Building a Photo and Video Editing PC. Hardware questions...

Report · Sep 16, 2014

Hi all,

I'm finally ditching the 3-year old laptop and building myself an editing rig (or mini-rig, since it's a pastime) and I need your help. I'm going to be using Lightroom and Photoshop a lot for workflow and editing, respectively, and Premiere for video editing and creating slideshows/films using both photo and video.

What I'd like to know if whether I'm better off investing in more CPU power or GPU power? If one or the other, what should I be looking for? I'm on a budget (under $2k, ideally under $1500) so please keep the suggestions reasonable. I won't be working with 4K video or 50MP images, mostly just 1080p60 and 24MP images for at least a couple of years.

Thanks for your help!

Report · Sep 26, 2014

I use that a ton. I use the built-in and also VideoCopilot's Element 3D in almost every single video. It's PAINFUL to scrub the timeline, let alone export. If that performs all the calculations the CPU is doing for me now, that will reduce my rendering time substantially. I have literally thousands of 3d particle effects and lots of lights on many complex textured objects.

That said, not everyone uses the 3D features of AE so in fairness, those of you just editing videos won't get any of that.

However, Premiere Pro and AME state they do make use of CUDA when previewing and exporting with huge speed increases. That's where I feel the OP is largely going to be. Rather than generating CGI, just using Premiere Pro to edit amateur videos and AME to export the final product. A worthy target to desire CUDA acceleration.

Keep in mind, products get regular upgrades. Knowing the potential of the technology, do you see them doing anything but embracing it everywhere it can possibly be used? When you compare the raw power of the CPU and GPU, it's no doubt anyone would love to tap the GPU. But the work must be within the limits of the beast and a GPU is really only good for very specific things. One thing is for sure though, video is one of those things, and it's not going anywhere.

Report · Sep 26, 2014

Well the last I heard AE is moving away from Ray Tracer and leaving that aspect to C4D. C4D currently doesn't have GPU acceleration built in. I heard rumors of work on it but that's it. However those who use C4D can get Octane which is the GPU acceleration renderer for C4D. Then you do have the GPU acceleration and some really nice features.

Eric

ADK

Report · Sep 26, 2014

I use a lot of 3D in AE so it makes sense for me. That's my boat.

[off-topic info]

I also use C4D because I create stereoscopic (3D) content and AE with the default 3d camera rig is only capable of half (Horizontal Top and Bottom) or quarter resolution (Half Side By Side) 3D output. Essentially it outputs a 1920x1080 picture with the left eye and right eye data separated into 2 squished frames sitting side by side or on top and bottom of each other. Because each eye is only getting 1920x540 or 960x540 pixels of resolution to fit in a single 1920x1080 frame, it's half resolution 3D. In order to get actual (frame packed) true 3D for both eyes, you need to have Cinema 4D and some helper plugins to integrate them.

Blu-rays come with full data for each eye, called FHD3D. It's 2 full 1920x1080 images stacked on top of each other with 45 pixels of black separating them. These jumbo frames require HDMI 1.4 to serve them at high speed (60FPS+) and are 1920x2205 resolution. AE for whatever reason has no export option for that which is pretty stupid. Neither does Premiere. So I'm stuck rendering final 3D content in Cinema 4D so people with active displays get the full resolution picture to each eye, not half or quarter.

[/off-topic info]

I use 3DS Max with Vray which uses CUDA cores as well.

Overall I'm hoping it's pretty noticeable. And I really don't think Adobe is always going to depend on other products to handle shortcomings. They have to deal with things like jumbo frames now because ultimately they're still a lot smaller than 4K resolution, and everyone is heading there, like it or not. We need the CUDA and OpenGL/CL speed.

Report · Sep 26, 2014

Open GL doesn't really provide any acceleration anymore. What was utilized in the past has far been surpassed by CUDA and Open CL.

Eric

ADK

Report · Sep 26, 2014

OpenGL spec and coding aren't going anywhere. Most quality games are developed in it for the multi-platform capabilities (same code runs with minor tweaks on Windows, Linux, OSX, etc. Much like flash, there aren't many serious alternatives that are multi-platform. DirectX is the biggest threat and as you know, that's squarely Windows-only.

But I know you mean in the era of tons of proprietary rendering engines, general purpose SIMD processing acceleration is desired so you can choose any engine as the end target and benefit from the acceleration. And I agree, people are making development tools based on OpenGL much less these days and CUDA-esque techniques are far more desirable.

