What PC to build, updated January 2012
A question often asked is what system to build for NLE.
The previous article about this topic dates back to March 2010, so it was due an update because there were so many new developments in the past two years, including CS5.5
Basically you can think along three roads, a budget PC, an economical PC and the warrior PC. Notice that MAC is not mentioned here. There are three reasons for that, one is I'm not qualified to really advise on MAC's, two is that they are way overpriced and three they are severely limited in component choices. So this is all about PC.
Whether you want to have a budget, economical or warrior PC, there are a number of common components that you will always need, a case, a PSU, CPU cooler, monitor, keyboard, mouse, DVD/BR burner and stuff like that so I'm not going into those components, with the exception of case, PSU and CPU cooler.
CASE:
While the case of your choice is often determined by looks and what appeals to you (or your CFO, the wife), I want to stress that for all categories, budget, economical or warrior, it is better to use a BIG tower, instead of a mid tower.
Why, you may wonder. Actually there are a lot of reasons. Mid towers can limit your choices in CPU coolers, because the case is not wide enough to install certain CPU coolers. The height of the cooler does not fit in the case. They can limit your choice of video card, because these have grown in length significantly and mid towers often do not allow the installation of certain video cards due to the limited depth or prevent you from installing hard disks in certain slots. Mid towers will limit your expansion capabilities (less drive cages), make installation of components more difficult, have limited cable management features, have limited airflow and tend to become hotter than big towers and thus more noisy (the fans need to run at higher speed) and limit overclockabilty.
A BIG tower is the (only) way to go.
PSU:
The PSU is one of the most crucial components in any system but also the one component most often overlooked. A good PSU will give you years of reliable work on your PC, a suboptimal or mediocre PSU will give you tremendous headaches and unexplainable crashes, hangs or errors, causing you to miss deadlines.
Go to eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Pro v2.5 and get the Pro version. Enter all your components, including planned expansions, set the Motherboard to High End - Desktop, set the CPU Utilization (TDP) to 100%, set System Load to 100% and Capacitor Aging to 30% and press the Calculate button. Add 10 - 15% to this Wattage for safety and note the required amperage on the various rails (+3.3V, +5V and +12V). Based on these figures, select a good GOLD label PSU, that meets the total wattage and the amperage on each rail. It is your best guarantee for long and reliable, troublefree editing.
Budget, economical or warrior system
Before going into these three systems, you can consider them to be a rough 'Best-buying Guide', let me remind you of the basic practical system requirements for CS5.5 and consider your own workflow to interpret these charts.
It starts with the codec:
Since DSLR is getting so popular, let me remind you that this is ranked under the 'Difficult' codecs and P2 is an 'Easy' codec. The more difficult the codec you use, the higher the system requirements. See:
For the full article, see Adobe Forums: System requirements for CS5
As a rough translation from 'Easy', 'Intermediate' and 'Difficult' to the kind of system you want to build, you could say that 'Easy' can be handled quite well with a 'Budget' system, 'Intermediate' is best handled by an 'Economical' or better system and 'Difficult' requires an 'Economical' or better system. A 'Budget' system may struggle with the load of such 'Difficult' codecs.
Note that in the following table, I have mentioned components in each category. These are just examples of what could fit in each category, they are not necessarily a combination of components that I would build per se.
Also note that I have not chosen the fastest CPU in each category, but only unlocked CPU's. Each can be overclocked for optimal results and then will deliver a better Bang-For-The-Buck (BFTB) than the highest clocked CPU in that range. Finally, note that the budget system can benefit from increasing memory to 4 x 4 GB for only € 38 extra. That is the weakest link in the budget system.
Prices mentioned are current day prices in the Netherlands (01-11-2012) including 19% VAT.
Here are my suggestions:
The main difference in comparison to the previous guide, is that the i7-3930K appears to be faster and better affordable than a dual Xeon X5680 system.
Anyway, I hope this helps people comtemplating a new system to get the right components in an affordable system.
226
Replies
Yo!
Very helpful info, learnt allot from it. Thanks Harm and everyone else 
I wish to create a system mainly for simple photo editing in Lr and very little Photoshop, but also for editing DSLR H.264 footage in Pr (mainly simple colorgrading etc.) and very little in Ae.
