs such as premier pro, AVID news cutter and FCP. I'll also be using other Adobe creative suite programs such as Audition and Photoshop. As far as I know, the main requirements for this would be good processing power, lots of memory and a high end graphics card? How does this differ from a good gaming PC. Could someone recommend a good place to start which is a good balance for both? Quite fancy getting back into gaming too.

Cheers
 
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Build

I attempted to put together a build today, for a budget of about £600. Can I get some feedback as to whether this should satisfy my desire to video edit efficiently, and also play some of the newer spec games coming out for PC?

  • Corsair Carbide 400C Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black Window (CC-9011081-WW)
  • Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3 Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
  • Intel Core i5-6600K 3.9GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
  • Avexir Blitz Original Red 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit - Red Light
  • Kingston 240GB SSDNow UV400 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SUV400S37/2
  • MSI GeForce GTX 950 Gaming 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
 
Soldato
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This comes in £90 more expensive than your spec but is more than twice as fast (for editing not gaming, latter is about the same):

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £756.24
(includes shipping: £12.30)




For either spec you need a cooler, and power supply.

And this one comes in £40 cheaper than your spec and is around 50% faster (editing not gaming, again latter is about the same):

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £628.24
(includes shipping: £12.30)



This one brings a cooler but getting a cheap aftermarket one for £15 (Raijintek Aidos for example) would be a good idea regardless.

It's up to you how you want to spend your money though. Whether you fancy a certain expensive case, and then maybe improve components over time, or you aren't bothered about maximising speed for the money, etc. But good to see alternatives and compare performance to looks, before splashing out.
 
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Hey, thanks for taking the time to help out :)

Could you explain a few things to help me understand what I'm dealing with here

So the case I posted, I must have misread the description, I thought it came with a PSU included. It does have a fan, how come you recommend buying an aftermarket fan?

You said that the set up you posted was over twice fast. How have you come to that conclusion? As the processor I posted was clocked to 3.9 whereas the one in that bundle is 3.3. I do see that the i7-5820k has 6 cores, and is an i7... are these features more important? Have you seen benchmark results? Is that bundle worth the extra £190?

At about £15 difference, why have you chosen that particular GFX card?

Again with the memory, is it just a price thing? I liked the idea of keeping two slots free by getting 2x8gb, is there any real difference between 2x8gb and 4x4gb?

In terms of fan and PSU. Where does it say that the case you found comes with a cooler? I also misread the description on the Carbide 400c thinking is come with cooling and PSU included but it seems that isn't the case. Would this be a suitable combination?

Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler £12.95
FX 450W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £42.95

What determines the required power of your PSU?



Sorry for so many questions! Really do appreciate the help, and thanks again for your previous post
 
Soldato
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Hey, thanks for taking the time to help out :)

You're welcome.


So the case I posted, I must have misread the description, I thought it came with a PSU included. It does have a fan, how come you recommend buying an aftermarket fan?

The CPU you specced (i5-6600K) does not come with a CPU cooler. One of the CPUs I specced (i7-5820K) does not come with a CPU cooler either. The other CPU I specced (i7-6700) does come with a CPU cooler (Intel stock), but the cooler isn't very good at cooling an i7.


You said that the set up you posted was over twice fast. How have you come to that conclusion? As the processor I posted was clocked to 3.9 whereas the one in that bundle is 3.3. I do see that the i7-5820k has 6 cores, and is an i7... are these features more important? Have you seen benchmark results?

Yes, benchmarks show the difference. Also a good rule of thumb, for the time being, is that each extra thread is like a half-core of performance. For example, you have a CPU with four cores/threads, and a CPU with four cores/threads but also four extra threads (eight in total). The four extra threads are worth around two cores performance, so the latter will be around 50% faster. In the case of the i7-5820K, on cores alone (six) it's already 50% faster, and then it has six extra threads that amount to roughly three cores, hence why it's slightly over twice as fast ("Nine core performance compared to four core performance").

As far as clock speeds, a simple overclock to 4.0GHz or above takes care of that.


Is that bundle worth the extra £190?

When I added your spec to my basket the difference was £80-90 (see spec below). For that difference, to gain over twice the speed for editing is worth considering. It just depends on your max budget (remember PSU and cooler need adding, maybe Windows too if you don't have it) and your personal preferences.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £678.20
(includes shipping: £12.30)




At about £15 difference, why have you chosen that particular GFX card?

