Video Editing Build

Keggers2

Hey guys, so I've decided that I needed to splash out on a new computer for work. All's explained below, I'm open to any and all suggestions because I know there's no 'one way' to do this. And yes, I'm pretty much totally new to computer building (I put in a heat sink once :pac:). Thanks in advance!

1. What is your budget? [€1200+300 for a monitor]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Mainly video editing, Adobe Premier and After Affects projects, photoshop, that sort of thing. I'm also hoping to do some gaming on it, such as Rome II when it comes out, at as high specs as possible.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [No]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [No]

5. Do you need a monitor? [Yes, will be budgeting about 300 just for a monitor]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [No]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes]

8. How can you pay? [Paypal]

9. When are you purchasing? [Within in the next 30 days]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Laois]

BloodBath

How about something like this? What resolution and size did you have in mind for the monitor?


Item|Price
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€319.00
MSI Z87-G43, ATX, Sockel 1150|€104.99
16GB-Kit G.Skill Sniper PC3-14900U CL9-10-9-28|€118.08
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 3000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€112.34
Nanoxia Deep Silence One Dark Anthracite, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€94.35
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 500W|€53.71
Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.A (BW)|€40.48
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 13Series, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€264.46
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1208.39

Keggers2

Oh should've mentioned! I'll probably go with a 1920x1080 resolution, and would really like a 27'' screen, but I'll take general quality over size any time!

phonypony

Depending on what video codecs you are working with and the bit rates of the files, you may need more HDs than just one (aside from your OS drive). Particularly if you're working with multi-cam stuff. The General recommendation for even HDV is to have one drive for source footage and another for cache and previews. A RAID config is preferable. Also the general concensus at the moment for Premiere Pro is to stick with NVidia due to the way cuda cores are utilised by Adobe (Though they are still working on AMD compatibility...) Have a good read of the Adobe Premiere hardware forums!

Keggers2

I was looking into that a while ago alright. Now a lot of the technical stuff IS lost on me, but it seems that most of the guys working with RAID setups are also running monstrously powerful machines and working with a lot of 4/5k footage.

Realistically, for the forseeable future I'll probably be working with HD DSLR footage, which Premier Pro handles natively. My line of thought being (and now I could be totally wrong about this) that my workflow wouldn't be quite heavy enough to require RAID drives?

tuxy

Wouldn't an Nvidia card be the one to go for if using Adobe Premire.
It currently only has support for CUDA cores for GPU acceleration.
That said rendering video with just the CPU on a new i7 is still going to be fast.

indough

actually you would be all right with an AMD graphics card provided you go for the new premiere pro* when it's released. the mercury playback engine didn't support hardware acceleration for openCL (amd cards) in premiere pro for windows up to now but it is being implemented for windows in the next version (OSX got it in CS6).

*one thing i should mention is that there wont be a version CS7 per se, adobe are moving to a cloud subscription model whereby you don't receive any physical media or own the licence but rather you rent it from them on a monthly basis. also they won't be rolling the AMD support back for previous versions, so if you have a problem with that and want to stick with CS6 or below then you will need to go for a CUDA capable card.

as far as RAID goes I wouldn't worry about it as long as you set up a scratch disk of some kind

BloodBath

Revised build taking on board what people said. Went with 2 x 2tb drives instead of a single 3tb one. Upgraded the board to one with better sound and sli support since I changed the card to an Nvidia one. The power supply is upgraded as well in case you decide to get a second card when you need to.

There's a good 24" 1080p monitor there as well. I think if you're going 27" or higher you should go 1440p.

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€319.00
16GB-Kit G.Skill Sniper PC3-14900U CL9-10-9-28|€118.08
MSI Z87-G45 Gaming, ATX, Sockel 1150|€134.99
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€161.68
Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.A (BW)|€40.48
LG 24EA53VQ|€159.00
ASUS GTX660 Ti-DC2-2GD5, GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2048MB DDR5|€269.23
Nanoxia Deep Silence One Dark Anthracite, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€94.35
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€80.13
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1477.92

Keggers2

Thanks for all the info everyone!

One final question, seeing as I'll be going to college next year (to do film production) would be worth my while looking into powerful laptops over a PC? It's something I know literally nothing about, any opinions?

tuxy

Keggers2 wrote: »

Thanks for all the info everyone!

One final question, seeing as I'll be going to college next year (to do film production) would be worth my while looking into powerful laptops over a PC? It's something I know literally nothing about, any opinions?

