Help with PC build for 4k editing

[Greekscreech]

Hi everyone,

I'm sick of waiting for a mac pro refresh, and have decided to buy a computer this week for 4k editing in premire(and maybe avid later), after effects, and gaming. I was still considering getting a nMP, but after realizing what I'd get from a pc build for the same money, I'm leaning towards going that route. I've never built a computer from scratch before, and might take it to Fry's to get it assembled, but here's the build that I'm looking at:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/29t4vK

I'll eventually get 3 4k monitors and want the system to last 7-10 years and be extremely upgrade friendly. What do you guys think?

Questions:

1. Can you see any compatibility issues?
2. How do I make it work with thunderbolt? USB3 and wireless/wired networking is built into the motherboard and case right?
3. If I decide to add more hard drives internally and set them up in a raid, what would I need? A raid card? I would use these drives for 4k uncompressed editing.
4. Can I improve the cooling? One thing I love about the mac pro is the cooling. How would this build compare to the noise lvl of the mac pro?
5. Would I be able to add a 2nd cpu into this build if I ever wanted more cores?
6. What am I missing? What would you do differently? Is there any reason to still consider a mac pro?

Thanks! I appreciate any advice hat you can throw my way!

Here are the stats, in case you don't want to go to the link:
CPU
Intel Xeon E5-1650 V2 3.5GHz 6-Core OEM/Tray Processor
$559.95 $559.95 SuperBiiz Buy
CPU Cooler

Swiftech H240-X 90.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
$207.49 $5.00 $212.49 Amazon Buy
Motherboard

Asus Rampage IV Black Edition EATX LGA2011 Motherboard
$371.29 -$50.00 FREE $321.29 SuperBiiz Buy
$50.00 mail-in rebate

Memory
G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory
$599.99 $5.67 $605.66 Newegg Buy
Storage

Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
$434.89 $434.89 OutletPC Buy

Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
$704.99 $4.99 $709.98 Newegg Buy
Video Card

EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI)
$999.99 $999.99 NCIX US Buy

EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI)
$999.99 $999.99 NCIX US Buy
Case

Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case
$159.99 -$20.00 $139.99 Micro Center Buy
$20.00 mail-in rebate

Power Supply

Antec 1300W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
$237.99 $237.99 SuperBiiz Buy
Optical Drive

Pioneer BDR-209DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer
$63.99 -$10.00 $0.99 $54.98 Newegg Buy
+ USD $10 off w/ promo code EMCARKR77, ends 4/20

Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full (32/64-bit)
$441.00 FREE $441.00 Amazon Buy

 

[AnPCtester]

You build is better served by using the latest 2011v3 pin cpus. Commercial Enthusiast class motherboards do not have double cpu config. You need a server class mobo for that. How much are you willing to spend total ??

This parts list is a basic system template for you : http://pcpartpicker.com/p/c8DMdC

You can add extra disks or even upgrade to the fastest CPU like the i7-5960X

 

[Greekscreech]

My budget is about $5900. Is the motherboard in that template a 2 cpu board? I want to have an open slot, in case I ever want to upgrade to more cores. I can't figure out on that site how to add 2 cpus.

 

[AnPCtester]

No its not. Like I said you need a server board for 2 CPU setup. If that is a requirement for you I will try to spec a system for you later as I am on my phone now.

 

[Greekscreech]

I'm not sure if it's a requirement. It just seemed like the best way to keep the possibility of upgrading to more cores in the future open to me. At this point, I'm open to any build suggestions you might have for a 4k editing, after effects, and gaming workstation.

 

[AnPCtester]

I'm not sure if it's a requirement. It just seemed like the best way to keep the possibility of upgrading to more cores in the future open to me. At this point, I'm open to any build suggestions you might have for a 4k editing, after effects, and gaming workstation.