Report · Sep 26, 2014

As an API Open GL is here to stay. As you guessed I meant the acceleration plugins added for it. Those are really legacy at this point and likely wont be used unless something new is changed in the future. Windows unfortunately is the dominant platform currently so Direct X is definitely pushing Open GL use back some. The time it took for the Open GL standard to catch up to Direct X 11 really didn't help either.

Eric

ADK

Report · Sep 30, 2014

This is a long one, skip through to quoted tests if you like.

I ordered my card last Wednesday and newegg next day hath let me down. It didn't come in until yesterday (day off). I did finally have time today to do some experiments and I've learned a few things that people should know about codecs and CUDA.

CUDA has several versions and a SDK (of course) to use it. At present Adobe Media Encoder CC 2014 and Sorenson Squeeze 9 do utilize CUDA, but do not support the new Nividia NVENC SDK for Kepler+ cores. Essentially a couple years of CUDA core cards aren't usable for acceleration in MP4 H.264 MainConcept, the only codec optimized to use CUDA cores (that anyone typically cares about).

I decided not to put the card on a i7-4xxx video rig, instead choosing to put it on the oldest i5-2500K machine. I plan on upgrading this rig anyhow but I wanted to see how much CUDA could help an old machine feel new again.

You won't be disappointed..

It took quite a bit of digging and one great plugin offered that I will link later along with some 3rd party utilities to actually use Kepler+ CUDA.

Old Rig:

Intel i5-2500k Sandy Bridge (No OC)

16GB DDR3 Corsair XMS Vengence 1333

Video Source:

3:20 HD (1920x1080p@24) Quicktime Animation Lossless w/ PCM Audio

Video Test Targets:

MP4 H.264 25000/384k 1920x1080p@24 w/ AAC

MPEG2 25000/384k 1920x1080p@24 w/ PCM/AAC

Exports were concurrent in both encoders, meaning both videos were encoding in different threads at the same time.

24p isn't really a difficult target and the source content was multimedia, which is usually pretty tricky to encode, with lots of fast movement and particles. I'm keeping it there so the i5-2500k doesn't cry for mama. I'm also reading and writing to separate disks to remove as much HD bottlenecking as possible.

Each test was performed 3 times and times are averaged.

Adobe Media Encoder CC 2014 via old Radeon HD 6870:

Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

09/30/2014 10:48:50 AM : Queue Resumed

09/30/2014 10:55:00 AM : Queue Stopped

6min 10sec Total

Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (OpenCL)

09/30/2014 10:59:03 AM : Queue Resumed

09/30/2014 11:05:13 AM : Queue Stopped

6min 10sec Total

Well, that does literally nothing useful at all. Either that old video card couldn't be utilized or is just unsupported.

From here on, the GTX 980 was installed and no more tests were done on the HD 6870. I just wanted a point of reference.

Adobe Media Encoder CC 2014 via GeForce GTX 980 (2048 CUDA cores):

Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

09/30/2014 01:05:55 PM : Queue Resumed

09/30/2014 01:11:57 PM : Queue Stopped

6min 2sec Total

Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

09/30/2014 01:14:52 PM : Queue Resumed

09/30/2014 01:20:56 PM : Queue Stopped

6min 4sec Total (???)

What the heck? Ok, reading some I see I need at least 512MB RAM on the video card and a compute ability of 1.1 or higher, only then will "use GPU" be enabled. Well, it's enabled and the driver (latest) is reported clearly:

4GB RAM (in the mem tab) and 2048 with a compute capability of 5.2, so yep, CUDA should be working here. What's the missing ingredient?

MainConcept MP4 H.264.

Currently they do not support Kepler or newer CUDA cores at all. So the video encoders are just shrugging it off, neglecting the abandoned SDK for the new NVENC SDK.

To show the unanimous support missing:

Sorenson Squeeze 9 via GeForce GTX 980 (2048 CUDA cores):

GPU Acceleration Disabled

6min 39s

GPU Acceleration Enabled (Only on MP4 H.265 MainConcept)

6min 44sec (???)

