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K
KeelerJ
Inspiring
December 30, 2017
Question

Advice on Computer Build for Premiere Pro/After Effects

  • December 30, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 5140 views

Hello!

I am putting together the specifications of a new computer for running Adobe software, primarily Premiere Pro and After Effects. I'm trying to put together a well-balanced, stable machine for editing 1080HD H264 videos, while having the option to work with 4K in limited amounts if needed down the road.

Basically, I'm looking for something solid that will be able to edit multi-layered 1080 projects with some effects added without dropping frames, but I don't want to go overboard on a machine that offers way more power than I intend to use. Does this build look like a nice balance? Let me know what you think!

Intel Core i7 i7-8700K

ASUS TUF Z370-PLUS GAMING Desktop Motherboard

Corsair RMx Series RM750x - 750 Watt 80 PLUS Gold Certified Fully Modular PSU

Corsair Hydro Series H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 DRAM 2400MHz (PC4-19200) C14 Memory Kit

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 Graphic Card - 1.51 GHz Core - 1.71 GHz Boost Clock - 6 GB GDDR5

Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive

          (for operating system and software)

WD Black 512GB Performance SSD - 8 Gb/s M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive

          (for media, cache, etc.)

Thanks!

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    1 reply

    Trevor.Dennis
    Community Expert
    Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 31, 2017

    If you look through recent forum posts, you'll find that we liked the 8700K because of its low cost and high clock speed, but we recently realized that it is limited to 16 PCIe lanes.  That will compromise its storage capability and how many M.2 and SATA ports it can support, and limit the number of memory slots. 

    If you don't think you'll need to expand on storage down the road, then the 8700K is as fast as anything for Photoshop and After Effects, but not quite so good for Premiere Pro which is able to make use of multiple cores and threads.

    It would be crazy to build a new NLE system nowadays without making use of the incredibly fast NVMe SSDs that can move 3.5Gb/s continuous.  This makes raid0 arrays redundant.  You can use the same drive for cache, and project files with bandwidth to spare.  So perhaps a decent SSD for OS and program files.  I am not familiar with the M.2 drive on your list.  The Samsung 960 Pro and EVO are more popular here.  I am using a pair of Samsung 960PRO 512Gb NVMe drives for the build I am waiting for, and will add a number of Samsung SSDs from an earlier build, as well as USB3 external HDDs for backup and archive.

    The people who know a lot more than me on this forum, might tell you to go up a step with that GPU.  We'll wait for Bill etc. to contribute and say whether a GTX1070 might be a better fit.

    I don't know what to say about the 8700K.  Z370 systems are so much cheaper to build than X299 or even Threadripper X399.  I don't know a lot about Ryzen.  The 1800X is cheaper than the 8700K, and other build costs would be similar, but the Ryzen 1800X has 24PCIe lanes.  I'd suggest looking though the Puget System benchmarks that will compare those CPUs and systems directly, and with the applications that interest you.

    This is for Premiere Pro

    I see the $500 Ryzen 1800X is a wee bit behind the $360 8700K when rendering, which tends to use all the cores/and threads available to it.  So clock speed is still the telling factor, even with two less cores.

    If you read the article and others that cover more CPUs, you'll see that the much more expensive high end i9X and threadripper builds are noticeably faster for Premiere Pro, but that the 8700K will knock their socks off with more lightly threaded applications like Photoshop and After Effects.

    https://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articles.php

      K
      KeelerJAuthor
      Inspiring
      December 31, 2017

      Thanks, Trevor.Dennis! I've gone over some of the Puget Systems articles and have been impressed by the 8700K's general performance in After Effects, where it seems to lead the way, and it also seems to be at or near the top for the types of media I'd be working with in Premiere Pro.

      So if it offers 16 PCIe lanes, I expect all of these would be utilized by the graphics card -- how many would that leave for drives/other PCIe cards? Are there extra lanes available through the chipset? This is an area that I can never seem to figure out. At the moment, I would be planning to run a SATA SSD drive, an M.2 drive, a sound card in one of the PCIe 1x slots, and a SATA Blu-Ray drive. Would all of these work together, and how many options (if any) would it leave for future expansion? Thanks!

      R
      RjL190365
      Legend
      December 31, 2017

      Actually, the m.2 devices on the mainstream Intel CPU platforms are run off of the PCH, not directly from the CPU. (And recent Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs provide the bandwidth equivalent of eight PCIe 3.0 lanes to the PCH, in addition to the 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes used by a discrete GPU.) But since the total throughput of the Z370 PCH is limited to 7.9 GB/second, you cannot run more than eight PCIe 3.0 lanes from the PCH simultaneously without forcing a degradation of the bandwidth of the PCH PCIe lanes themselves. Each m.2 SSD eats up four of those eight usable PCIe 3.0 lanes.

      The PCIe sound card is definitely not needed in an editing system, especially since today's motherboard-onboard audio is more than adequate, and externally-connected USB sound cards are generally better than either inside-the-computer-case audio solution. In fact, most gamer sound cards are actually unsuitable for audio production - and worse than even onboard audio, let alone a good USB sound card.

      And the SATA controller also eats up some of the PCIe lanes in the PCH. Thus, the limited throughput of the Z370 PCH will force the disabling of some of the SATA ports if even one m.2 SSD is connected.

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