Looking for a CPU for Video Editing but that will handle Gaming too

[mulder68]

hi folks, first time poster

After reading thread after thread I am still none the wiser so would like some advice please.

I currently use a laptop from PC Specialist for video editing, web design and gaming. The specs are I7-2670QM Processor, 8GB Ram and NVidia GT555M GPU. This served me quite well for a while but cannot cope with the graphical demands of Adobe Premiere CS6 and After Effects CS6. It is also struggling with COD Black Ops these days.

Anyhow, I am looking to build a desktop PC primarily for video editing but that will also cope with music production and gaming (think new COD and Battlefield games, nothing more really)

I have been looking at the I7-3930K build such as this one http://www.learningdslrvideo.com/new-editing-computer-build/ but think that may be overkill and overpriced and then I have been looking at the Haswell I7-4770K which obviously has very good performance but won't render HD video as well as the I7-3930K

Will the difference between the two be purely how quickly the output files will render or is there something more to it than that?

I was thinking maybe a Nvidia GTX 760 card.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[genz]

Basically any card in that price range will work great, but if you are going for a GTX 760, you might want to look at the R9 280 (non-X) for about £20 more. It's a lil faster in gaming but will be a lot better at OpenCL. With AMD being the guys that helped write the standard and Nvidia trying to push thier own (CUDA) Nvidia tends to be slower at OpenCL related tasks, and ATi doesn't support CUDA altogether (hence why I run Nvidia atm).

If you will eventually need the capability to run older versions of Adobe WITH acceleration though, which could be an important consideration depending on your line of work (I deal with a lot of other studios and try to keep using the same version of Creative Suite they did so they can have it back when I'm done) then Nvidia is a conscious choice. In that space though, and at that price point, all are much faster, more durable, and better than your laptop so I doubt you will be disappointed.

 

[Sangeet Khatri]

Well.. I call that experience. I believe you are right. Now you have ensured me the reasons for your changes.

As being a gamer myself, I never even thought that they could interfere in the Audio. Thanks for telling me that.

That truly comes just from experience. Gamers like me just understand what is powerful and what is not, but I would surrender in front of anyone who comes on the base of experience. So, I think you are right.

I apologize for the last post.

 

[CTurbo]

OP it really just depends on how much you are wanting to spend. All of these suggestions are really good.

A 4770k and GTX 760 would be HUUUUUUGE upgrades from what you have now. Are they the BEST? no. There are almost always better more expensive parts.

The 3930k would be considerably better for you than the 4770k, but is it worth the extra cost? And then there's the 4930k....

 

[mulder68]

OP it really just depends on how much you are wanting to spend. All of these suggestions are really good.

A 4770k and GTX 760 would be HUUUUUUGE upgrades from what you have now. Are they the BEST? no. There are almost always better more expensive parts.

The 3930k would be considerably better for you than the 4770k, but is it worth the extra cost? And then there's the 4930k....

Well that's really what it all comes down to.

I have just been out to a couple of computer shops. One said the 4770k would be perfectly fine, the other said I would need the 3930k. What's really odd is that when I called in the second shop a few weeks ago and told them what I wanted to achieve they recommended an i5 haswell system for around £500.

The second shop had a refurbished p9x79 pro board in stock at £85 less than half price, so I very nearly bought that and decided to go down the 3930k route but then thought better of it because the board could cause problems down the line.

Clearly the 3930k is the better option in terms of performance but I honestly don't know if I need that performance and going by one of your earlier posts in which you said the difference in render times would only be minutes I honestly think not.

There is also an extreme likelihood that the 3930k will be ridiculously cheap in the not so distant future. So do I hang fire.

I know exactly what the best build is but really what it comes down to is do I need that build.?

Then of course if I am adding a dedicated video card why not go for the 3770k and save even more money?

The savings with a 4770k or 3770k would cover the monitors which is a whole different minefield from what I have read with certain size screens having difficulty with 1080p and others having difficulty with 720p.

The whole process of buying a system should be pleasurable but it has given me headache after headache.

 

[8350rocks]

OP it really just depends on how much you are wanting to spend. All of these suggestions are really good.

A 4770k and GTX 760 would be HUUUUUUGE upgrades from what you have now. Are they the BEST? no. There are almost always better more expensive parts.

The 3930k would be considerably better for you than the 4770k, but is it worth the extra cost? And then there's the 4930k....

Well that's really what it all comes down to.

I have just been out to a couple of computer shops. One said the 4770k would be perfectly fine, the other said I would need the 3930k. What's really odd is that when I called in the second shop a few weeks ago and told them what I wanted to achieve they recommended an i5 haswell system for around £500.

The second shop had a refurbished p9x79 pro board in stock at £85 less than half price, so I very nearly bought that and decided to go down the 3930k route but then thought better of it because the board could cause problems down the line.

Clearly the 3930k is the better option in terms of performance but I honestly don't know if I need that performance and going by one of your earlier posts in which you said the difference in render times would only be minutes I honestly think not.

There is also an extreme likelihood that the 3930k will be ridiculously cheap in the not so distant future. So do I hang fire.

I know exactly what the best build is but really what it comes down to is do I need that build.?

Then of course if I am adding a dedicated video card why not go for the 3770k and save even more money?

The savings with a 4770k or 3770k would cover the monitors which is a whole different minefield from what I have read with certain size screens having difficulty with 1080p and others having difficulty with 720p.

The whole process of buying a system should be pleasurable but it has given me headache after headache.

How much rendering are you talking about?

Rendering > Gaming?

Gaming > Rendering?

If the former, then the CPU will be important, if the latter, then the GPU will be most important...depending on software this can be the case with the former as well, though it's a different discussion for workstation cards.

Start with a rock solid GPU.

Say, something like the R9-290 for $399 for example.

