GPU for 4k editing rig

[pitspiga]

Hello,
I am building a 4k editing pc with:
Intel Core i7-5820K Socket 2011-v3 3.3GHz
Cooler Master Pro MasterCase 5
Cooler Master V650 650W
SSD mSATA M.2 Samsung 950 PRO 256GB
Western Digital Purple 2TB 7200RPM
Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz 32GB
Gigabyte GA-X99-UD4P
ASUS PB287Q 4K Ultra HD 28"
GeForce GTX 970 WindForce 3x
Cooler Master Nepton 240M

I I am still just below my budget, I was wandering if buying a Gigabyte GeForce GTX980 4GB, for 170£ difference, directly and going over my budget, instead of buying later another gtx970 and use the as SLI.
I intend to edit 4k videos made with a phantom 4, and maybe even gaming, if one gtx970 is enough for now it would be better.
What do you think?
Maybe I should just keep the 970 and put 512 gb ssd instead of 256?

 

[SoNic67]

Video editing requirements are VERY different from 3D gaming.
For 4K video editing the best card TODAY is the GTX960 because it has the most advanced hardware video decoder and encoder. Similar decoder/encoder is also present in GTX950 - and only that one. GTX 970, 980 or whatever have older generation NVENC blocks. More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

Also in this field, Intel I7 CPU's are also a must for decent 4K performence.
The SSD is OK for the OS partition, but is useless for video editing, the bottleneck of the video editing and encoding process limits the actual write speed at values that a HDD can easily handle (only about 10-30MB/s for a 4K source).

Unfortunately, to use that encoder to it's full capacity you are limited to software like Cyberlink's PowerDirector.
I am saying this after tests and comparations with similar products from Adobe, Sony and Corel.

 

[pitspiga]

Video editing requirements are VERY different from 3D gaming.
For 4K video editing the best card TODAY is the GTX960 because it has the most advanced hardware video decoder and encoder. Similar decoder/encoder is also present in GTX950 - and only that one. GTX 970, 980 or whatever have older generation NVENC blocks. More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC
Unfortunately, to use that encoder to it's full capacity you are limited to Cyberlink's PowerDirector.

I am saying this after tests and comparations with similar products from Adobe, Sony and Corel.

Then why is a gtx 980 5 times more expensive?
WHat do you think, is it worth buying a 980 or should I just add ssd?

 

[SoNic67]

Because you pay for the 3D performance, that will sit unused in a NLE software (2D essentially). Plus it doesn't have the latest NVENC block - that's a separate piece of hardware on the silicon chip.
Both the GTX980 and SSD are just a waste of money for video editing, but I won't repeat what I already typed above.

 

[why_wolf]

if money isn't a problem you want to look at the Quadro line of Nvidia cards. Those ones are specifically rigged for video editing purposes as opposed to the general purpose GTX line.

 

[pitspiga]

Because you pay for the 3D performance, that will sit unused in a NLE software (2D essentially). Plus it doesn't have the latest NVENC block - that's a separate piece of hardware on the silicon chip.
Both the GTX980 and SSD are just a waste of money for video editing, but I won't repeat what I already typed above.

so what d you think I should improve from my configuration?, what about the cooling, is it worth doing it custom or at least using a swiftech h240 2x?

 

[Wisecracker]

You're spending a lot of money for no real benefit.

Even 4K video these days is best edited/rendered using low-CPU overhead GPU Compute. Additionally, NVENC relates to HEVC 4K video 'playback' -- not the editing and rendering of the video itself. HEVC 4K video processing is off-loaded from the CPU to the GPU logic to reduce CPU utilization.

What video editing software will you be using? Vegas favors the Radeons -- with Premiere there is no discernible difference . . .

 

[SoNic67]

so what d you think I should improve from my configuration?, what about the cooling, is it worth doing it custom or at least using a swiftech h240 2x?

Selected "best solution" is wrong.
My first post explains everything in detail, I not gonna waste my time again here, especially when you already selected another random answer as "best solution".

 

[SoNic67]

Even 4K video these days is best edited/rendered using low-CPU overhead GPU Compute. Additionally, NVENC relates to HEVC 4K video 'playback' -- not the editing and rendering of the video itself. HEVC 4K video processing is off-loaded from the CPU to the GPU logic to reduce CPU utilization.

Wrong twice. GPU compute is not used in rendering anymore today, unless you have a video card from 2010.
HVEC playback and encoding can be processed both by NVENC and PowerDirector can use it fully.

 

[Wisecracker]

You would be wrong, but don't let that stop you.

In Vegas GPU Compute, using the video card is 5X faster than CPU rendering on a quad core. In Premiere it is 6- to 7X faster with near-perfect scaling (twice that speed) using 2 video cards.

 

[SoNic67]

Dude, that's just a lot of marketing bull.
Try first to use a video editor software and then speak... Effects and actually encoding are two different tasks.
Like I said PowerDirector uses cores just for some effects, but doesn't use GPU cores for the actual encoding, it uses the NVENC ASIC (and it is blistering fast). You can have gazillions of cores, that's just what it is.
Also you read that Vegas uses the video card... you didn't really try it? Some effects are accelerated, but those are like 2% of a video. Encoding takes 98% of the remaining time and in Vegas is not accelerated unless you use a Fermi generation nVidia card or a HD69xx ATI card, that's when they stopped developing the encoder (2010). Newer cards are not recognized and used for encoding by the included Main Concept software. Sure you can spend several hundred $ on a newer plug in, but all of them use the NVENC part too, not the GPU cores.
Premiere uses the GPU (Mercury Engine) just for effects. Doesn't do GPU accelerated encoding. Sure, the effects (only some of them, not all) will run 10x faster. Still, in all the process it means nothing, effects don't take that much time even on CPU.