Time For Upgrade! 4k playing, editing, encoding advice

[MattDJ4K]

Hi all,

I sent an email to the Overclockers team, but I think the response and advice I need requires more specific details.

Here's the original message (sorry!). All advice appreciated.

IF YOU COULD SPEC SOMETHING UP PLEASE budget £2000 ish.


---
Hi there,

This enquiry may be best placed with someone with knowledge of VIDEO EDITING, HTPC and the new HEVC video codecs HDR etc.

I will not be gaming on it, at all.

---Current System---
Intel XEON X5679 3.2ghz (a different, unknown fan, to one supplied with CPU)
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Socket1366 Motherboard
14gb Ram DDR3 Dual Channel
NVIDIA 1279mb GeForce GTX 470

and

ANTEC P183 V3 ATX and 850 watt PSU (want to keep)
2 x External SATA 3.5" hard drive docks (want to keep)
Internally - 3 Blu-ray drives, 1 UHD Blu-ray drive, 3 HDDs, 2 SSDs (want to keep)

--

I want to upgrade to watch (with HDR inc Dolby Vision), edit and ENCODE 4K HEVC/h265 material. Quickly.

I am not a PC building sort of person, but my brother is (but even he is unsure of the components that are NEEDED/GUARANTEED to achieve the above).

--

I would like to keep the Antec case and PSU (850w) I have, if recommended by you to do so (OC1112173).

Looking at your forum I can see that only certain types of CPU can be used.

I think I would like to the upgrade to be based around the INTEL i9-7940X 3.10ghz 2066 - is this a good choice, giving me enough processing power? (NOT Overclocked - I did once buy a system from you Overclocked but it didnt seem to be stable unfortunately - it may have been the above motherboard of my current system with an i7 CPU)


1. A motherboard - ideally with 10 internal SATA ports like the one i have currently (most have 8 though - I might get away with 8 to be honest!).
EXTERNAL SATA Ports for the Docks?? Or is this now USB 3.0? Do i need to upgrade/change the docks??

2. a fan for the CPU if it doesnt come with one?? (I don't understand watercooled, but prefer not to go that route based on the word "water", but happy to be advised).

3. 32gb of RAM DDR4

4. A graphics card "more than capable" with TWO HDMI 2.2 OUTPUTS at FULL 4k 60fps INCLUDING all HDR (Dolby Vision) and NO CINAVIA protection. I currently have a 1080p screen and a 4k TV - is this a problem? Hopefully will upgrade to a 4k monitor too. ENCODING TOO?? Radeon RX 550 mentioned on your forum. But twin 4k outputs? Seems "too affordable"! Maybe a Geforce 1070??

5. A good sound card (internal), with stereo ANALOG out. The ASUS Xoner?

--

What does pre-binned mean?

Anything I am missing, or not thinking of, with the above??

Is the above in any way, OVERKILL?

Any compatibility issues with some of the products, bundles etc you may suggest? For instance, does an Asus motherboard work better with an Asus graphics card??

--

Hopefully this all makes sense and you are able to help,

On xxx after 1pm every day this week or email is ok too.

Thanks,
Matt


--- ADDED THOUGHTS For the forums ---

AMD Option cheaper, but as good??



Like I said, I would love some help.



Overview of response from Overclockers (which confused me once I search the site for Asus Maximus (Socket??))

RESPONSE


"Thankyou for your webnote, we will help where we can with these queries Matt, however a lot of them are very specific encoding and HDR questions that without extensive contact with component manufacturers we simply could not answer.

The 7940X is a great processor with a lot of performance for encoding and high end software tasks so we can definitely recommend this, you will want a motherboard from the Asus Maximus range for great overclocking capability and maximum available SATA Ports.

A pre-binned CPU is a Processor that has been tested with other specific components to be proven at a specific overclock level (like 5ghz for example). These processors are available for customers who wish to overclock the CPU to the advertised clock speed (note that this is not guaranteed as you may need to buy specific components to reach this overclock, ex motherboard and RAM).

For 32GB DDR4 we would recommend Corsair LPX or Team Group for best compatibility. The Asus Xonar Sound Cards are very good and have a large varity of features for sound recording at a high level.

Regards,"

 

[Kei]

TBH, I can't help with the HDR requirements as I don't deal with anything beyond Rec. 709, but I do know that PC support is somewhat poor. That'll basically be down to the GPU, display and software. I believe nvidia are a little better on the more modern hdmi version support but most cards only seem to come with one hdmi out with more display port connections instead.

Personally, I do a large quantity of media conversion and encoding so I went for an AMD ryzen threadripper 1920x which is the 12 core 24 thread part. If I'd had a bigger budget, I'd have gone for the bigger 1950x. Nothing wrong with the intel, but I think it is pretty much on par with the amd when both are left at out of the box settings. Software that only utilises a few cores will generally run faster on the intel and properly multi threaded software should run faster on the amd. Since you have no intention of running overclocked, you have no need to even look at pre binned. What software you inted to use may have some effect on whether or not it would make sense to consider amd as there are some things that do tend to be more optimised for intel.

Cooling can be done using either standard air coolers with giant heatsinks or the AIO water coolers which are essentially maintenance free. Noctua make some of the best air coolers on the market. AIO's are not my area of knowledge as I went with custom water cooling instead.

As to motherboards, basically buy the one that has the right combination of connections built in. 10 sata ports is a tall ask. M.2 and u.2 ports for modern ssd's have taken priority. You can get sata host bus adaptors to get more ports if necessary. USB 3.0 and 3.1 basically killed off E-SATA so you'll have a very hard time finding it on modern boards.

Memory is pretty much a case of play it safe and choose something from the motherboard compatibility list to be sure it will work ok. I've not had any trouble using crucial, kingston, corsair or teamgroup.

As to soundcards, unless you require half decent ASIO support, the onboard audio doesn't seem anywhere near as bad as it once was. Using the optical out and an external dac takes it out of the loop anyway, so I noticed zero difference when I moved from my xonar essence card back to onboard.

 

[MattDJ4K]

Thank you Kei - very helpful.

I see it as a case of decide on the chip and go from there. My own anxiety is causing me to doubt myself or the order in which I approach this. The last PC i built was a 486!