I'm not familiar with Lightroom or hitfilm, but I know a lot about the performance requirements for AE. Are you using the latest version of AE, ie. the CC edition?
If your focus is on performance, search for a used GTX 780 Ti 3GB. Far more powerful than a GTX 950 for AE (2.5X faster than a GTX 950). If the value of used 780 Tis is too high, get two GTX 580s instead (preferably 3GB). I recently tested a 780 Ti, it is exactly twice as fast as a 580 for AE/CUDA. And for reference, even a good 980 is 10% slower than two 580s for AE, so you can imagine how weak a GTX 950 would be (yuk). Newer cards are stronger for gaming, but weaker for CUDA in pro apps in some cases. Naturally these older cards are less power efficient, but their performance is so much higher, renders will complete sooner and thus use less overall power (don't be fooled by mere TDP ratings, it's more complicated than that). If you want some idea of the native CUDA performance of these and all other cards and combinations, look at the Octane Render benchmark results:
https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/
It uses a GTX 980 as a reference card which scores 100, and the measure is linear. Avg 950 score is 42, 580 is 63, 780 Ti is 103 (yes, faster than a 980).
Search for "Reference" edition GPUs with coolers that blow most of their out the back of the case, it'll make internal case management and CPU oc'ing (if any) easier.
If you're using AE CC then of course ideally you'd be using the latest card like Titan X Pascal, but that's expensive and one can do a lot with used hw, the 580 being particularly good value (though sensible case cooling is essential if one uses cards with aftermarket coolers), and the 780 Ti or Titan/Black being a nice middle ground (standard Titan is slower than a 780 Ti, but it does have 2X more RAM). If you choose a board with sensible multi-slot support, 2x 780 Ti for AE is particularly potent, and in the future if you ever wanted precision colour (10bit/channel support in the monitor), just switch to a Quadro for the primary display, move the other GPUs to secondary slots for dedicated CUDA.
Btw, even a single GTX 580 is
fifty percent faster than a GTX 950 for CUDA. If you want to focus on performance initially, $130 is easily enough for two 1.5GB models, and very likely enough for two 3GB models these days. One thing though, I'd avoid dual-GPU cards like the 590 and Titan Z, I don't think AE can exploit both GPUs (at least the pre-CC version can't, not sure about CC) and they tend to be less reliable.
Next, RAM. You need lots, and AE is sensitive to absolute clock. 16GB is ok to begin with, but try and get a faster clock. There are numerous options on the used market, indeed a 2133MHz DDR3 setup would be better than a 1600MHz DDR4 in this regard, and note that $250 is way more than enough for a used i7 3930K, with lovely change to spare (last 3930K I bought cost me $150, people are selling them for this much BIN, and the most recent one I saw went for just $110), ie. a 6-core CPU. This would mean looking for an X79 board, but if you can find one, the expansion potential is much better, though they do have fewer native SATA3 ports (all X79 CPUs have 40 PCIe lanes, making multiple GPU stuff a lot easier). This is where the money saved on the CPU comes in, eg. last year I bought a couple of refurb ASUS R4Es BIN for $170 each, and several P9X79 WS boards for similar amounts, but even a P9X79 Deluxe is pretty good. A 3930K will run at 4.7 minimum on any of these boards. Look for GSkill as they have lifetime warranty, TridentX is best but Ripjaw is also ok. If you strike out, just get Corsair Vengeance instead. However, good RAM kits do tend to be one type of item which don't go for bargain amounts; for my most recent AE build (charity system) I just bought a new Corsair 32GB/2400MHz kit.
Re the PSU, I've had a lot of good fortune bagging used, barely used or even new Thermaltake Toughpower PSUs from eBay for good prices. The upper models (1200W+) will likely go for much more than $50, but I've certainly obtained 1kW models for about that much before, though 750W to 850W is optimal to begin with. The XT Gold series is best, but the older range is still very good (don't confuse with the lesser Purepower series, it's the Toughpower that's best). I've saved several thousand in this way so far obtaining new or barely used 1200W/1475W models, mostly for about $150 each. If you want the ability to add multiple GPUs or cope with a beefy CPU, a good PSU is essential. I'd trust a prosumer build far more to a used Toughpower than any new consumer Bronze unit, even if it is a Seasonic.
