New PC - Video editing + some gaming (£2000?)

[andy85wsm]

Hey all,

Looking to have OCUK build a new PC for me, current one still working great but it's 5 years old so time for an upgrade. Current PC = AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and AMD 5700 XT.

I'm thinking this time I should go Intel/Nvidia, I find with a lot of video editing / OBS software that they tend to work a bit better with Nvidia.

Looking to get something that will last me a while and improve render times in particular, I don't play a huge amount of games but every now and then I might dip in. Any recommendations for specifics, was thinking something like:

- Latest i9
- 4700 or 4800
- 32GB or 64 GB RAM

What kind of motherboard would be best? Would like a small enough case but it doesn't have to be tiny.

Is there any way to get the PC silent, or more silent than normal?

Budget of £2000 sounds good, although willing to spend more as needed.

I will probably get OCUK to build it for me so will go to them with some ideas - the forum was a great help for my last build.

Thanks!

 

[andy85wsm]

Do you mean under load, or when idle? If you want it silent when idle, that is a complicated question because when you get beyond a light hum (which most builds with PWM fans will do, since the graphics card and PSU will turn off and other fans spin down), you can start hearing annoying noises from stuff you never expected to make noise (even many SSDs are not actually silent!).

My advice would be just to go for having overbuilt coolers/cooling, with a CPU that is fairly easy to tame (e.g. 14900K is not one of those). You can power limit and/or use eco mode to make things more manageable under heavy load and increase efficiency.


Does this budget include a monitor and keyboard/mouse?


Do you need/care about:
USB4
5/10Gb LAN
PCIE 5.0 graphics and/or M.2 slots (how many M.2 slots and SATA ports?)
power on/off and clear cmos buttons
LED post code

Thanks for the reply!

I guess I'm not having any major issues with my current PC with the noise coming out on videos/streams so it's probably not hugely important that I worry about that - nothing I have in this one is over the top for cooling etc.

Budget is PC only, I will re-use mouse/keyboard/monitors that I currently have, might be in the market soon for a new monitor but that's separate either way.

As for the other bits:

• I'm not sure whether I should care about USB4 which probably tells me I likely don't need it right now?
• 5/10 GB LAN - at the moment 1gb download is the fastest I can get, not sure when that will increase to 2+
• The PCIE 5.0 graphics - again, not too sure if I need to worry about that
• M2 slots - this is for my SSD right? I think I'd quite like 2 x 2 TB~ SSDs, just for the speed
• SATA - not sure, is this for standard HDD? In which case maybe 1, but not sure I have a need for any more
• Power on/off and cmos buttons and LED post code etc - no idea what any of this means

Should say - I will get OCUK to build it, I don't want the hassle of building it myself these days, have been there before and it's not worth the stress.

Again though, budget is for the parts only, I will cover the OCUK build on top.

Thanks!

 

[andy85wsm]

It would appear so Makes it easy since you have a lot more board choice.


2.5 Gb is very widespread so that makes it easy to choose a board too.


Based on PCI-E 4.0 graphics: 16 lane cards (high-end) in a PCI-E 3.0 board lose a few percent of performance. 8 lane cards (midrange) lose 5 percent or so, though some games lose more. 4 lane cards (entry-level) lose a lot, it can be anywhere from 10-25% (or more), especially if the VRAM is exceeded.

I'd suggest it won't matter if you only buy high-end cards, but your budget is big enough for a board with PCI-E 5.0 graphics.


M.2 slots can support either SATA or PCI-Express drives, but most boards have dropped SATA support. M.2 drives are thin sticks that you screw down onto the board.

SATA SSDs in the 2.5" format need a power cable and a data cable and are attached to a drive bay in your case.


The buttons just replicate what you can do with your case, but they can be more convenient if you run a test bench, or you can't access the battery easily.

The post code shows you more detail about why, if your PC can't boot up.