You could not get a laptop that had as much processing power as this desktop even if you spent much more money on it.
The laptop CPUs even if they are branded as i5s and i7s are much slower as they need to run on less power with less heat produced.
I would only recommend a loptop if you absolutely must have a system that is portable.

indough

youd be limited by the screen size and resolution anyway, it's very important for this kind of work

tuxy

indough wrote: »

youd be limited by the screen size and resolution anyway, it's very important for this kind of work

It's not really the physical size that's important but the resolution. He was planning on getting a monitor that is 1080p. You can get the same resolution and therefore the same work space on the more expensive laptops.

indough

it does make a difference, video editing on a smaller screen is a pain in the arse when it comes to working with clips that are too cramped together and things like that

Keggers2

To be honest I'd much rather a desktop, it's just that my current laptop is on it's last legs and I'm presuming I'll be needing a new one for college.

I won't have the money for both so tough decisions will have to be made!

tuxy

It would be possible to build a good desktop on a smaller budget. You would lose some performance but not a huge amount. You could buy a cheap laptop for note taking and other non processor intensive tasks with the money you save.

Using an AMD processor and down grading the graphic card slightly you could save €400 on the desktop build. it would still be much faster than a laptop for video editing and gaming.

marco_polo

Keggers2 wrote: »

To be honest I'd much rather a desktop, it's just that my current laptop is on it's last legs and I'm presuming I'll be needing a new one for college.

I won't have the money for both so tough decisions will have to be made!

Like Tuxy suggests, does it really have to be an absolutely top of the range video editing rig?

Here is a decent enough AM3+ one for about a grand leaving the 500 aside for a laptop.

Item|Price
LG 24EA53VQ|€159.00
Cooler Master Force 500 Midi-Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€34.31
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 500W|€53.77
Gigabyte GA-970-UD3, AMD 970, AM3+, ATX|€78.45
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€142.13
Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.A (BW)|€40.48
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
ASUS GTX660 Ti-DC2-2GD5, GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2048MB DDR5|€270.42
8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL10|€55.77
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€57.27
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€992.58

indough

are you planning on typing up your notes in class or something?

tuxy

indough wrote: »

are you planning on typing up your notes in class or something?

Just about every college student will need at least a basic laptop as there is not always a free PC in the library. Lecture notes often come as PDFs and students may have to make last minute changes to something like a power point presentations.

Gumbi

tuxy wrote: »

Just about every college student will need at least a basic laptop as there is not always a free PC in the library. Lecture notes often come as PDFs and students may have to make last minute changes to something like a power point presentations.

This. To elaborate, a 300 - 350 euro will do for college. Cheapest possible i3, 4GB RAM, sorted really.

indough

ive been in and out of college a few times over the course of my adult life and cant say i ever absolutely needed a laptop once theres a computer at home. computer facilities on campuses in this country tend to be decent as well. the money could possibly be better directed towards camera gear because that is something which is more likely to be in short supply.

Gumbi

indough wrote: »

ive been in and out of college a few times over the course of my adult life and cant say i ever absolutely needed a laptop once theres a computer at home. computer facilities on campuses in this country tend to be decent as well. the money could possibly be better directed towards camera gear because that is something which is more likely to be in short supply.

Laptops are simply mandatory for group project work. I do computer systems, and this is most certainly the case. If someone doesn't have a laptop, he/she generally twiddle their thumbs while others work on, say, different sections of code for a project,/write a different part of the report.

College resources are good, yes, but have their downsides. The library computers in UL have a line to use them sometimes. Of course, you can't do project work there with a group. Labs have tutors/lecturers using them part of the day, so you're guaranteed freedom of communication with a group.

Keggers2

In terms of camera gear I'm actually pretty well equipped because I've been doing it for some time, though that's taken under consideration.

I think the suggestion of going with a cheaper PC and a cheap laptop is the way to go! To be honest I don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place :rolleyes:

The laptop would literally just be for taking notes, doing assignments, that sort of thing so really it can be cheap as chips. I'd just rather have access to my own one. As that cheaper build and a cheap laptop would come to about the same price as the initial build, that seems to make the most sense for me personally.

