Opinions on my cart - £2000 video editing PC

SCWalsh

SCWalsh

SCWalsh

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Joined
10 Sep 2014
Posts
36
Hi guys,

I've collected various peoples suggestions for the last few months and am almost ready to buy, I just want to have one last look through everything for anything that might not be compatible or there might be something better available.

Generally I'll be using this PC for video editing and colour grading (HD and a bit of 4K too) I will probably be adding a second GPU and more hard drives in the future, and a 4K monitor too at some stage.

Will I need a sound card and if so any suggestions? Would 16GB of RAM be better to start with?

YOUR BASKET
1 x TeamGroup Elite 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black (TPKD432GM2400HC16QC01) £359.99
1 x Dell UltraSharp U2413 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey £359.99
1 x Intel 5820K 3.30GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor - OEM (CM8064801548435) £295.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (04G-P4-2974-KR) £277.99
1 x Asus X99-Pro Intel X99 (Socket 2011) DDR4 ATX Motherboard £239.99
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £184.99
1 x Corsair CS850M 850W Semi-Modular 80+ GOLD Certified Power Supply (CP-9020086-UK) £99.95
2 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD £82.99 (£165.98)
1 x BitFenix Ronin Tower Case - Black £69.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £2,118.90 (includes shipping : £20.10).




Thanks for looking.
 
Thanks for the responses so far. To answer some of the questions, I don't plan on gaming no. And I have a full version of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit which I bought for my laptop a couple of years ago. Would this be enough?

As for the bundles you guys are suggesting, would I be sacrificing performance or are the components just as good? I appreciate all the advice as it's my first build and I'm going to be doing some very demanding work on it.
 
Also I chose the Dell U2413 monitor for it's 1 billion colours, I notice that the Iiyama and the Samsung both have 16 million, was there a particular reason you chose these instead? I'm not too worried about resolution right now, as I can invest in a large 4k screen when I have more workspace and keep the small one for colour critical work.

@Shivy011 I'm not sure but this is from the Da Vinci Resolve Windows config. guide:

All Resolve systems require
a high performance graphics processor for the
GUI, and we recommend a separate GPU for image
processing.
If you are building a system with only a single GPU
we recommend the fastest one you can justify.
Such as the GeForce GTX 580 with 3072MB ram.
> If you are building a system with a separate GUI
and image processing GPU, you will need either
the lower cost NVIDIA Quadro 600 which can be
used with 2D video or the Quadro 4000 for use
with 2D and 3D video for image processing.
> One or more NVIDIA CUDA capable cards for
image processing. The following certified cards
are listed in order of increasing power: Quadro
4000, Quadro 5000, Quadro 6000, Tesla C2075
and GeForce GTX 580 3072 MB & GeForce GTX
680 4096MB
 
I suppose it's the 99% AdobeRGB and 100% sRGB as well, and I'm thinking when I'm doing colour critical work that these are things that will put clients at ease, but again I'm only starting to learn about this stuff that's why I'm on here. My camera can shoot 10 and 12-bit colour depths does anybody know what monitors could display that?
 
How about this then?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5820K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***£30 Saving*** £517.98
1 x TeamGroup Elite 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black (TPKD432GM2400HC16QC01) £329.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £281.99
1 x Samsung S27A850TS 27" Widescreen Ultra Thin LED Professional PLS Monitor - Matte Black £275.99
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £184.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black (CC-9011015-WW) £114.95
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 850W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £99.95
2 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD £82.99 (£165.98)
1 x Corsair Hydro H55 Quiet Liquid CPU Cooler £52.99
Total : £2,051.45 (includes shipping : £22.20).

 
I'm nearly ready to buy.. I've just been doing more research into GPUs (I'm sure everybody's done this with their first build but the more I look into things the more undecided I become!)
Basically I'm understanding that the key feature of GPUs when it comes to video editing is CUDA acceleration and to look at the number of CUDA cores of a card. I'm just wondering what effect SLI has on this count and if 2x GTX970s would be better than 1x GTX980 regarding CUDA?
 
Thanks,

Yeah I've changed things around quite a bit now. Stretched the budget a little. I should mention it'll be shipping to Ireland so I don't know how that affects discounts.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5820K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***£30 Saving*** £479.98
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £469.99
1 x GeIL EVO Potenza 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Quad Channel Kit - Red (GPR416GB3000C16QC) £197.99
1 x Crucial MX100 512GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter CT512MX100SSD1) £162.95
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 850W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £104.99
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £94.99
2 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD £82.99 (£165.98)
1 x Noctua NH-U12S Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler with NF-F12 Fan £52.99
1 x IcyBox Standard 5.25" Drive Bay USB 3.0 Multi Card Reader eSATA (IB-867) £24.98
1 x LG 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM GH24NSC0.AUAA10B £13.99
Total : £1,786.54 (includes shipping : £14.75).