This is an example of a dual cpu motherboard that only supports xeon e5s. It is populated by 2 xeon e5-2630 cpus and a titan x with 64 gb ecc ram.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2630 V3 2.4GHz 8-Core Processor ($628.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2630 V3 2.4GHz 8-Core Processor ($628.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus Z10PA-D8 ATX Dual-CPU LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($408.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 64GB (4 x 16GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($720.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($269.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($709.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full (32/64-bit) ($441.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $5071.67
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-20 02:17 EDT-0400

On the other hand you can have best combo from the template that I gave you

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($998.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Swiftech H240-X 90.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($212.49 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($151.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($755.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($269.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($709.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($56.77 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full (32/64-bit) ($441.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $5917.15
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-20 02:31 EDT-0400

As you can see both builds have their advantages and disadvantages.
1.The xeon build has more cores but the cpu cores locked and operate on a lower frequency vs the i7 build (xeon=2.4GHz i7=3 GHz) so in single core operation like most programs people usually use will run slower on the xeon.

2. The xeon has ecc memory and can support upto 768 GB of ram. The i7 can only support 64 GB of ram and have no ecc support. ecc is error correcting code buffered ram. They offer guaranteed smooth performance however only bussiness and datacenter type server programs can take advantage of this.

3.The xeon cpus offer core advantage (16 cores and 32 threads vs i7= 8cores and 16 threads) but is more expensive (~$1300 for dual cpu) vs i7 = $1000.

4. The server grade motherboard of the xeons also not at all optimized for graphical work. It can only support only 1 PCIeX16 Gen.3 graphics card at a time. The x99 motherboard of the i7 support 3 way SLI a huge benefit for gaming and graphical rendering workloads.

From this analysis I suggest you go with the i7 build as it will be overall cheaper and you will get more productive work out of it. The titan x should help you game and render graphical images with ease and the unlocked i7 monster of a cpu should have no trouble encoding and decoding video and audio content even greater than 4K@60Hz.

Reply back on what you think and the cost can be even further reduced for the i7 build with some streamlining. The xeon build is pretty fixed though.

 

[Greekscreech]

Thanks for taking the time to help me out!

My thoughts:
1. I'm not against the i7, especially now that I know that it can only handle one of the gpus, but I am concerned about the 64gb ram limit a bit. While it should suffice for my needs now, I want to be able to upgrade past 64 in the future. Also, what is a better gpu setup, one of these 12Gb cards, or the 2 6Gb d700's in the mac pro?

2. Why the 8 cores vs the 6? I decided on 6 originally because I felt the extra cores didn't warrant the loss in speed. Part of the reason I wanted to have the option to add another processor was to keep the 3.5GHz and have the best of both worlds if I decided later that I needed more cores and wanted to add another 3.5 GHz 6 core.

3. Was the 1 TB ssd boot disk too much? I wanted to play it safe and make sure I'll never need to uninstall games or programs to add new ones, something I've been doing a lot lately.

4. I'm thinking about doing an internal raid, now that I will actually have drive bays(unlike in the mac pro) What would I need to set that up, besides more hard drives? A raid card? I've never done raid before. As for the added cost, I might not buy those parts right away, so it doesn't need to be included in the $5900 budget, I just wan to make sure the setup will work once I decide to invest more.

5. Will I need to get more fans? Are they included in the case? I don't know much about cooling except for the fact that my old mac pro over heat's like crazy, and I wan to make sure this system stays cool under the most extreme workflows.

I'm leaning towards the i7, with the above concerns. I do want to make sure I'll be able to edit any format of 4k that I throw at it, including raw formats.

 

[AnPCtester]

Thanks for taking the time to help me out!

My thoughts:
1. I'm not against the i7, especially now that I know that it can only handle one of the gpus, but I am concerned about the 64gb ram limit a bit. While it should suffice for my needs now, I want to be able to upgrade past 64 in the future. Also, what is a better gpu setup, one of these 12Gb cards, or the 2 6Gb d700's in the mac pro?

2. Why the 8 cores vs the 6? I decided on 6 originally because I felt the extra cores didn't warrant the loss in speed. Part of the reason I wanted to have the option to add another processor was to keep the 3.5GHz and have the best of both worlds if I decided later that I needed more cores and wanted to add another 3.5 GHz 6 core.

3. Was the 1 TB ssd boot disk too much? I wanted to play it safe and make sure I'll never need to uninstall games or programs to add new ones, something I've been doing a lot lately.

4. I'm thinking about doing an internal raid, now that I will actually have drive bays(unlike in the mac pro) What would I need to set that up, besides more hard drives? A raid card? I've never done raid before. As for the added cost, I might not buy those parts right away, so it doesn't need to be included in the $5900 budget, I just wan to make sure the setup will work once I decide to invest more.

