Video Editing/Post Generalist Build, €2000ish

Keggers · November 23, 2014

I'm from and living in Ireland, I've got a budget of around €2,000 (USD2,400/CAD2,800).

So with the recentish release of the new X99 chipset, my pretty pressing need for a new workstation, and my lack of dependents this christmas (

) I've decided to pull the trigger and look into specing up a new PC.

I would describe myself primarily as an editor, but I've recently found myself doing more and more work as a post generalist- everything from VFX, to colour grading to photoshop, even a bit of sound design. With that in mind, I find myself in need of a swiss army knife of a computer that can do a bit of everything.

There are a few things not included here that I plan to add once I get a bit more money, namely 16 gigs more ram, a Quadro or Blackmagic card (for 10bit out), and another SSD to act as a dedicated write drive for renders and finished projects.

My main rationale behind this rig is that it'll be a solid base on which I can expand or at least work off of for the next few years (which will hopefully see me raising enough money for a proper 10bit display like those made by NEC or suchlike, (hence need for 10bit out in future).

This was also my thinking about the WS board.

Motherboard- ASUS X99-E WS
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Sockel...C+DDR4.article

Is this a bit overkill? I went with the workstation board because it seemed like a solid base to expand on.

Processor- Intel Core i7 5930k
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Sockel...BChler.article

It's been recommended across the board as the best bang per buck of the new Intel six core chips with expandibility in mind. I feel like the extra PCIe lanes will come in handy later.

Graphics Card EVGA NIVIA GTX 970
http://www.hardwareversand.de/4096+M...ayPort.article

A no brainer really

RAM 16GB G.Skill Rippjaws DDR4 2400mhz

http://www.hardwareversand.de/2400/178822/16GB-Kit+G.Skill+RipJaws4+PC4-19200+++DDR4+2400+Mhz.article

This was one of the more indulgent choices, with the X99 chipset I kind of thought why not go for the DDR4. Should I just stick with DDR3?

HDD- WD Green 3TB
http://www.hardwareversand.de/7200+U...+6Gb+s.article

Mass storage, literally for storing media once I've finished a project. I have been told that these are on the slower side, but no reading or writing will be done to it.

SSD- Crucial MX100 512GB
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Solid-...7mm%29.article

Seems like the best bang per buck SSD going at the minute.

PSU Corsair Enthusiast 850 watt 80 Plus Gold
http://www.hardwareversand.de/800+-+...0+Watt.article

Again, a bit more than I need for expansion later.

CPU Cooler Nepton 280L Watercooler
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Wartun...System.article

Would like to get a hefty enough overclock going

Case- NZXT H440
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Midi/1...tzteil.article

Not sure if everything will even fit in this, but it's such a lovely case.

---

Am I completely misspending with this? Using a discount site (geizhals.de) this rig comes to about €2200 which seems pretty to me!

Relatively new to PC building, so any and all advice is much appreciated!

Tedster · November 23, 2014

1) You can only go for DDR4 with X99.

2) I'm not sure how much you'd need X99 for. A 4960x with a good board and 32GB or 64GB of RAM now sounds better to me.

3) You may want a 970 or a workstation grade GPU, depending on what you're after.

Keggers · November 23, 2014

Unfortunately, an X series processor is out of my price range, even if I were to cut corners across the board.

For the time being, my priority is CUDA cores, which was my rationale behind the GTX card over a workstation grade one.

Would I be better off spending less on the motherboard and processor and putting the extra funds into RAM? I feel like it's easier to add more ram later than it is to switch out the processor.