Building a new PC. Thoughts?

[passedpawn]

I'm willing to spend some $$$. I'm leaning towards AMD Ryzen Threadripper, RTX2080 video, couple of fast NVMe M2 drives, lots of fast RAM, etc.

I use Studio Pinnacle for video editing now, but with a better PC I will likely get into Premier Pro (I already subscribe with LightRoom).

Was hoping to hear from some gearheads out there who like to build their own. I'm building a system (again, I do it every several years) on pcpartpicker.com.

 

[itsneedtokno]

So if you want to go with Adobe, go RAM heavy, like as much as you can afford kind of heavy.

If you are going with Davinci then go with a super fast CPU/GPU.

(I recommend trying Davinci, and I subscribe to Adobe's entire suite...)

I got the advice to try Timelapses in Davinci, but have found it's actually a very strong all around video editor... I just need more CPU, as I have a laptop sorta built for Adobe. If I could figure out proxies in Davinci, I would probably cancel PP.

I knew buying my laptop, that the GPU was a soft spot, but they have external GPU now, so that was my future proofing. The CPU, that's gonna be work around free. ?



...but, I'll use Lightroom and Photoshop the rest of my life... I hope.

(Built my first PC at 9, best PC at 29)

 

[itsneedtokno]

It sounds like you know what you are doing though.

 

[Jeff A]

I used to build my own but no longer do. Too lazy and too many other things to do. That said, I recently got a new PC. I usually don't buy speed demons because in the past all I did was Spreadsheets, QuickBooks surfing the web etc\. Now I own a Mavic 2 Zoom. I couldn't wait to see my 4K video. My old PC would not run it, much less edit the video.
I bought a new Dell with the following general specs:

• 64 bit Win 10 Pro
• Intel i7 9700 @ 3GHz
• 16 GB RAM
• Boot drive is SSD directly mounted to the Mother Board
• 2 TB Data Drive
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super Graphics Adapter
• Dell 27" 4 K monitor
  
  This is a very fast machine. Boot time is very fast, just like Microsoft promised us for years. Editing and playing 4K video is a piece of cake. I'm addicted to 4K. It's glorious!
  Good luck on your build.

 

[passedpawn]

It sounds like you know what you are doing though.

As with all things, I know more than some, and less than others. I humbly thank any who comment here.

 

[passedpawn]

I got the advice to try Timelapses in Davinci, but have found it's actually a very strong all around video editor... I just need more CPU, as I have a laptop sorta built for Adobe. If I could figure out proxies in Davinci, I would probably cancel PP

I am going to do a side-by-side with Davinci and Premiere, starting with the same base video and audio. Probably around Christmas (I plan to build my new PC at that time). Let the games begin!

 

[lannes]

Get the biggest 4k monitor you can afford

 

[passedpawn]

Get the biggest 4k monitor you can afford

Right! I'm going to get 3 (I have 3 now, not 4k).

 

[brett8883]

@itsneedtokno is right in that you should build for the editor you want to use and I f you are embarking on learning a new professional grade editor this is not a decision to take lightly.

You should be sure you really want to jump in with Premier as your new editor before you do a build. I bet you won’t like it and end up with Resolve which calls for different hardware emphasis.

Resolve is more powerful, easier to use, and performs better on modern hardware. I would encourage you to try both before committing to your new build. You don’t really see many new people learning Premier these days but lots of people switching.

 

[vindibona1]

As others have said, you seem to know what you're doing when it comes to the hardware part. It sounds like you have a good plan for it. But @itsneedtokno recommended Davinci Resolve I would echo that recommendation. I've been using Davinci Resolve since June and there isn't a single thing that I could want that isn't available in the free version and for a full upgrade to the Studio version is only $300- one time. I'm in Adobe's pocket with Photoshop for unending "software rental" payments with no other option if I want to continue to use Photoshop, even from time to time. I do not want to go down that road with video editing, especially with something as powerful as Davinci Resolve. The full "non-professional" version of Davinci Resolve is, unbelieveably, free. Included in their free version is their fusion module, presumed to be similar to After Effects without the need to export and import back and forth, and Blackmagic Design's color module, which has been widely touted as the premier (no pun intended) color grading software out there. If you need to upgrade to the Studio version with all the bells and whistles it's only a $300 (one time) purchase.