Since you suggested Intel originally, here is an Intel build based on the latest socket, which would avoid the 13th-14th gen issues:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03111) = £379.99
• 1 x Intel Holiday Bundle - Assassin's Creed Shadows + Ubisoft Plus (SKU: DIG-INT-03637) = £0.00
• 1 x Asrock Z890 Pro-A (LGA 1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-03365) = £182.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C40 6400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MEM-TMG-03146) = £179.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid 16GB Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-03194) = £698.99
• 1 x Crucial T500 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01090) = £133.99
• 1 x Team Group MP33 PRO 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen3 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TMG-02682) = £99.95
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P400S Glass Midi Tower Case - Noise Dampened Gun Metal (SKU: CA-06A-PT) = £54.54
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming 850W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-060-AS) = £89.98
• 1 x Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB Black CPU Cooler - 120mm (SKU: COO-TLR-02724) = £29.99

Total: £1,862.40 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

From what I can see in this review, it performs pretty well with your type of usage, just a bit ahead of AMD's 9900X:

Intel Core Ultra 7 265K Review

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K offers eight strong Lion Cove cores, just like the 285K, and merely four E-Cores fewer, for an almost 50% price difference. Despite the "Ultra 7" branding it offers plenty of application performance that can beat even the Ryzen 9 9900X. Things don't look so good in...

www.techpowerup.com

Picking a cooler is tricky due to it being a new socket and checking compatibility, but I believe the peerless assassin fits and that's one of the cheapest options. You could switch the case to one that supports a 360mm AIO (e.g. Lian Li 216) if you prefer that for aesthetics, though you'd need to check the pump noise if you're going for a quiet build.

Air cooling the Intel CPUs (or any higher-end CPU really) will likely require some management of the power limits and the fan curves to achieve the comfort you're after.

Good to know it's better than AMD equivalent.

I know when I bought last one the AMD stuff was highly recommended as a good price in comparison to Intel/Nvidia but I think generally software works better with I/N.

If I stretch the budget to £2,500, just how much better would the machine be?

I'm not into overclocking etc, but I do like these things to last, the fact my last one has been going 5 years with no issues is great, still plays a lot of games well.

 

[andy85wsm]

A bit better for encoding, but it is slower than the 9900X in games, since the page I linked to in the review was only one type of usage.


Honestly, I don't recommend it, because of two reasons:
1. The fully-multi-threaded power draw of the Intel CPU goes from 155 watts to 235 watts with the 285K, which is significantly harder to cool effectively and a chunk less efficient (with encoding on TPU's page, it is around 10% faster).
2. Buying better than a 4070 Ti Super for occasional gaming is of dubious value (it is already paying a lot!).

If I were to try and spend it:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03110) = £569.99
• 1 x Intel Holiday Bundle - Assassin's Creed Shadows + Ubisoft Plus (SKU: DIG-INT-03637) = £0.00
• 1 x Asrock Z890 LiveMixer WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-03361) = £232.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO/XMP 96GB (2X48GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-03746) = £299.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Super Trinity Black 16Gb Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-01496) = £899.99
• 1 x NVIDIA - Indiana Jones and The Great Circle Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-NVI-03769) = £0.00
• 1 x Crucial T500 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01090) = £133.99
• 1 x Team Group MP33 PRO 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen3 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TMG-02682) = £99.95
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £89.98
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming 850W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-060-AS) = £89.99
• 1 x Arctic Liquid Freezer III High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 360mm (SKU: COO-ARC-01991) = £76.99

Total: £2,505.85 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

CPU: 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores (285K), versus 8 P-Cores and 12 E-Cores (265K)
Motherboard: more powerful VRM, more and higher spec USB ports, better audio codec.
RAM: 96GB instead of 64GB.
GPU: same amount of VRAM, but around 15-20% faster (depends on the game, the resolution, ray tracing, etc).

Thanks - I like to keep this stuff simple so maybe the £2k budget PC is best for my needs.

Encoding more important for sure so I'll go with intel, and let's be real, for the minimal gaming I do, that CPU will be more than good enough.

The 5700xt has lasted me nearly 5 years so hopefully the 4070 will too.

I'll get in touch with OCUK next I think, and see what they can do.

Just 2 other questions:

How come you went with 2 different 2TB SSDs instead of the same one?

If I wanted a big HDD like a 4TB separate to the SSDs, is there a particular one that's best?

 

[andy85wsm]

Are you not tempted to just get a 4070ti (Nvidia GPU) to see if it improves rendering?

Yup!

Mentioned that I wanted an Nvidia / Intel build instead of AMD/AMD this time around.

