4K editing workstation for a disappointed Apple fangirl

[GreatWhiteWine]

Hello everyone,

 

So I am writing this on behalf of my ex-half sister (long story), she is a video editor and her old (and obsolete) Apple system just died and she is ready to take the leap and try a Windows machine! (It took her some time).

 

She is mostly using Premier Pro to edit video and Photoshop for graphics, (she uses most of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps).

 

This build will not be used for gaming! (I am also a bit disappointed on that...) and she will not overclock anything.

 

The maximum budget is 3000€ (monitor(s) included (27", 4K), no need for a mouse nor a keyboard).

 

Here is the list that she came with:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor  (€565.98 @ Cdiscount) 
Motherboard: MSI MEG X570 ACE ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€359.99 @ Amazon France) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (€155.88 @ Amazon France) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€107.50 @ Amazon France) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€182.89 @ Alternate) 
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB GAMING X Video Card  (€347.00 @ Amazon France) 
Case: Fractal Design Define R6 Blackout ATX Mid Tower Case  (€155.98 @ Cdiscount) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (€124.90 @ Corsair) 
Total: €2000.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-21 12:49 CET+0100

 

 

My first remark regarding this list was the absence of a proper CPU cooler, she said that she wanted to try the stock cooler provided by AMD with the 3900X, what would be the consequences of this weird choice?

 

What about the graphics card, does a 1080 TI still make sense?

 

About the motherboard @Plouffe, @Jurrunio, @Princess Luna, if you have any advice, now would be a good time. 

 

If you have any other question, I will be happy to pass them along.

 

Have a nice day fellow tech enthusiast!

 

[flashiling]

if she's doing high end editing i'd suggest getting a better cooler than stock cooler.

 

[GreatWhiteWine]

1 minute ago, flashiling said:

if she's doing high end editing i'd suggest getting a better cooler than stock cooler.

 

That's exactly what I told her, but she is not convinced, maybe I need numbers..

[flashiling]

1 minute ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

That's exactly what I told her, but she is not convinced, maybe I need numbers..

i'm not sure how to give numbers here, though someone probably will.

but spending 2000€ on a setup and saving the last 80€ to not get an upgraded cooler seems silly to me

[Meganter]

6 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

My first remark regarding this list was the absence of a proper CPU cooler, she said that she wanted to try the stock cooler provided by AMD with the 3900X, what would be the consequences of this weird choice?

She doesn't overclock but an aftermarket cooler will still be highly recommended (at leat NH U14S).

 

7 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

What about the graphics card, does a 1080 TI still make sense?

Yes because CUDA, also the 1080Ti is around the 2080 Super.

 

9 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

About the motherboard @Plouffe, @Jurrunio, @Princess Luna, if you have any advice, now would be a good time. 

Aorus Pro is more than enough for less  

 

10 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

She is mostly using Premier Pro to edit video and Photoshop for graphics, (she uses most of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps).

The 9900k is also a good choice because Adobe loves iGPU.

 

[GreatWhiteWine]

Just now, flashiling said:

i'm not sure how to give numbers here, though someone probably will.

but spending 2000€ on a setup and saving the last 80€ to not get an upgraded cooler seems silly to me

Completely agree. I will change her mind. Or maybe I will just offer her a Dark Rock 4 for Christmas.

[FloRolf]

5 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

That's exactly what I told her, but she is not convinced, maybe I need numbers..

Zen 2 boost frequency works just like recent GPUs. The cooler it is the higher it will boost. Therefore she'll actually see higher performance with a better cooler. It's also quieter. 

[Princess Luna]

I would personally go like this:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (€507.00 @ Amazon France)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (€80.98 @ Cdiscount)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€212.26 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (€143.99 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Kingston A2000 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€73.92 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€221.46 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: PNY GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Dual Video Card  (€369.99 @ Amazon France)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case  (€56.89 @ Cdiscount)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (€80.89 @ Alternate)
Total: €1747.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-21 13:11 CET+0100

 

All adobe applications still prefers Intel since the actual editing tools are all single threaded and they enjoy Intel's Ring Bus low latency... so it will be faster for the actual work, it's iGPU with QuickSync also aids a lot and can make up for the fully multi-threaded parts like rendering and exporting.

 

Intel usually previews better, warps faster etc... in this specific case here the 9900K is still a better choice than the R9 3900X.

 

For GPU there's really only so much CUDA Acceleration Premiere Pro can use, the RTX 2060 Super should suffice for that, 8GB of VRAM also is sufficient and then you'll have the better NVENC for whenever that's useful.

 

Samsung 970 Evo's are overpriced and not needed, we can have a cheaper NVMe that's just as good for the most part for boot and then it is far more preferable to have 2TB of storage rather than just 1TB at almost same price, the MX500 will do perfectly as a storage drive for all the footage she'll be working on.

 

This build can work on 550W just fine and the TXM (2017) is a superior unit to the RM (2019) for cheaper.

 

The build looks over all solid enough and we even managed to make it cheaper so it's a win win for me.

