Best Built ?

[rene@studio6]

Hi,

I wonder what would be the most recommended or powerful PC-Built (windows) for primarely use of After Effects, Cinema4D and Premiere?

I have a budget of 5000€.

What would you recommend?

I also wonder if it makes sense to built one beast (whatever that means with the budget) or go for second hand or smaller builts, but more of them and setup a renderfarm?

Speaking of renderfarms: what solution for a renderfarm can you recommend. Assuming I have one powerful working machine (eating up my budget) and maybe getting some second hand or custom built render-slaves for a lower price?

Happy to get some input!

Thanks and best,

r

[Alex1989]

Hi,

First of all when you build a new PC most important part to invest in the CPU, there are 2 best cpus at the moment for After effects,  Adobe PR and C4D :

I9 9900K

I9 9990XE

The difference between them are prices and core amounts.

The i9 9990xe is much more expensive (around 2300$ Google it to make sure) and he is the newst strongest CPU at the moment . He is faster then the i9 9900k at 3% in after effects but for Adobe premiere and C4D he is much more better since the high core amount , he will perform as a beast. Kindly read more about it here and it will help you to decide which one better for you :

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/After-Effects-CC-2019-Intel-Core-i9-9990XE-Performance-13...

Ram memory:

The more, the better . 64GB ddr 4 and above is the minimum. (Brand corsair or g skull)

Ssd and nvme m2 drives

1. Samsung Ssd nvme 970 evo plus 512gb for system and apps

2. Samsung Ssd nvme 970 evo plus 1tb for ongoing projects

3.Samsung Ssd nvme 970 evo plus 512mb for cache files

4.any hdd 7200 rpm 2-4TB for archiving your old projects

Graphic card:

Nvidia ,

Gtx series are still great 1070ti with 8gb vram and above..

Also RTX2070 , all of those will be fine.

That's it in big,

Buy good motherboard (Asus or gigabyte)

CPU liquid cooler system (corsair, nzxt ..)

Big case(high tower) with good circulation and fans

Strong PSU at least 700w (gold modular series of corsair recommend)

And you are good to go

Btw if you dont have monitors,  I recommend two at least that are 24" minimum. 

Regarding the render farm:

No need, there are already solutions to make your own machine render beast and maximize the power of it ,

Search for render garden on Google.

I hope I covered it all , good luck

[Martin_Ritter]

I agree to the specs and want to add:

- Raid and backup:

If you are working on commercial projects, ensure that you don't loose any data in any situation. If you can't finish the project because the drive crashed it was the last time you worked for that client - maybe even get charged for the lost.

This often means working with Raid-array instead of single drive (Raid 1 or 10 are recommended) and have half-daily or daily automatic backups to a second system (a NAS drive for example) which is ideally not in the same room and not on the same power cycle, or even not in the same building.

Checking those backups regularly is a must.

- Renderfarm

With tools like RenderBoss, RenderGarden or the new BG Renderer, there is hardly no need for an additional computer for rendering - as long as you have enough memory installed. However, it sill is an advantage to have a 2nd render-machine, cutting down rendertimes by half. But keep in mind, that there is no use of a slow and weak system as 2nd renderer. This means, the renderer needs to same specs as the main system, or even greater (more RAM, for example). I would put this on the wishlist for the future and go with one strong system and the tools we mentioned.

When working with more than one computer, you'll have to sync them. Fonts, effects, plugins, scripts, versions of all used software, drivers, OS - all has to be the same. Otherwise, you can't be sure that all computers are rendering a correct output. Syncing them can be automatic, but is still a hassle now and then.

*Martin

[rene@studio6]

Hi,





thanks both so much for this very helpful answer!





I had written I have a budget of 5K for one machine. In fact I actually am planing to built 2 workstations (for 2 people to work) and have 10K to spent for it.

I didn't know about the tools like RenderBoss. They are mainly for AE, right?

The workstations are also supposed to be used for 3D-Rendering in C4D (and partly 3ds Max). Therefore I think having a rendergarden so or so is usefull (maybe with some extra budget).

A NAS is already existing. Also first experience in getting a farm to work, at least with older computers we had available.

What's lacking is the knowledge of what is a good strategie or good Hardware to invest into, which you guys already helped out a lot now.

If I sum up that

- the difference in costs between the i9-9900k and i9-9900XE
 is significant, especially if I buy 2

- Premiere has the lowest priority in my task list


- and Cinema4D supposedly seems to perform better in single-core rendering with the K-version, but of course slower in multi-core rendering,


I wonder if it isn't the better choice to go for the 9900K and use the saved money to invest in external render-power...?


best, r

[Martin_Ritter]

The rendertools we mentioned are only for AE. If you are searching for a roundup solution, check out Deadline. But I'm not sure, if Deadline can launch several render-jobs on one machine. This is the core functionality of the other tools, resulting in way better hardware usage.

For building and managing a renderfarm, have a closer look at RenderBoss. It seems like it is made for this exact task. RenderGarden can do this, too, but is not that comfortable when it comes to multi-machine rendering. Get a demo of both.

I would go with the i9-9900k, too and use the saved money for additional stuff, like good network (1GBit or 10GBit - also a question to be answered), monitors, additional rendermachines, good cpu cooling to have room for a bit OC, 2nd NAS as failsafe, ...

*Martin

[rene@studio6]

Thanks again. That points me into the right direction!