5. Will I need to get more fans? Are they included in the case? I don't know much about cooling except for the fact that my old mac pro over heat's like crazy, and I wan to make sure this system stays cool under the most extreme workflows.

I'm leaning towards the i7, with the above concerns. I do want to make sure I'll be able to edit any format of 4k that I throw at it, including raw formats.

OK lets see,
1. Perhaps I goofed up explaining but the i7 can handle more than one GPUs. It the xeon mobo that only takes one GPU and cannot SLI or Crossfire.As you can see from this AMD Product Link the d700 is re-branded FirePro W9000 which is card somewhere between r9 280 and r9 280x. Commercial Gaming GPUs have better performance against price as the professional ones are more expensive due to having expert dedicated support staff and specialist software support. Having said that by having only one Titan X in your build so you will probably see drastic improvements in graphics workload and games. Putting two Titan X in SLI ensures that you can drive the 3 4K displays very well and is thus future proof for at least 5 to 6 years. And I would not worry about the ram issue if I were you as it is very unlikely that you will use all that ram anyway. 64 GB is a lot of ram and will probably last without problems for 5-6 years.

2.For your workload of gaming and video encoding, more cores is better. This is a compared list between the 3 i7-5xxx CPUs. As you see the i7-5960x is most expensive and has largest cache and cores. i7-5930k is the middleman and a good bargain for you.The i7-5820k is the smallest in both cores and cache and is not recommended. Despite the many cores in modern CPUs other than highly specialized and optimized niche software hardly any other software can utilize more than 4 cores. So the 6 core i7-5930k is good enough for you and the i7-5960x is almost guaranteed to last a decade of usage at-least.

3. A 1 TB SSD do sound like overkill to me perhaps you can settle for 256 GB or 512 GB. The SSD will be your boot drive for windows installation and you can install lots of programs and plenty of games with 512 GB. However be warned the video encoding and image rendering work SHOULD NOT be done in the SSD. Such workloads require lots of read and write operations and drastically reduces your SSD lifespan. You can mitigate this by using enterprise class SSDs but the price is simply not worth it.

4. The X99 chipset AKA motherboard for i7 usually contains 6-10 SATA III 6Gbps ports as well as a few SATA Express ports. They are optimized for RAID operation so you will not need extra raid card when doing raid with 3-4 disks. More complex raid implementations like 6+disks or RAID combination with both data stripping and data redundancy will need aftermarket RAID card though.

5. Th case you've chosen is a $150+ case. Although I have not personally used it such expensive case already come with good cooling solutions built in so I dont think you will need to buy extra fans at all. The 2011v3 i7 CPUs are based on haswell 22nm process which is very energy efficient and the GPU is nvidia Maxwell architecture based which is lauded for its extreme power efficiency.

TL;DR: Get the i7 with SLI-ed GPU like the Titan X or GTX980 or the upcoming 980ti with 64 gigs of ram. You will hardly reach full utilization of the parts and the system is future-proof for at-least 6 years or more.

Hope it helps

 

[Greekscreech]

Ok, here's where I'm at right now:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YCWwXL
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YCWwXL/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($998.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Swiftech H240-X 90.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($212.49 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($151.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($755.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($526.83 @ Mac Mall)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($709.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($56.77 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional (32/64-bit) ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $5907.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-21 01:03 EDT-0400


Pretty much the i7 setup you posted with win 8(since there will be a free win 10 upgrade) and the larger ssd. I am not planning on editing off it, just operating system and program files/ mod files for games. In the future I'd buy more 8 Tb drives and setup a raid for editing off of.

Questions:

1. Should I overclock the processor? I'm concerned with the speeds of the 8 core, wanted at least 3.5 Ghz. Should I get the 6 core? Also, I thought for gaming currently more cores doesn't help as the games aren't designed to take advantage of them. Is this true?

2. I could hold off on one of the titans and try and build a raid now, if the titan is better than the two mac pro cards. Would I be able to run 3 4k monitors off one titan? I could also probably do with only 32 Gb ram for now as well. You need 2 drives for either a speed raid or a back up raid and 3 drives for both, correct?

Thanks! This has been a lot of help!

