Hi Guys, My friend wants me to build a video editing computer, he will be using Adobe premiere pro for his main software to edit 4K video. I'm thinking a i7 CPU Minimum of 8GB RAM with an option to upgrade to 16GB A minimum of 2TB Hard drive Nvidia Video card with a minimum of 1GB RAM Motherboard Gigabyte X99 series I'm not sure of which components to use can you assist or guide me in the right direction, mind you i have built desktop computers in the past but they were for people for general purpose and the occasional game nothing of this magnitude. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated. The configuration so far: Core i7-4790K Devil’s Canyon Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 link Video Card GTX-980 link 16GB RAM a gigabyte gaming 3 motherboard link a 2TB HDD a 240 GB SSD thats just a starting point i'm looking at LGA2011-v3 and a X99 mother board and perhaps a RAID 5 or a RAID 10 HDD configuration, upgrade to 32GB RAM. Perhaps a second SSD. A 4K monitor, he has some old monitors but i think i'll try to convince him to upgrade.
Definitely a multithreading capable processor like the Intel Core i7-4790K Devil’s Canyon Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150, or something similar. If money is not an issue and the performance need is there, then yes, you could consider one of the 6-core processor of the LGA2011-v3 platform or even the 8-core, but I'm not sure if the Z97 mobo's with the i7 1150 socket wouldn't be good enough -- and much cheaper. Speed-wise, the newer processors aren't really better; the changes Intel has been making the last years have been to include better graphics and going to a smaller nm die. It may be good to run the OS (and temp folder for editing) from a small SSD (240gb or even 120), and then use the HDD for storage after encoding is done, so that processing goes faster.
I found even with 1080p that the HDD was the bottle neck, the encoding can be done at full speed on a low end PC and be limited by the HDD, once you start applying a lot of filters/ masks and advanced color correction it does tend to slow down to a lot less FPS tho, so depends how creative they are intending to get with their video editing, if they are just cutting/joining video with basic fades they will still be better off with the 240GB/512GB SSD then spending more on the CPU, also with regards to memory, more is better with video editing, else it'll bog down the HDD even more with windows caching to the HDD while the pre renders also busy writing to the HDD instead of it just keeping things in RAM. If they want to use the PC as it's busy rendering they might even want 2 SSD's so that Windows and the temp folder can have it's own speed, while the other is reading and/or writing the 4k video. BTW Adobe renders uncompressed, so your talking 38GB to render a 15 minute video at 1080p 30FPS - so HDD is key!
Thanks for the tip LFD, i have some better ideas now, i've started some research based on what you guys have stated. So far i have the following: Core i7-4790K Devil’s Canyon Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 16GB RAM a gigabyte gaming 3 motherboard a 2TB HDD a 240 GB SSD thats just a starting point i'm looking at LGA2011-v3 and a X99 mother board and perhaps a RAID 5 or a RAID 10 HDD configuration, upgrade to 32GB RAM. Perhaps a second SSD. A 4K monitor, he has some old monitors but i think i'll try to convince him to upgrade.
If he is working on 4k video (especially for profit) then he will need a 4k screen, why should he miss out on the full quality of his own work? But yeah, your picks are good and if he finds it's still too slow for him, the 2nd SSD will help fix that problem. 32GB of RAM I can not imagine, but being 4K I only have to think of myself processing 2 1080p 30fps at once - you never did specify if he was going the full 60fps or sticking to 30 - The future is a weird place with more resolution than our eyes can perceive, fluid movement that looks really weird after growing up on 24 FPS, don't get me started on 7 channel sound
He is a filmmaker so yes for profit only a small enterprise at the moment. He is a bit of a miser when comes to throwing away hardware but i'm confident that i can convince him to get a 4k monitor. Not sure if he will be doing 60fps but i imagine that he will be doing at least 30fps with an option of 60fps. He had some experience with a red eye camera, found here, that he borrowed for a production and when he came to editing 4k video on his current machine i think that is when he decided that he needed an upgrade. I think that 4k or even 5k is the way of the future, if you look at the CES on how many manufacturers are producing smart TVs with linux OS on them and TV stations now broadcasting at 4k its no wonder that there is a high demand for 4k video. Coming up are OLED screens that are thin and flexible and 3d TVs without the need for 3d glasses.
Since you mention the word "miser," I'd say to get socket 1150 with a processor like I recommended, so he can spend on the 4K monitor. With fast SSD's, virtual RAM drivers aren't really feasible anymore (or one could do 64gb or even 128gb as are now available). If he's into higher end as you indicate, one could even consider running SSD's on RAID for the OS and encoding performance, although that would have to be like a RAID0 (but 0 is not as secure so if it needs to be a production machine then probably not the wisest option). You can get 512/480gb SSD's pretty cheaply now, so a fast and good quality SSD of that size might be better. He would need a lot of storage, and I agree with you that it probably shouldn't be all hinging on single HDD's that could fail and he would loose hours or weeks of labor, so RAID for that may be the way to go. You'd probably want to go with a Z97 mobo that has a lot of SATA ports, also.
Last tip is make sure your Motherboard has enough Sata 3 6GB/s ports if you do go RAID on the Magnetic HDD's (some only have 2 of the high speed ports available), and make sure the write speed is over 480MB/s as many SSD's have a read speed over 500MB/s, but their write speed is 200-280MB/s, making them twice as slow to write a large continuous video file to. Trust me - when hardware gets in the way of what your trying to do, you settle on sub standard work so you don't have to wait a 2nd time to render your work.
I might go with one of these motherboards instead (for still being somewhat in the price range of the Gigabyte one you picked): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130843 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157524
It also a case of availability and price. Gigabyte is very popular here in China and the price is from 5% to 10% cheaper then newegg but i will look into it as i haven't put it in stone yet