Well that stinks! But alas, with much searching and a long face, I came upon this Adobe forum thread with an excellent solution for Premiere Pro and AME, an export plugin that has been updated to use Kepler+ CUDA cores called NVENC_encode! (Thank you!):

NVidia GPU-accelerated H264-encoder plugin, ready for public testing

Yes, it is experimental and requires 3 3rd party libraries to help finish the encoding, but it actually works perfectly, AND in parallel! After you place the export plugin in your AME CC 2014 plugins folder and restart, you now have a NVENC_encode target to choose from. This source is not Multiplexed (audio/video combined) so as the author recommends, do download the TsMuxer, MP4Box and NeroAACEncode libraries/apps. His plugin asks for the executables paths to each of them and now not only can you export MP4 H.264 with Kepler+ CUDA cores, you can export MPEG2 as well!

That's pretty amazing.

Before using CUDA, here's what every export always showed, pegged out CPU, almost all my RAM in use and the GPU usage at 0-1%:

Now, use the above supplied plugin and here's the new encoding times.

Adobe Media Encoder CC 2014 via GeForce GTX 980 (2048 CUDA cores) using NVENC Plugin (+ 3RD party apps for mux/audio):

Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

VIA NVENC 3RD PARTY ENCODER (w/ TSMUX (MP2), MP4BOX (MP4) and NeroAACEnc (MP4 AAC))

09/30/2014 04:06:57 PM : Queue Resumed

09/30/2014 04:08:20 PM : Queue Stopped

1min 23s Total (!!!!!!!!!!)

The quality of the video is, even at close inspection, nearly identical to the software rendered version. If there are differences, nobody will notice them. I realize the Quadro cards are designed to be absolutely identical but even when I go frame by frame on either MPEG2 or MP4 source with a software render, I can't see anything at all that I don't like.

One thing I DO like? The encoding time. Encoding a single file let me use up to 50% of the GTX 980, keeping CPU in the 80% range. I could notice my system was much more responsive during encoding:

Even better? Encoding both targets (MP4 & MPEG2) let me use up to 70% of the GTX 980 and still maintain the same CPU. So even on a palsy i5-2500K with DDR3 (in dual channel) with SATA HDs, I'm getting a huge benefit. Here's encoding 2 at once:

80% range was maintained and even though the videos were concurrently encoding I could totally use my system to do other things. In fact the encoding was so fast I didn't even have time to try to do other things, it completed so fast.

Adobe should really jump on board and take a look at NVENC. The advantages are obvious. Not just in encoding. CUDA cores are general purpose power, not specific to video related tasks. Every application can make use of the insane amount of power available, idling on the video card.

And hey, if you're on a budget like the OP, the certain newer and older cards (Fermi, Tesla, ION) CUDA cores can be used by AME and Premiere right out of the box. Just be sure you're not using Kepler or Maxwell.

I can only imagine what the encoding time is going to be reduced to when I quad channel 32GB DDR4 off SSD to an i7-5xxx Haswell hex core with hyperthreading. I'm going to need a second pair of underwear.

Report · Sep 30, 2014

Thanks for the head up, I use a GTX760 (Kepler), I'll look into what you've mentioned to see IF I can really benefit from all this.

As for a new X99 platform test here a vid that mention his previous Z97 encoding time and the new X99 encoding time: Watercooled 5960X Overclocking and Benchmarking - How are the temps? - YouTube

Report · Sep 30, 2014

I'm totally for water cooling and overclocking. His setup would be something I have done numerous times back when liquid wasn't nearly as safe as it is now. It was the age when we used CRTs at an average 120hz so you actually could feel the difference between 60fps and 120fps. 60fps was boggy, so I overclocked like crazy.

And I get why his 22% performance increase in rendering is considerable to him. Here's what I wonder however. In the comments I see he's running 3 780s, is that correct? Because that puts him squarely in Kepler+ range and he's not even utilizing it. He's impressed that he can export at 78% of realtime. If he had Premiere Pro and the NVENC_encode plugin for it, on his rig, he would probably export 20x faster. Although there have been many disclaimers that using CUDA cores across multiple cards can cause issues and some are limited to only the CUDA cores on a single card.

Bottom line, he bought an insane water cooling system and extremely expensive CPU and moderate RAM (only 16GB? weird). He pretty much doubled his previous CPU. The CPU I recommended above would be incredibly fast as well but cost 1/3. Since he doubled his scores, let's say he doubled his render speed. Then add 22% to it for the overclock as he said. So he's encoding his videos 122% faster than he was before, sub-realtime.