Thanks again for all the suggestions folks.

tuxy

Nice, that build by marco_polo is very nice for the price btw definitely go with that

Slutmonkey57b

Doing video editing on a 1080p screen is mental. Your source file is that resolution, how are you going to work around it? An extra 150-200 on a 1440 monitor, even if you go the Korean import route, is far preferable.

indough

you dont view your video at its full resolution during most of editing but yeah a better res is obviously preferable once it falls within budget. even then decent colour reproduction will probably be a slightly higher priority if colour correcting/grading

BloodBath

No need to lose the ram and hdd space. You will most likely need them. Similar build opting for more hdd space and 16gb of ram over the 660ti. You can add a second 660 gtx when you need to as the board supports sli. 660ti's are poor value atm anyway.

Item|Price
16GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL9|€104.63
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€161.68
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€164.99
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€142.13
Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3, AMD 990X, AM3+, ATX|€93.22
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€28.37
LG 24EA53VQ|€159.00
Cooltek Antiphon Black, ohne Netzteil|€63.00
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 600W|€66.91
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1002.92

Slutmonkey57b

That build leaves you ~500 for a decent screen, which is a good buy. Swapping the AMD for an Ivy Bridge would only add ~50 to the cost too.

tuxy

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

That build leaves you ~500 for a decent screen, which is a good buy. Swapping the AMD for an Ivy Bridge would only add ~50 to the cost too.

It leaves nothing when he has to buy a laptop

BloodBath

It would be more than €50 for an 8 thread xeon or i5 3770. More like €100-150.

There's a monitor included in the build as well.

Keggers2

Well assuming that I can get my hands on a cheapo laptop for about 350, and was going to spend 1200 on the computer anyway, anyone have any suggestions for a higher resolution screen in and around the 250 mark or does such a thing exist?

indough

you will probably want a matte ips screen if youre going to be needing accurate colours. i cant vouch for those korean monitors but dell ones come colour calibrated

Slutmonkey57b

You can get a physically bigger 27" monitor for about 250, but it won't have a higher resolution, and it won't have great colour calibration either.

If my job was video editing, then I'd be more inclined to splash money on a decent screen than I would to buy a laptop for college.

Newton and Einstein didn't have laptops in school, they seemed to take notes all right.....

tuxy

If you had a little more to spend you could go dual monitors. That would be a good setup for video editing. Maybe just buy one now and then get a second when you are sure you would make use of it.

Keggers2

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

You can get a physically bigger 27" monitor for about 250, but it won't have a higher resolution, and it won't have great colour calibration either.

If my job was video editing, then I'd be more inclined to splash money on a decent screen than I would to buy a laptop for college.

Newton and Einstein didn't have laptops in school, they seemed to take notes all right.....

Well it's my work in so far as I've been taking any photography/video making jobs when and wherever I can for the last couple of years and have decided that this summer I'm going to try and take it that bit more seriously again (already have a few jobs lined up from pretty much the day after the leaving cert ends). This is basically me treating myself for getting accepted to my course, generally needing my own workspace, and generally just wanting a more powerful PC!

I'm sure they didn't, but I can assure that I'm no Newton or Einstein, nor were they doing college courses related to film :P

I do have some old dell screens at home, might just hold off on a new monitor all together, save up again when summer happens and get a new screen when I have the money to get a nice one.

indough

just bear in mind when i spoke about dells above i was referring to the ultrasharp range. it might not be something you need to worry about in the beginning anyway because i doubt they'll have you editing anything straight away not to mind messing about with colour. you are right to wait and buy the best one you can though, it's one of the most important components for this purpose.

BloodBath

How about something like this? There's risks of course but you are covered if anything is wrong.

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/CROSSOVER-27Q-LED-P-27-DVI-PC-Computer-Monitor-2560X1440-16-9-Pivot-QHD-NEW-/170875589678?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c8fa942e#ht_13926wt_1164

There's a good Qnixx one as well for around €250 without the good stand this one has.

You would have to do the calibration through the graphics control panel unless you got a calibration tool. Most monitors are poorly calibrated anyway.

gctest50

Keggers2 wrote: »

Well it's my work in so far as I've been taking any photography/video making jobs when and wherever I can for ...........

Build something like this so you can use it on the "when and wherever" days too ? :

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/899515-REG/Livestream_Broadcaster_HD_500_Portable_Live.html

Keggers2

gctest50 wrote: »

Build something like this so you can use it on the "when and wherever" days too ? :

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/899515-REG/Livestream_Broadcaster_HD_500_Portable_Live.html

That's amazing!

Right, I'm going to go have a look for proper screens to invest in after I get the computer!

Will probably go with that LG as a nice general screen though.