 

[andy85wsm]

Usually in a PC one drive has the OS and the apps and gets hammered and the second one sits idle 80% of the time, so I include a high-end drive for the primary and a regular drive for the secondary. The other reason is that I prefer not to buy SSDs from the same batch because if you have bad flash or firmware they're both affected and that's bad for your downtime and your data.


I don't know much about modern HDDs I'm afraid, so I'd only suggest something based on price and availability.


I think the OP was just using shorthand, the spec is a 4070 Ti Super.

Makes sense, thanks again.

 

[andy85wsm]

A bit better for encoding, but it is slower than the 9900X in games, since the page I linked to in the review was only one type of usage.


Honestly, I don't recommend it, because of two reasons:
1. The fully-multi-threaded power draw of the Intel CPU goes from 155 watts to 235 watts with the 285K, which is significantly harder to cool effectively and a chunk less efficient (with encoding on TPU's page, it is around 10% faster).
2. Buying better than a 4070 Ti Super for occasional gaming is of dubious value (it is already paying a lot!).

If I were to try and spend it:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03110) = £569.99
• 1 x Intel Holiday Bundle - Assassin's Creed Shadows + Ubisoft Plus (SKU: DIG-INT-03637) = £0.00
• 1 x Asrock Z890 LiveMixer WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-03361) = £232.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO/XMP 96GB (2X48GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-03746) = £299.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Super Trinity Black 16Gb Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-01496) = £899.99
• 1 x NVIDIA - Indiana Jones and The Great Circle Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-NVI-03769) = £0.00
• 1 x Crucial T500 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01090) = £133.99
• 1 x Team Group MP33 PRO 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen3 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TMG-02682) = £99.95
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £89.98
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming 850W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-060-AS) = £89.99
• 1 x Arctic Liquid Freezer III High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 360mm (SKU: COO-ARC-01991) = £76.99

Total: £2,505.85 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

CPU: 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores (285K), versus 8 P-Cores and 12 E-Cores (265K)
Motherboard: more powerful VRM, more and higher spec USB ports, better audio codec.
RAM: 96GB instead of 64GB.
GPU: same amount of VRAM, but around 15-20% faster (depends on the game, the resolution, ray tracing, etc).

I know you said you wouldn't recommend going above the CPU and GPU that you originally mentioned, but are any of the other upgrades worth it - for example 96GB RAM, the slightly more expensive case?

Are the Asrock MOBOS and Zotac GPUs good by the way? Presumably yes as you recommended them, I just think I always had Gigabyte or Asus in the past.

I'm currently chatting to OCUK about getting a quote put together so hopefully will have a new PC soon.

 

[andy85wsm]

The motherboards are fairly cheap for the spec and they have performed well thermally in the most recent roundup I saw, which was for AMD X870 here:

I can't comment on Z890, because there's no roundup for these CPUs and I suspect there might not be one, due to their gaming performance not getting any interest.

The Zotac I chose just for the price and the warranty length, but as far as I know they're fine (there's a few owners of Trinity cards on here).


If you think you will use the RAM in the future, sure (especially since DDR5 doesn't much like running 4 sticks, particularly dual rank sticks which most 32GB and all 48GB are).

The case: Lian Li's 216 supports watercooling and air cooling, with the ability to move the I/O down to support a large radiator in the roof, whereas the P400S doesn't support roof mounted AIOs. It was a change I had to make due to the high power draw of the 285K, but it is not necessary if you are satisfied with the P400S. I think it is fair to say that the P400S is less of a modern design (e.g. more 3.5" HDD capacity, no USB Type-C) and has less capable stock cooling, but for the price I don't mind that.

Would there be better motherboards or GPUs for a little bit more money? I'm willing to spend a little more to get something better.

*edit* - just did a quick Google for "best 4070ti super" and the Zotac came up straight away, although it said "trinity" and I don't see that on the link above, maybe there's a different version.

For the case I don't have a huge need for USB C that I can think of but there might not be any harm in getting one with that I guess.

In terms of the radiator in roof/root mounted AIOs - I don't even know what that means to be honest, and OCUK will be building for me if that makes any difference.

I'm going to mostly stick to the spec from the first lot of stuff you came up with I think if that makes any difference to case choice. But like I say, willing to change motherboard and GPU to different brands if better.

