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Smith_Brandon
Inspiring
February 3, 2017
Answered

[Build] 3D Animating & Video Editing System. $5000 Budget.

  • February 3, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1767 views

Hi guys,

Over the next 3 days, I hope to have a solid build spec'd out to recommend to my boss. I've done some research, and came up with this current build.

I currently have 3 monitors, KB/Mouse. We do not have extra internal system cables, so all contents will need to be retail instead of OEM.

The programs I currently use: Adobe CC17: After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop.

My job intends to have me get into Cinema 4D in the near future, and may invest in OctaneRender. We currently have an unlimited Google Drive cloud server that syncs all local files to the cloud, so I am not as concerned with drive failures & raid. My boss wants all components listed from a single retailer, and he is not against using pre-builts if there is something cost effective that achieves everything I'm trying to do at a reasonable price point. I could use some advice and tips. The $5,000 number is not a target, it is simply our cost ceiling. Ideally it should be lower than that. I've been debating the Titan X Pascal, 1080 GTX SLI, and the 128GB of RAM... but we can always purchase a second GPU later if required, but I do not know if the benefits from 64GB to 128GB RAM is a better choice than spending the $500 on a second video card. After Effects can use the RAM, so I've leaned on the single GPU 128GB setup.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer RoninEdits

Thank you Bill and Ronin for your replies thus far. So I've re-made the original post with new components based on my understanding of your recommendations, and I apologize in advance if I appear not to be understanding your recommendations.

RAM: I believe after Googling a little bit I saw people discussing the ASUS X99 Deluxe with G.SKILL Ripjaw V ram and having a good experience.

Drives:

  • SSD/M.2 Performance: Ronin mentioned that in Bills tests the Cache/Media drives benefit most from m.2 rather than SSD, but moreso on the Media drives. The difficulty I have, is that I have 12-15 on-going projects at the same time, taking up an average of 1TB for raw files (not including Cache). This drive is also my sync'd Google Drive. Once a project is complete, the raw files get moved to an Archive Drive and deleted from the Media Drive. While it is true most of those projects aren't opened every day, they are opened at least once every 3 days or so, pending client feedback. So I do not think it is practical to purchase a 1TB M.2 drive for both Media + Cache. I suspect I'd be transferring raw files & projects to the Cache drive regularly just to save M.2 Drive space, I see that becoming annoying quickly. Though, maybe it's worth doing that for the extra speed the M.2 provides I don't know. So what I've done in this build, is dedicate one 500GB SSD drive to Cache and one 1TB M.2 drive to Media. Perhaps I could just use the M.2 drive for the few, large projects and animation files I'm not sure yet.
  • HDD: You mentioned the 6TB Western Digital Gold Edition being only X dollars more than my current black Drive. Being the layman that I am, what does a Gold "datacenter drive" do better than the black "creative professionals drive."? More reliability?

Thanks guys for spending the time you have thus far. I hope to have this concluded by Monday at noon when we will be making the purchase.


thermal paste -  i suggest dropping the arctic silver 5, its slightly conductive which could lead to problems if too much is applied. the thermal paste that comes with the noctua cooler is very good.

drives -  the black hdd is for performance, but its still hdd speeds and you are using it for backups/archive. enterprise hdd's tend to have lower failure rates and lower data corruption.

some more food for though on m.2 vs sata -  m.2 drives can be 2-4x faster than a single sata ssd, are a good way to avoid raid (some folks do not want to raid), and are good for extremely large bitrate media, or multiple layers of medium to high bitrate media. however, at those bitrates 1tb will usually only hold one or two small projects. if you are worried about space on the media drive, samsung does offer the 2tb 960 pro, or you could windows raid-0 two 1tb 960 evo's. but those might break your budget, and two m.2's would take more expansion options up. if you ever needed more space, adding a third m.2 for more space would take even more pcie lanes and may end up dropping a dual gpu setup to x8/x8. whereas sata ssd raid-0 will still be fast, would keep pcie card expansion options open, and would be cheaper.

2 replies

RoninEdits
RoninEdits
Inspiring
February 4, 2017

just to add another point, if you are planning on using dual gpu later and want to run them at x16/x16 pcie lanes, there will only be 8 lanes left over for any expansion and the m.2 pcie ssd will need at least x4. some motherboards when using the m.2 slot will force one of the gpu slots down to x8, and some will leave the gpu's at x16 but won't have any pcie slots available for another card like adding a display i/o or thunderbolt 3 card etc. switching the m.2 pcie ssd to a sata ssd would help keep an x8 pcie slot open with a motherboard like the asus deluxe ii while running dual gpu's at x16/x16. if you are fine with a bit of performance penalty by running the gpu's at x16/x8 or x8/x8 then there will be more options for expansion with m.2 pcie ssd, but all configs depend on the motherboard design.