Slightly cheaper for around the same performance. In some games the 370 will beat the 950. Also, you're probably going to want to upgrade the card to something better eventually, so why spend more just now. That's all.


Again with the memory, is it just a price thing? I liked the idea of keeping two slots free by getting 2x8gb, is there any real difference between 2x8gb and 4x4gb?

Note that for the X99 platform (i7-5820K) I specced 4x4GB as the memory runs in Quad Channel. For the Z170 platform (i7-6700) I specced 2x8GB as the memory runs in Dual Channel.


In terms of fan and PSU. Where does it say that the case you found comes with a cooler?

It doesn't. It's the CPU (i7-6700) that comes with a cooler (Intel stock), however I would still purchase something like the Aidos cooler for it, as explained previously.


I also misread the description on the Carbide 400c thinking is come with cooling and PSU included but it seems that isn't the case. Would this be a suitable combination?

Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler £12.95
FX 450W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £42.95

What determines the required power of your PSU?

PSU and cooler will depend on your choice of CPU and any GPU upgrade plans. For i7-5820K I'd want an Antec H600 minimum. For i7-6700 (which is not overclockable) the Aidos would be fine. For the i5-6600K you could do a bit of overclocking with a cooler priced somewhere in between the Aidos and the H600.

For 5820K you want about 50-100W more power than with the other two CPUs. And if you wanted room to add a GPU later that may require plenty of juice you're looking at around 600-650W for the former and 500-550W for the latter two.


Sorry for so many questions! Really do appreciate the help, and thanks again for your previous post

No problem, all good questions. Hope some of this helps. When you have a final spec, then we can check about the PSU. At the moment yes, a 450W PSU would run everything. But say a second-hand 980Ti or something fell into your hands for a cracking price, then you'd be short PSU-wise.
 
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Hey, thanks again for going into such detail! I've made some ammednments based on what you've said:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £847.08
(includes shipping: £13.20)


I've tried to keep the PSU and cooler options as low as possible, as everything is beginning to add up a lot now. In terms of the sockets, the motherboard is a 2011-3 whereas when looking at the coolers, the closes match is 2011. Does the 2011-3 fall into the 2011 family? (Sorry I know nothing of sockets!)
 
Soldato
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I've tried to keep the PSU and cooler options as low as possible, as everything is beginning to add up a lot now. In terms of the sockets, the motherboard is a 2011-3 whereas when looking at the coolers, the closes match is 2011. Does the 2011-3 fall into the 2011 family? (Sorry I know nothing of sockets!)

Yes socket/cooler is fine.

Honestly though, do try and find the extra for a decent PSU as the CX range is low tier and just 3-year warranty. Besides cheap components, it actually only provides 480W on the 12v rail, so a quality "true" 500W PSU provides even more power than the 600W CX. I've picked out two below, which are good value for money at present.

My basket at Overclockers UK:



Max PSU length for the case is 180mm.

The 550W will do, 650W is just nice to have for heavier overclocking and headroom. But it will be fine, and can provide more power to CPU and GPU than the CX 600 v2.

Could also ask OcUk to let you know if you might need one of these cables for that case and PSU. They don't tend to mind throwing in a cable or two if you're spending a tidy sum:

My basket at Overclockers UK:


 
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If you spend a fair amount of time doing video editing - especially if the system is left overnight for renders, etc. frequently I'd strongly recommend following Danny75's advice on uprating the PSU a bit.
 
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Generally speaking re gaming and video editing, gaming requires less CPU power than video editing, and more GPU power.

You should look at getting a few SSDs, OS on one, caches on another and projects on another.

I'd recommend going with Nvidia over ATI for CUDA advantages in Adobe products.
 
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My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £948.56
(includes shipping: £14.70)


Gone back to Nvidia following advice of bloodiedathame, not sure if I will need CUDA but no hard in having the option. I'm going to hold off on anymore disk drives atm, I will get them as the more major projects come up if required. Definitely feel that this build is powerful enough now. Possibly more so that what I actually need, but it is good to have the power if needed etc. Just got to see if I can finance it now..
 
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