Decided to get 16GB of faster RAM as it will be an affordable upgrade to 32GB in another few months and I don't think I'll ever need to go higher than that with this build.
Went with the GTX980 in the end, I figure I can upgrade the RAM later for cheaper than upgrading the GPU and the 5960x is out of my budget's reach anyway in terms of the CPU. The Gigabyte G1 was recommended by a friend but please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm still deciding on a monitor. The hardware calibration on the Dell Ultrasharp U2713H is kind of making it stand out for me. I don't think any others in that price range have support for REC.709 and DCI.P3 colour space. But again I'm open to better suggestions here.
If I do get the Dell I'll probably drop the card reader as it has one integrated.
 
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Before you mentioned: "In fact most of them seem to use a slower GFX card for the GUI and a fast one for the compute."

If I was to get another cheap GPU as well as the 980 what would be compatible/good enough?
 
I found a second hand Titan Black 6GB for just €700, this might be the answer what do you think?

It's recommended by the software manufacturer, 6GB+ VRAM seems recommended for smooth 4k editing
 
Last edited:
Yeah video editing doesn't really use precise calculations but since I've learned that 6GB VRAM is better and that 2x 970s or 980s would still equate to 4GB then I should go with the 6GB Titan, now that I've found an affordable one on a buy and sell site here. Incidentally is there a good way to quickly test used GPUs to make sure they're all working fine before buying them?

Yeah I was considering a 10-bit monitor but I think for now that's outside my budget. I'd rather be able to cut 4k video than have true 10-bit colour. Judging from reviews I think 8-bit + FRC will do me for now.

I have to remind myself that I can't have it all, and I'm not a full-time editor either I'm actually a cinematographer so this is just a side project really. It could become more in the colour-grading side in future but until I start making money from it I can't justify all the bells and whistles.

So where I am at the moment:

Intel Core i7 5820K
Asus x99-S
16GB DDR4 3000mhz GeIL EVO Potenza
MSI GTX Titan Black 6GB (if I get it)
 
Bluecube said:
At this price level, have you considered a Mac Pro? You get a lot of bang for your buck though needing a monitor and storage device may destroy your budget... Just throwing it in as I know a couple of video professionals who rate it highly particularly for 4k work.
Click to expand...

I looked last week just to compare but as you said the basic 6-core model is €1000 more before adding a monitor and storage. Anyway I like the idea of building my own PC and it seems they'll always be more bang-for-buck. It was the same when I got my laptop 5 years ago, I would have loved to get a Macbook Pro but I couldn't justify it.
 
What do you make of the R9 290x 8GB? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-353-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

The newest versions of the software I use also supports OpenCL, and as far as I know it's just not quite as good at noise reduction as CUDA. But it has that VRAM that I'm after, and only half the price of a new Titan.

For the price to performance ratio would I be more disappointed with the 290x 8GB or forking out more for the 6GB Titan Black?
 
I think it might be the best option to start with because if I ever expand into more serious editing I'll probably have to upgrade to some more powerful workstation type gpus anyway so maybe committing to the Titans now might not be the smart choice especially when it comes to getting a 2nd one. Thanks for the help. I'll be making a decision at the end of this week I'd imagine to buy first thing next week. I'll post my final final choice at the weekend. Excited to build it now, that will be the fun part! And the new desk I got in Ikea
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5820K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle *** Saving***
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X OC 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK WorldWide Exclusive**
1 x GeIL EVO Potenza 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Red (GPR432GB2400C15QC)
1 x Corsair RM Series RM 850 '80+ Gold' 850W Power Supply (CP-9020056-UK)
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1)
2 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD ()
1 x Noctua NH-U12S Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler with NF-F12 Fan
1 x LG 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM GH24NSC0.AUAA10B
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Mini Wireless N USB Adapter (TL-WN823N)
Total : (includes shipping : ).



Never heard back about that second hand Titan and I can't afford a new one so I guess I'm sticking with the 290x. Back to 32gb of slower RAM because after watching this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajyzZ-zaq0o) I think I can make use of 64gb down the road. The Corsair PSU is now cheaper than the Superflower and I think it has some silent features. Down to a 256gb SSD as I think it's enough for now. Wifi adapter for software updates and uploading videos.
 
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