 

[passedpawn]

What I read (IIRC) was that most of the editors rely on processor speed / core count to increase performance. But uniquely, Resolve uses the GPU on the video card for acceleration. I want to future-proof this machine by optimizing both - at least as much as I can with a reasonable budget.

 

[Dave Maine]

One other critical decision is what codec will you be using on the drone? H.264 or H.265. H.264 is much less demanding on your PC than H.265. H.265 creates much smaller files at the expense of far greater cpu requirements. Hardware H.265 decoding is a big plus.

 

[bmwbob]

I used to build my PCs, but stopped about 20 years ago and buy from reputable dealers. It's fun, but anymore you're not saving much money and a warranty is nice too! I remember building Windows 95 PC with a Cyrix processor and I lost count how many times it blue screened and had to reload all the software!

 

[DanMan32]

If you buy a pre-built brand name PC, they usually can be expanded. If the machine you get based on price for value but you had to skimp on the GPU, you can add a video card. Just be sure you have the needed expansion slot(s).

 

[passedpawn]

One other critical decision is what codec will you be using on the drone? H.264 or H.265. H.264 is much less demanding on your PC than H.265. H.265 creates much smaller files at the expense of far greater cpu requirements. Hardware H.265 decoding is a big plus.

Out of necessity, I use 264 now. My computer doesn't have acceleration hardware for 265. It's one of the reasons I want to build a new one.

 

[passedpawn]

Also, with VVC/h266 right around the corner, I want to have a shot at fast encoding times for that. Sadly, it'll probably require dedicated acceleration hardware for encoding (at a min, a new video card). We'll have to wait and see.

Fraunhofer’s new H.266 codec promises to cut the cost of streaming 4K video in half

Fraunhofer says VVC is a much more efficient successor to H.265/HEVC.

www.theverge.com

 

[anotherlab]

If you are building a PC, get a good power supply. That's one of the places where you can see a difference between a DIY machine and one from Dell, HP, etc.

 

[passedpawn]

If you are building a PC, get a good power supply. That's one of the places where you can see a difference between a DIY machine and one from Dell, HP, etc.

Yep. Insane, these processors now require up to 100A @ 1.25V - haha. So not only does the supply need to be up to the task, but the mobo also must deliver power efficiently or you can tons of voltage ripple and heat.

I'm also building a RAID5 array of large SATA drives in there, so I'll need more power than the average off-the-shelf box. I've just now filled an 11TB array - gonna try to get to 48TB

 

[CareyL]

I'm willing to spend some $$$. I'm leaning towards AMD Ryzen Threadripper, RTX2080 video, couple of fast NVMe M2 drives, lots of fast RAM, etc.

I use Studio Pinnacle for video editing now, but with a better PC I will likely get into Premier Pro (I already subscribe with LightRoom).

Was hoping to hear from some gearheads out there who like to build their own. I'm building a system (again, I do it every several years) on pcpartpicker.com.

Put your money into a water cooled video card that will support four monitors. Preferably using Display Port technology. A motherboard that will will handle many 1TB M2 drives. A water cooler for the cpu. Mount with silver paste.

 

[brett8883]

What I read (IIRC) was that most of the editors rely on processor speed / core count to increase performance. But uniquely, Resolve uses the GPU on the video card for acceleration. I want to future-proof this machine by optimizing both - at least as much as I can with a reasonable budget.

Right but the other thing is Adobe is horribly threaded so a high core count CPU may not be as good as a lower core count CPU with a higher clock speed for Premier and After Effects.