Next, storage. SSD for the C-drive is essential. Anyone who doesn't use an SSD these days is nuts. 120GB is a bit small though, see if you can find a used Samsung 840 Pro 256GB instead, I've bagged many. Note I'm in the UK, so don't worry, we wouldn't be competing over the same listings.
😀 Also, AE benefits greatly from having a dedicated cache SSD (and indeed these days it's expected that one would setup a system for AE in this way). A high IOPS unit is best, so if you can't get something new then a used Vertex 4, Neutron GTX, 840/850 Pro or anything like that would be good.
Oh, the other thing I do is fit a dedicated SSD for the Windows paging file, as this consumes quite a lot of space (normally 1.5X installed RAM capacity, so it'd be 24GB on a system with 16GB RAM, kinda a lot for a mere 120GB SSD, but not an issue if one fits a separate SSD for this, eg. Arc 100, Samsung 830, Vertex3, anything like that). It also means less wear on the C-drive SSD. Any spare space on this unit can be used for general backups and scratch space.
Cases are less of an issue of course, and often down to personal taste. I've standardised on the Antec 302 for medium builds, Corsair C70 Military Green for high-end builds, but it doesn't really matter. One thing I do though with the Antec cases is replace the default fans with Nanoxia Deep Silence PWM for better cooling and less noise, though of course this adds to the cost (NDS is almost as good as Noctua, but half the price and they look way better, especially in a C70 M.G. case). Mind you, even when it comes to cases one can get lucky, eg. I bagged a new C70 M.G. last week for a good price, and a used good condition Antec 302 aswell (items 152251291887 and 122149698511).
Nobody's mentioned CPU cooling. Not an issue if you do just get something that won't be oc'd such as the all-new builds given above, you can just use the stock cooler. For the stuff I've mentioned though, look for a new, refurb or not much used Corsair H80 (or H100/H110 if the case is big enough to take them), though again I do replace the stock fans with NDS. It's surprising what one can find on the used market sometimes though, eg. for a
different charity build I'm doing atm I managed to get a couple of Noctua fans for very good prices (performance/noise was more important than aesthetics). If you strike out on a cooler like these though, a good air cooler like a used TRUE (Thermalright U120 Extreme) is still very good today and quite cheap, and does have the side advantage of naturally helping to cool the mbd chipset (with a water cooler, it's best to position a separate small fan to cool the mbd chipset, I use an Arctic F8 or similar).
Lastly, the other apps you mentioned will very likely run much better with a build optimised for AE just as a natural consequence of what AE benefits from.
However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the potential down sides of this whole approach. Buying used is obviously more of a challenge and does require a degree of patience and perseverance. Luck is also a factor, good used X79 mbds don't fall from the sky every minute.
😀 But for the same money one can in theory put something together that's at least 100% more powerful (though checking just now, it does look like typical valuations on eBay USA are higher than in the UK, which is kinda weird given the much larger US market). The other main disadvantage is of course warranty cover, you won't have it on some components such as used GPUs and probably the mbd aswell, but choosing carefully can mitigate these issues, eg. go for GSkill RAM, refurb Corsair coolers have full system cover as normal, and only buy a mbd from a seller that accepts returns.
Or of course you could do a combination of the above, eg. buy the mbd/CPU/RAM new as WildCard999 and weberdarren97 suggested, but look on the used market for the GPU(s). Btw, item 222270013601 is a 780 Ti with a reference cooler at a reasonable BIN, but note it has the lowest ref base clock of 875MHz; I look for the oc'd versions instead, inparticular those at 980MHz (main code 2882 for the EVGA, eg. item 191981608030 is probably one of these).
I could mention other things, but this covers most of what matters.
Ian.
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