 

[AnPCtester]

1. Should I overclock the processor? I'm concerned with the speeds of the 8 core, wanted at least 3.5 Ghz. Should I get the 6 core? Also, I thought for gaming currently more cores doesn't help as the games aren't designed to take advantage of them. Is this true?

This is true. Games today hardly use more than 4 cores but that can change in the future. While 8 cores is not necessary at least 6 cores is needed if you want this PC to last 6+ years. I recommended the 8 core i7 because you said you wanted to do 4k editing with triple monitor setup. If you do 4k editing as a job then the 8 core cpu will give you an extra boost in productivity as most video and image editing software are multi threaded and benefit from having more cores.

You can definately overclock the i7 in fact I recommend it. The i7-5960x is the best possible chip from Intel and you will easily be able to do 4.0-4.6 GHz on a liquid cooler. I will give you a better build with a good overclocking motherboard later.

2. I could hold off on one of the titans and try and build a raid now, if the titan is better than the two mac pro cards. Would I be able to run 3 4k monitors off one titan? I could also probably do with only 32 Gb ram for now as well. You need 2 drives for either a speed raid or a back up raid and 3 drives for both, correct?

Thanks! This has been a lot of help!

The Titan X is a monster of a card and a single card can run 3 4k monitors. However you will not be able to play any game with playable framerates[45-60 fps @4k/60Hz]. you will need at least two titans to play well. 32 GB of ram is fine and more than adequate for most tasks but as you'll be gaming and editing 4k videos my suggestion will be to go with 64 GB. It is also better to get 8x8 Gb DDR4 ram sticks because as you'll be overclocking, a good stable and compatible rams are must. mixing ram sticks is never good when overclocking.

Setting up Raid is completely up to you. You can get a single titan and setup raid now or you can wait. Typical Raid options are raid 0, 1, and 5 are any combination of two types. See this LINK for better understanding of RAID. Basically, Raid 0 is backup raid with same data copied in two or more disks. Raid 1 is data stripping raid that stores portion of the single data across two or more disks. This increases the read and write speed. Raid 5 is basically mixture of 0 and 1 and needs at least 3 disks.

Hope this helps

 

[AnPCtester]

This one is good by with one of the best overclocking motherboards and built-in wifi and raid. And a beefy PSU so that you can even add a 3rd titan x.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($998.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($92.49 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus X99-DELUXE ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($368.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($755.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($526.83 @ Mac Mall)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($709.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 1300W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($169.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($56.77 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional (32/64-bit) ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $5994.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-21 04:19 EDT-0400

Tell me what do you think???

 

[Greekscreech]

It's looking good to me. I noticed that the power supply dropped from platinum to gold. Does that make a difference? Also, some people have mentioned that an internal raid without a raid card is not going to be as good as with a raid card or an external raid. And will overclocking reduce the life of the processor, or will it only be a problem if I push it too far?

 

[AnPCtester]

The drop from platinum to gold was just to save a few bucks. The efficiency matters when your running your computer 24/7 with 80-100% load on all components so its unlikely that it will affect you much.

A PCI raid controller is usually better than built in ones but it is heavily dependent on the workload. I am personally not very familiar with Raid but if you give me your expectations from the raid setup I will try to give you some recommendations.

Overclocking stresses the cpu so there will definitely be some reduction in effective life of the cpu but you have to remember that people replace cpu because they have become obsolete not because they died. Modern cpus are very well constructed and should last decades. Old pentuim 1 and 2 gen cpus are still running today. It is also equally hard to kill a modern processor as they come in with several safety features. Haswell cpus like the i7-5960x have built in VRM which controls voltage supplied to the cpu and shut it down it there is a chance to cause damage. Motherboards also come with features like power phases and voltage check points to control the flow of current and temperature sensors to see when things become very hot. There is a lot of precautions that can be taken and overclocking is very easy to implement without any significant impact on cpu performance or lifespan.

 

[Greekscreech]

The raid would be used for 4k editing and after effects. I'd probably do a raid 5, so I can benefit from both the speed and backup.

 

[AnPCtester]

As I said before, I don't have extensive experience with raid setups but I have done raid 1 and raid 0 with 2 drives in two different systems and I must say the performance gain is negligible. The speed of modern SSDs negate the speed advantage of raid 1 and your money is better spent on backup disks rather than rely on raid 0. I have also unearthed information that raid 5 is not a good idea for a consumer desktop environment. Read this thread for more info and read the comments and the linked articles.