Bill Gehrke
Bill Gehrke
Inspiring
February 4, 2017

As Ronin pointed out do not waste a PCIe M.2 for your OS/Applications as your OS and applications are designed to run out of RAM.  But things like media and associated project files should be on the fastest drives available like the PCIe x4 M.2 drives

RoninEdits
RoninEdits
Inspiring
February 4, 2017

for parts:

gpu- i would change the evga video card to any other brand. there were some problems with evga cards in the news a while ago and they are now in the process of releasing new updated models with fixes.

ram- you could save some money here, kits of 64gb can be bought for about $100 cheaper, so x2 could be upto $200 savings.

mbd- the asus x99-a ii is a decent mbd, but its also towards the entry level side. the deluxe version would be a better match to the system for more expansion options and should be higher build quality.

storage- the 960 evo is overkill for os/apps alone, it would make more sense to use a sata ssd for os/apps. if you really want the 960 evo and need the large os/apps+cache drive sizes, you could get the 1tb 960 evo and then use it for os/apps/projects/cache and drop the 525gb mx300 sata ssd. i would also suggest switching any crucial mx300's to samsung 850 evo's for faster speeds and longer lifespans. for the media drive, one way to increase performance would be to get two 1tb sata ssd's and use motherboard or windows raid-0 for a speed boost. with raid-0 there is a small increase to risk, but with your backups you should be ok, and if one drive does fail you would still have one 1tb to work with temporarily till another 1tb can be purchased. if you want a more reliable backup/archive hdd, then you may want to get an enterprise version hdd.

case- i think that case is nice overall, but i am concerned that most or all of the hot air inside the case is going thru the psu to exit the case. that just puts extra demands on the psu. personally i would switch cases to avoid doing that to the psu. fractal design and phanteks are some other brands with excellent cases, with several models around the $80-100 range.

heatsink- if you are going liquid for extreme overclocks, it should be 280mm or larger. otherwise the noctua d15S will perform better than smaller liquid coolers, will be quieter, and more reliable. the noctua is what we recommend as there is no chance of leaks damaging other components, and will last longer than liquid setups. the noctua also comes with good thermal paste.

psu- you may want a 1k watt psu if you are planning on overclocking and room for expansion with two gpu's.

ram vs gpu- if you are using that much ram in AE, then its a matter of priority for AE with ram vs any other software that might benefit from the dual gpu's. generally the two gtx 1080's should be faster than a single titan xp, but it will depend how well whichever software you are using can scale performance with two video cards. there are some rumors the gtx 1080 ti might be released in a while, which might help push down prices on the gtx 1080 or just might be better value than the titan xp.

S
Smith_BrandonAuthor
Inspiring
February 4, 2017

RoninEdits:

1. GPU: I could switch to a Gigabyte 1080 Extreme edition. Same price.

2. RAM: I could switch to this G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200. Thoughts? That's a $230 savings.

3. Motherboard: I could switch to the ASUS X99 Deluxe​ for future proofing. (We're not overclocking). That's $166 more.

4. SSD OS / Cache: I can switch both the Samsung 960 Evo 500GB M.2 + Crucial MX300 Sata 512GB for one drive. The 1TB Samsung EVO Sata. That's $80 more.

5. SSD Media: I can switch the Crucial MX300 2TB for the Samsung 850 EVO TB. That's $150 more. I can get a second one in the future for increased performance, as this is a large expense and will go over budget.

6. CASE: I can swap my current case out for a Fractal Design case. That's a $40 savings.

7. HEATSINK: I can swap my current liquid HS for the Noctua d15S. Is this the correct product? That's $40 more.

8. PSU: I can swap my current PSU for the EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W​. That's $30 more.

Total Increase: $199. Still under budget. Whew. Can't tally it up exactly at the moment.

Question: I have only ever had a single GPU in my personal systems, and have never understood the "x16/x16, x8/x8, x16/x8 PCIe lane." Basically what I'm wondering is: If we upgrade to the Deluxe version of the motherboard's design, and I later upgraded to another GTX 1080, is it your recommendation that I remove the M.2 PCIe SSD in favor of a SATA then?

Bill Gehrke:

RoninEdits recommended that I could make my C:\ drive a 1TB Samsung 960 EVO that acts as a OS/Programs/Cache. Is it your opinion that this is an OK way of operating? I have a feeling I misunderstood what he was saying and I've got this all mixed up. M.2 = Good for Cache/Media Files = Bad for OS. Sata = Good for OS/Apps. So I'm assuming then: 512TB Samsung 850 Evo for OS/Apps, 512GB Samsung Evo 960 for Cache, and 2TB Samsung 850 for Media. I need at least 2TB for media, as I do a lot of projects in parallel and I believe moving large project files between drives will become cumbersome over time.

Bill Gehrke
Bill Gehrke
Inspiring
February 4, 2017

As I said I think it is a mistake to waste the high performance of the M.2 960 on the OS/Programs as as soon as you are up and running the important stuff is in RAM  All my testing I leave the Premiere Cache in the default OS/application "USER" folder.  Then I put the all the project files/media on the fastest 960.  I believe that Adobe Effects is more sensitive to cache speed so maybe that needs to be on the M.2 960.

Here is a recent build that was tested with my Premiere Pro BenchMark (PPBM) the results for this user were great.  Below those recent result on a very similar configuration to what you are considering are given and the simplified explanation follows.

      "22","58","15","262", Premiere Version:, 11.0.1.6

The results in the artwork above are my results.  Slightly better that but explainable.

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