I only have 32GB RAM right now so 64GB is already a big upgrade, can't imagine what I might need even more for really!

 

[andy85wsm]

USB4 - very useful for quickly copying video onto your PC from your camera, assuming you have a USB4 reader. If your desktop is going to sit under a desk, then you might want to consider a case and motherboard with at least 20Gbs USB-C on the front panel, to save you messing around with cables at the back each time you come home with new content.

10Gbe - you might not need it for internet access and downloading, but if you are storing large amounts of raw video files, then you might ultimately want to get a NAS for external storage and 10Gbe on both motherboard and NAS would make a massive difference to transfer speeds. I know you can get a 10Gbe network card, but most of these don't support Wake On Lan which can be valuable if you need to access your PC remotely. However motherboards with on board 10Gbe tend to be in the minority and at the top end of the market. I've been thinking about the AM5 boards Asus Pro-art X670E or X870E

Video card - the higher end Nvidia cards seem to make a huge difference to rendering speed and also editing. I'm also thinking of getting a new PC for mostly photo processing and was initially looking at a 4070/Ti/Super, but the 4080 super offers more performance roughly in line with the price uplift so I've talked myself into looking at one of these instead. The 50xx series are due to be released soon, so there may be a few like new 4080 models appearing on the second hand market, or depending on price/luck you could get the equivalent 5080 card when it's released

CPUs, the intel chips do offer great performance, but at the cost of power consumption and heat management. You might find that something like an AMD 7950x or 9950x offers similar performance with less heat and hence running a bit more quietly.

Most of this stuff doesn't matter too much for the stuff I do - it's mostly recorded straight to computer and I don't store most of the files. But as ever, if I can get something that might be useful in the future for not much more money that's handy.

So you think for rendering AMD + Nvidia card might be decent?

Now I think about it, most of the settings in software is usually to do with the GPU not CPU if I remember correctly.

Is there much difference between intel and AMD performances for similar price?

 

[andy85wsm]

A lot will depend on the video editing software you use. If you search for say "Adobe Premiere Pro Benchmark", you'll be able to find some articles comparing the relative performance. It seems like the AMD processers are pretty much on par with the Intel ones +/- about 10% either way depending on the software and tests performed. The Intel CPUs have the upper hand when encoding using Quick Sync. The Nvidia cards definitely have the upper hand for rendering and editing performance.

I'm also interested in having my next PC run very quietly which was drawing me towards AMD for less power consumption and heat produced.

Thanks for the info.

Someone else has recommended AMD for the same reason - I use Vegas at the moment but may end up switching soon, it's probably about time I learned one of the more popular programs.

Either way - it seems like Nvidia is the key for render times, AMD vs Intel less so.

Originally I was recommend - Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail which is £380.

What's the equivalent AMD, and is there something even better in stock that isn't a huge amount more? Happy to increase the budget a bit if it gives me a big boost.

 

[andy85wsm]

These CPUs do up and down benchmarks like a yoyo (characteristic of the CPU at the moment), so YMMV depending on the app. Puget's content creation article illustrates that behaviour pretty well too.

Thanks you!

I forgot you already mentioned this.

I'm in a rush not to try and get my new build before Christmas so panicking a little.

Think I'm going to end up on AMD CPU and Nvidia GPU - potentially even a 4080 super as they're cheaper than 4080 which seems strange to me? At least the cheapest 4080 super are cheaper than 4080 which are all out of stock.

 

[andy85wsm]

Yeah, has been that way since they released, even when you could buy both.


It should serve you well either way, I'd be tempted by the Intel myself as I think there's more to come, but the AMD is the more mature platform at this point and a consistently good performer.

The 4080 super is better though right? Makes no sense to me!

Looks like the 9900x is on pre-order annoyingly.

The 7950xD is in stock but more expensive than the 9900x.

This stuff is confusing

 

[andy85wsm]

So the 7950x might be decent enough for me then?

Down to £450 which isn't much more than the intel one we were looking at before

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Sixteen Core 5.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail

Order AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Sixteen Core 5.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[andy85wsm]

Can you remind what you do with your PC again? Like the apps and kind of usage/workload?

Mostly video editing/rendering/streaming - but my stuff isn't overly complicated, my current PC would render a 30 minute video in about 15-18 minutes for example.