Now, build your system accordingly.

The 3770k won't bottleneck that card, nor would the others, as well as the higher end offerings from AMD.

Go from there...

 

[mulder68]

The majority of my usage will be video, web design, photoshop but the ability to run decent games is also important, as is upgradability.

 

[CTurbo]

Also think about what you have now. You already have a solid quad core i7, but your video card is weak.

I think you would be pleased with a 4770k + R9 290 or 770 or hell even something like a 660ti or 7950.


If your average file size is less than 1GB, you're not really going to get your money's worth out of a 6-core i7.

The bigger the file size, the bigger the difference would be. Anything less than a few GB will only result in a few minutes saved over a 4770k.

If you can afford to go out and get a 3970x and two GTX 690s? Do it! haha


A 3930k/4930k has little to no gaming advantage over the 4770k. Period.

The 4930k is actually a better buy than the 3930k if they are similar in price.

You won't feel the difference 95% of the time between the 4770k and the 4930k.

I know one thing for sure... the 3930k will NOT be ridiculously cheap at any point in the future. Look how much i5 2500ks still go for.



I say..... if you want to overclock, get the 4770K, a great cooler, and a really really really good video card. 770, 780, R9 290x...

If you don't want to overclock, save almost $200 and get a quad core 1150 socket xeon and one of the above mentioned video cards.

But,............................. IF IF IF you CAN afford it, get the 4930k anyway. You'll love it, the kids will love it, your neighbors will love it, you'll never ever have to buy another computer again(haha jk)

 

[CTurbo]

Haha I'm sure I'm not helping you at all so here goes....

If I'm you, and I'm dealing with huge file sizes all the time... dozens to hundreds of GBs on a daily/weekly basis, then I want the 4930k.

If you're dealing with 10GB+ files all the time, the 4930k will save you hours of your life.

Otherwise, I still maintain that you'll only save minutes off of some <1Gb files.

 

[mulder68]

You are definitely helping CTurbo.

At the moment my file sizes have only been upto 1GB. I have an upcoming project that will be around about 1hour long. I expect this will be around the 3-4gb size if 1080p H.264 before any effects are applied.

Maybe the 4770k or 3770k would be sufficient?

 

[CTurbo]

The 3770k or 4770k WOULD be sufficient. Would a 4930k be faster? Sure. Is it necessary? NO.

 

[genz]

I ignored this before but I assure you now the difference would NOT be minutes.

If you stick with native (to Adobe) effects and tools then maybe so because most of that can be offloaded to your GPU but the moment you start using plugins it's all about CPU.

Put it this way. I use mocha for color grading and post processing finished music videos. If I was on my last CPU (Oc'd i7 2600k, within 10% of the power of your 4770k when overclocked and faster than that CPU at stock) then it would take around 7hrs at 4k to do in AE CS5. With my new processor it takes 4 and a half.

Minutes my left butt cheek.

 

[CTurbo]

What file sizes? and what is your new processor?

 

[genz]

What file sizes? and what is your new processor?

I mentioned before, I have a 3930k OC. The file going in was a 9GB Red RAW 4K and coming out was 1080p H264 60fps (FPS was specifically requested for the VDJ's needs, don't ask me why) footage. Single digit layers on the comp, and most of them were Adjustment layers with lots of effects.

Oh and the actual comp was set to 4k but render set to quarter.

EDIT: Let me just clarify after rereading the thread. I don't WANT you to get a 6 core. I'm just aware of the benefits and think it would be a good idea. It's not optimal however. Optimal would be to buy two AMD machines like the one in Sangeet's sig and set one up as a render node. Then you can game while rendering when you want to too! I personally don't like the complexity but I know I eventually will. Aside from that you are doing less intensive renders but I think that's a good example fo how clear the benefits are if you use plugins that don't take advantage of OpenCL (the vast majority).

 

[CTurbo]

I mentioned before, I have a 3930k OC. The file going in was a 9GB Red RAW 4K and coming out was 1080p H264 60fps (FPS was specifically requested for the VDJ's needs, don't ask me why) footage. Single digit layers on the comp, and most of them were Adjustment layers with lots of effects.

Oh and the actual comp was set to 4k but render set to quarter.

Oh yeah my bad. I didn't flip back up through the messages.

So how much time will he save from a 4770K to a 4930k using <1GB file sizes?

 

[genz]

Mainly depends on how much of that workload can be handled by the GPU. If the OP is just cutting and using built in effects in Adobe Premiere Then he will see maybe a 20% improvement in his performance, because since mercury engine, pretty much everything actually done by Premiere itself is done on the GPU, then it hands off to the CPU to be encoded and compressed.

If he works in After Effects at all he will see a flat 50% performance improvement with the 3930, probably 60-70 with the 4930. Whilst you can set AE to use OpenGL to render your display while working, not all the effects will work and it will knock you out of OpenGL if you use them (going back will just make the program skip the effect). Render wise, it's pretty much CPU dependent all round whether using those particular effects or not. This goes for Fireworks, All the sound-related programs, Illustrator (I think, don't use that one much), and obviously Dreamweaver.

 

[CTurbo]

Well I agree with pretty much everything you are saying. I still think it's minutes over hours with such small file sizes.

And I still think the OP's biggest problem is his GT555M and NOT his i7.

I also still think he would be fine with a 4770k even though no one is doubting that a 3930k/4930k would be better. It's up to him whether or not he wants to spend the extra $$$. Of course, the LGA2011 socket does offer a few additional benefits over the LGA1155/1150 that could work in his favor too.

 

[mulder68]

Hi guys

thanks for all of the advice and support. After much research over the weekend I have opted for a build very similar to what Genz suggested. There may be some slight changes, i.e different HDD or RAM but other than that I will go for what is quite obviously the best solution for my requirements.