If your still set on performing a raid 5 setup consider the following articles for more information and advice than I can provide.

Raid-5 General Setup Tips
How to setup Raid-5 from Tom's Hardware
General Advice to how many disks for Raid-5 setup

 

[bsod1]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($998.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($127.01 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus RAMPAGE V EXTREME EATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($388.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($338.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($207.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($212.92 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($212.92 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($1114.98 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($1114.98 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 1300W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($178.99 @ B&H)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($52.88 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.79 @ OutletPC)
Total: $5176.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-22 02:07 EDT-0400

 

[Greekscreech]

Interesting, bsod1. Any reasons why I should go that route over the one we've been discussing?

 

[Greekscreech]

So I have a way to get 50% off of an amd graphics card! Would it be worth switching from the titans? what card should I get, the 9100?

 

[Greekscreech]

This is looking like my final build. I dropped one of the titans so I could build my raid internally now and maybe get a 4k monitor. I'll get the 2nd titan in the future, when I get more 4k monitors or save up some extra cash. Am I going to regret that decision when I start to edit 4k with only one? I also switched out the 8 tb hd for one that was cheaper, but seems like its the same.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WmHT99
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WmHT99/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($997.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus X99-DELUXE ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($329.54 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($739.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($389.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($575.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($575.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 1300W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($178.99 @ B&H)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional (32/64-bit) ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $5248.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-24 01:19 EDT-0400

 

[Bossyfins]

Are you going to be using 4k panels? Or are you using CUDA to accelerate?

 

[Greekscreech]

I have no idea what that means. Can you explain it to me, and suggest what you think would be best?

 

[Bossyfins]

Are you going to use 4k screens with your build. Like will you buy/have a 4k monitor.


As for CUDA if you don't know about it, you probably don't use it but i'll explain anyways.

CUDA, which stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, is a parallel computing platform and programming model created by NVIDIA and implemented by the graphics processing units (GPUs) that they produce.

Pretty much a small processor for your gpu that helps with computing.

 

[Greekscreech]

I am hoping to someday plug in 3 4k screens. I'm not sure about CUDA, but I do know premiere and other editing software uses the graphics cards to help process. I was told that the gpus were the best place to prioritize my money.

 

[AnPCtester]

This is looking like my final build. I dropped one of the titans so I could build my raid internally now and maybe get a 4k monitor. I'll get the 2nd titan in the future, when I get more 4k monitors or save up some extra cash. Am I going to regret that decision when I start to edit 4k with only one? I also switched out the 8 tb hd for one that was cheaper, but seems like its the same.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WmHT99
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WmHT99/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($997.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus X99-DELUXE ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($329.54 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($739.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($389.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($575.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($575.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card ($999.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 1300W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($178.99 @ B&H)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional (32/64-bit) ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $5248.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-24 01:19 EDT-0400

The build looks good to me. You're pretty much set on overclocking and the motherboard is very highly regarded as a optimum x99 chipset mobo for overclocking. It also supports upto 3-way SLI so in the future you can get 3 titans for your 3 4K monitors. I see you're also set on doing a raid setup so look though the articles I linked on raid and prepare accordingly.

CUDA is basically a programmable implementation of the graphics cards in your system. Using CUDA lets you configure the GPU cores of the graphics card as distinct CPU so you get a huge boost in performance. ( Titan X has 3072 cores so using CUDA you get equivalent of over 3000 individual cpus).
The drawbacks is that not all graphics card are supported and not all software is written with CUDA in mind. You might also need some programming knowledge specially of C++ to properly setup and configure such a system.

Another use of CUDA is in gaming where one of the two or more cards in SLI acts as a dedicated PhysX card to help smooth out framerates of compute heavy games. CUDA is best used for heavy computations like PhysX, bitcoin mining, Folding@Home, etc and I am not sure how helpful it will be in 4K video encoding and rendering.

 

[Bossyfins]

If you will Use CUDA to do editing, then get the Titan Black. The titan x is aimed more as a gaming card rather than a workstation. It lost some features which could be key in editing