Maybe play the odd game here or there too, but not a full time gamer these days or anything.

Just want something proper decent for the £2-2.5k budget that is well and truly future proofed.

 

[andy85wsm]

Rendering first (based on TPU's reviews):
- The 7950X is typically top dog against the 9900X and the 265K, it can pull out a fairly chunky lead too if all the cores are being used.
- Video editing: the 7950X wins again, though the 265K is definitely gaining ground there. In some circumstances (I assume AVX512 is used, but not certain), the 9900X does very well and beats the 7950X.

Worth noting that in single threaded/lightly threaded apps, the 9900X pulls out a lead and it is likely that for most users it will spend more time doing that kind of work than multithreaded. It is hard to say where the 265K sits right now.

Personally: I consider the 9900X/265K to be more or less equivalent outside of gaming, while the 7950X is more a CPU for a person who does frequent long-run workloads and needs all of those cores.

The all-rounder option is the 9900X, since it doesn't have any weaknesses and is the more mature platform.
The "I like a challenge/I'll play the long game" option is the 265K, since while it is the most inconsistent, there's maybe some room to grow.
The "gimme some cores in reserve" option is the 7950X, just for when you know you're going to hammer them and want to get the wait times down.

Thanks - if I'm honest I have no idea whether I would use single core or multi core more.

I'm still using an old version of Sony Vegas, but might learn a more up to date program soon.

Shame the 9900x is on pre-order - not sure when it comes out.

I'll have to try and do some research into single vs multi core and then decide if I'm prepared to wait until January I guess - would love to get the build done soon.

 

[andy85wsm]

One last question....for the next 5 minutes.

Would the 7950x3d trump them all?

That's in stock at £599, so £150 more than the 7950, and £170 more than the 9900x.

*edit* - looking at this it doesn't seem so - https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d/18.html

 

[andy85wsm]

This is a rough guide as a concrete slab, but generally speaking: if you press a button and have to wait, that's multithreaded. If you press a button and expect it to respond instantly, that is single threaded.

So, for example: if you're waiting an hour for something to be produced, that's almost certainly an app that is multithreaded (it'd be dumb to code it in any other way).


Not normally, no.

With the 7000 series X3D CPUs they had an issue with the 3D cache where the placement meant that they had to lower the clocks and voltage, which makes it slower for productivity than the non-X3D versions. The performance in gaming benefits greatly overall from the 3D cache, so the few circumstances where the CPU is slower nobody much cares.

The 9000 series X3D (at least, the 9800X3D, since the other CPUs aren't out yet) has overcome this problem and no longer has the weakness in productivity.

Great - thanks again!

So yeah, rendering will be multicore use because it takes time so from what you said a couple of posts up the 7950x is probably better than the 9900x for me as getting render times down is something I'd like to do.

I will game at times but for the minimal times I play them - I think a 7950x will be more than enough, I'm not constantly gaming and often just use my PS5 anyway.

I think I'll look at the 4080 super as well, using nvidia tech for streaming/editing is handy too.

I might try and put together a 7950x build and then post it up here to get some tips as to what to change.

 

[andy85wsm]

Do keep in mind though that many apps are using the GPU more and more and I think you said above you're thinking of switching? That could change the calculation if you're pushing the emphasis to the GPU.

Looking at the prices I can't see much reason to get a 4070 TI Super when the 4080 Super is a similar price.

So I'll be putting a build together that includes a 4080 super.

Should that change the CPU that I go for?

I guess put it this way - I'm happy to pay for 4080 super and go to the 7950 x3D if needed which is £600 - so I guess is there something better to opt for for similar £££

 

[andy85wsm]

Well, if you know that you're going to be pushing a lot of your workload to the GPU, then in the AMD camp I'd favour the 9900X over the 7950X, because it has generally higher single/lightly threaded.

I wouldn't pay that extra cash for the 7950X3D, because from what I can recall, gaming is not your priority.

Okay thanks - not sure when the 9900x is available, so I guess if I'm impatient the 7950x is the way forward.

 

[andy85wsm]

The 265K is often in the middle in those particular benches on TPU, so I wouldn't discount that either

Haha! Fair enough.

If AMD is going to run quieter and cooler though that's a bit of a plus.

This whole stuff is just confusing when you're aren't on top of it all