I just increased my encoding speed by 600%, merely using CUDA cores, on a single GTX 980. I think the CUDA cores, given their inexpensive nature, are the way the OP should go.

If I get more time later in the week I'll try to put together a pretty aggressive Premiere Pro project with plenty of effects and give the timing with CUDA on and off. While encoding is clearly insanely better on CUDA, it remains to be seen how much faster actual rendering will be.

Report · Sep 30, 2014

Just to be clear most of his Hardware is was all ready his for years so ... Cost wise... and he tell you that it's expensive true but for him it's worth it.

Report · Sep 30, 2014

Also he using VEGAS not PREMIERE, it could that the CUDA implementation is different.

Report · Sep 30, 2014

I know my post above was too long but it took a long time lurking in the dark to realize what the issue was.

Specifically for encoding in AME, the issue was MainConcept H.264 being the CUDA-friendly encode target. The, PRE-Kepler encoder. Now that's the missing detail here. MainConcept H.264 is a staple target that ALL video editing apps can target. It makes no difference if it's Vegas or Premiere, you are using the very same encoder.

What the plugin I linked above does is give you a H.264 (NON-MainConcept) encoder that can use Kepler+ CUDA cores by implementing NVENC SDK. MainConcept told me they do NOT plan on updating MainConcept H.264 for Kepler+. So it will never render using modern CUDA, in ANY video editing app.

You can just search for Vegas CUDA and see endless people misunderstanding why they upgrade their CUDA and suddenly rendering and performance is terrible and no GPU is used during export from Vegas. They don't know it doesn't support Kepler+. That said, neither does Premiere or AME, without the plugin I linked.

My i5-2500k GTX 980 can probably beat his 8 core overclocked Haswell on export. When I upgrade to the hex core Haswell, I will annhiliate him with CUDA, guaranteed.

Report · Sep 19, 2014

....no !!!....don't do it !!!!

If you are planning on using the current and future versions of PPro, AND are planning to edit in a professional, or, even advanced amateur manner....you MUST be aware of the following :

1. FORGET AMD....PPro is GEARED to run with CUDA acceleration...this is currently provided by NVidia GPUS ONLY !!!

2. CONSIDER the brand new Haswell E CPU and its new X99 chipset. This new platform will help meet the future...which includes 4K and beyond. TEN onboard SATAIII ports will provide better high speed storage options and the new quad channel memory will improve performance....look FORWARD !!!... not BACKWARD with old motherboards and chipsets. Look at Eric's postings on his recent test results for the Haswell E. Even the mid level and base level CPU perform very well....especially considering their cheaper price.

3. IF using any mechanical HDDs in a desktop, do NOT use the 2.5" notebook hard drives...they are SLOWER than the larger destop drives. HOWEVER, if it is at all affordable, you would do BETTER using Samsung 850 Pro SSDs,or, Crucial M550 SSDs for your storage. The higher speed and low latency adds up to WAY better performance.

Report · Sep 19, 2014

1080p60 video is going to require gobs of space. In a $2k budget, there's no room for a $700 1TB SSD when the performance of a couple RAID0 raptors would give excellent performance and quadruple the space, cheaper. Stroked, you could barely feel the difference, except when you simply don't run out of space. And don't get me wrong, I have SSDs in RAID on my video rig, but I had a $5k budget.

Report · Sep 19, 2014

Hi,

I'm aware of the X99 prowess but I cannot sink 1.5K$ JUST on the MB & Processor + the DDR4 price.

It's guides lines I gave, it's a personal build that I change / update with time until I hit completion. The 2.5 inch HDD was a limitation of the previous version of the case (now they added 3.5 inch hdd support).

NB: Z97 is the CURRENT chipset that is not geared toward "Enterprise class" / "Professional workload"

NB2: I'm no near a professional, I need something that will do a lot better then I have with a "reasonable" price tag. Also my Post was geared toward the previous poster price range request and was to serve as guide line.

Report · Sep 22, 2020

It's really a combo of both ... and it's not an easy thing to figure out. For the most part the CPU will give you the most return, until you render, then a good GPU will help you there. The key is finding the right combo and not breaking the bank ... and I just went through this nightmare and figured it out. https://cineclast.com/2020/09/15/the-best-pc-for-editing-video-on-premiere-pro-period-and-under-2000...