Unfortunately I am on a very tight budget
I already have:
An external raid: CalDigit S2VR HD 1.5TB (This craves eater eSATA 2.0 or PCIe-x8)
2x 2TB WD Caviar green
500GB WD Caviar blue
Cooler Master Silencio 550
I intend to stripe the external raid for video editing in Pr and Ae (Is it overkill to stripe 5x 7200rpm drives for H.264 footage?).
One of the 2TB drives will function as my main data drive, the other as external backup via SATA slot in the front of the cabinet.
The 500GB drive will ether function as my OS drive, or as an extra data drive (if i choose to go SSD).
I got the Cooler Master cheap. It is not a huge case, but i am not too concerned about fan noise (the raid is f****** noisy anyway!) and i can always upgrade this part.
So... Now i just need all the important parts. I cant decide whether to go with a Z77 motherboard + i5 3550 or i7 3770, or a X79 motherboard and i7 3820.
GPU wise i am thinking MSI GTX 570 1.28GB (it would be nice to render my color gradings with the mercury engine).
PSU: Corsair TX V2 750w
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 4x 4GB 1600mhz CL9-9-9-24 1.5v
120GB SSD (havent come to a conclusion with this one yet.. I can see there has been a bit of a debate about it already)
ICY BOX card reader (i use CF cards).
Sony Optiarc DVD
Later optional addons: Corsair H60 (if its too noisy/gets too hot)
I know nothing about OC'ing, but i would like to try it.. I am attracted to the Asus motherboards, because they have the one button OC feature.
Hope you guys can help
Micekhoho wrote:
Noctua NH-D14
I hate to see this myth of the Noctua NH-D14 being perpetuated. It is a very old cumbersome design that makes working on memory impossible unless you remove the CPU heatsink. In it's day it was a great choice but newer designs like the Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO are more efficient, a whole lot easier to work with, and less expensive. The reason (unless someone has information on a change) is that Noctua is not using direct contact heat pipes and Coolermaster and others are. This means that you have to transfer heat first to the block of metal containing the heat pipes and then the block of metal has to transfer the heat to the heat pipes. The direct contact method is more efficient. Of course since the Coolermaster only comes with one fan you should also order a second fan and that all comes to half the cost of the Noctua for superior cooling
Coolermaster--
"4 Direct Contact heat pipes with proprietary CDC (Continuous Direct Contact) technology create a perfect, sleek surface for heat conduction"
Here are the heat pipes
Bill,
I don't personally use a NH-D14, but are you maybe thinking about a different Noctua model when you slam it vs. a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO?
I've inserted a photo of the NH-D14 below and it doesn't look to be that offensive in the RAM bumping department. Also, I just did some www searching and found a test which included the delta-T for bother coolers you mention (and a whole lot more!).
With a test using an i7-920 OC'd to 4.0GHz, the Noctual was keeping the temperatures 7 to 10 deg. C cooler than the Hyper 212 EVO! Both coolers were configured with identical fans to level the playing field. The Noctua was 7 deg. more effective using 2xNoctua NF-P14 fans and 10 deg. C cooler when both coolers were equipped with Coolink 2xSWiF2-120P fans. (ref. vortez.net)
I do really like and would recommend the Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO in the sub-$30 range. I don't however think it is one of the best coolers out there when including more expensive cooling solutions.
Regards,
Jim
kimchitaco wrote:
i7 3930K $538.74
---------------
Seagate Barracuda 2TB $118.51
--------------
Gigabyte X79-UD3 Motherboard $238.99
Samsung F4 2TB HDD
Crucial 128GB SSD $122.49
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 $84.95
Geforce GTX 580: $345.02
Cooler Master HAF932 $139.99
Corsair 750W PSU $99.92 (used Thermaltake Power Supply Calculator and seems like i'm very underpowered and need to stretch to a 1000W PSU)
Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD Drive $21.05
Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile 16GB DDR3 $97.99
Again, I'm very unfamiliar with advanced/professional video editing setups and workflows.
Looks pretty good to me.
Are you going to OC this system? If so make sure you have a board that has good power control. If you're not going to OC you probably don't need the Noctua.
(ii) The best Corsair PSUs are made by Seasonic, so I went straight to the source and got a Gold-rated fully modular Seasonic 750W for $120. If concerned about power, go for the Seasonic Platinum 1000W. Gold and Platinum refer to efficiency and are very important.
(iii) 128GB is going to feel cramped on an SSD. I found a Crucial 256GB for only $179. The 256GB model is a bit faster too.
(iv) This system cries out for a bit more RAM. 32GB?
AdChoices