[Meganter]

So with some change :

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	€507.00 @ Amazon France
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler	€99.90 @ Amazon France
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	€190.98 @ Cdiscount
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	€155.88 @ Amazon France
Storage	Corsair MP510 480 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€75.95 @ Amazon France
Storage	Corsair MP510 960 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€140.89 @ Alternate
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB GAMING X Video Card	€347.00 @ Amazon France
Case	Fractal Design Define R6 Blackout ATX Mid Tower Case	€155.98 @ Cdiscount
Power Supply	Corsair RMx (2018) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	€107.95 @ Amazon France
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€1781.53
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-21 13:17 CET+0100

 

[Princess Luna]

9 minutes ago, Plouffe said:

So with some change :

I insist that the RTX 2060 Super is better than the GTX 1080 Ti for this purpose since OP didn't state gaming intentions.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

As you can see from these, the RTX 2060 and GTX 1080 Ti are on pair, the 2060 Super might even edge it a little for hardware acceleration, and then RTX has much improved NVENC which can always assist video encoding tasks greatly and has RT and Tensor cores which are starting to be used more for hardware acceleration tasks, it's technology worth having already.

[Meganter]

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

I insist that the RTX 2060 Super is better than the GTX 1080 Ti for this purpose since OP didn't state gaming intentions.

 

As you can see from these, the RTX 2060 and GTX 1080 Ti are on pair, the 2060 Super might even edge it a little for hardware acceleration, and then RTX has much improved NVENC which can always assist video encoding tasks greatly and has RT and Tensor cores which are starting to be used more for hardware acceleration tasks, it's technology worth having already.

I was going to say that your build is better after some research  

[GreatWhiteWine]

22 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

I would personally go like this:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (€507.00 @ Amazon France)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (€80.98 @ Cdiscount)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€212.26 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (€143.99 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Kingston A2000 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€73.92 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€221.46 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: PNY GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Dual Video Card  (€369.99 @ Amazon France)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case  (€56.89 @ Cdiscount)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (€80.89 @ Alternate)
Total: €1747.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-21 13:11 CET+0100

 

All adobe applications still prefers Intel since the actual editing tools are all single threaded and they enjoy Intel's Ring Bus low latency... so it will be faster for the actual work, it's iGPU with QuickSync also aids a lot and can make up for the fully multi-threaded parts like rendering and exporting.

 

Intel usually previews better, warps faster etc... in this specific case here the 9900K is still a better choice than the R9 3900X.

 

For GPU there's really only so much CUDA Acceleration Premiere Pro can use, the RTX 2060 Super should suffice for that, 8GB of VRAM also is sufficient and then you'll have the better NVENC for whenever that's useful.

 

Samsung 970 Evo's are overpriced and not needed, we can have a cheaper NVMe that's just as good for the most part for boot and then it is far more preferable to have 2TB of storage rather than just 1TB at almost same price, the MX500 will do perfectly as a storage drive for all the footage she'll be working on.

 

This build can work on 550W just fine and the TXM (2017) is a superior unit to the RM (2019) for cheaper.

 

The build looks over all solid enough and we even managed to make it cheaper so it's a win win for me.

 

I love how everything from her list is changed... Thanks for your answer, your list seems to be great.

 

I was wondering what about this fancy new R9 3950X ? And any idea on 4K monitors ?

[GreatWhiteWine]

25 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Zen 2 boost frequency works just like recent GPUs. The cooler it is the higher it will boost. Therefore she'll actually see higher performance with a better cooler. It's also quieter. 

Thank you for your answer, I hope that it will be enough to convince her.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

I was wondering what about this fancy new R9 3950X ?

Unsuitable for her needs, Premiere Pro really stops scaling properly past 16 threads, lots of benchmarking is showing that the 3950X for this task in specific is not showing any gains from the 3900X, the processing power is there but the software is unable to properly use it.

 

2 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

And any idea on 4K monitors ?

Do you think she'd be interest on 1440p ultrawides? argueably a better experience than 4K since it doesn't have Windows scaling issues and 21:9 is just gorgeous for video editing.

[GreatWhiteWine]

4 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Unsuitable for her needs, Premiere Pro really stops scaling properly past 16 threads, lots of benchmarking is showing that the 3950X for this task in specific is not showing any gains from the 3900X, the processing power is there but the software is unable to properly use it.

 

Do you think she'd be interest on 1440p ultrawides? argueably a better experience than 4K since it doesn't have Windows scaling issues and 21:9 is just gorgeous for video editing.

And don't you think that Premiere Pro will adapt their SW for this kind of behemoth in the near futur ?

 

For the monitor I am waiting for her answer.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

And don't you think that Premiere Pro will adapt their SW for this kind of behemoth in the near futur ?

 

For the monitor I am waiting for her answer.

The 9900K is going to suffice better all the way to the point where when she needs more cores she'll want whatever is current gen by then be it a Zen 4 or a 10nm/7nm Intel or w/e to be frank.

 

The R9 3950X is excessive even for content creation and it will drag costs past 2000 euros to make a proper build.

[GreatWhiteWine]

7 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

The 9900K is going to suffice better all the way to the point where when she needs more cores she'll want whatever is current gen by then be it a Zen 4 or a 10nm/7nm Intel or w/e to be frank.

 

The R9 3950X is excessive even for content creation and it will drag costs past 2000 euros to make a proper build.

Ok, I understand.

 

For the monitor, she doesn't really know what would be the advantages of an Ultrawide, she'll have to dig into that a bit more.

 

About the RAM now, is 32GB enough? She read here that 64GB would be better (of course it would) but is it really worth it ?

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC-143/Hardware-Recommendations

 

Another thing, she is quite impressed by the reactivity here and I am too, so thanks a lot everyone!

[Princess Luna]

2 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

About the RAM now, is 32GB enough? She read here that 64GB would be better (of course it would) but is it really worth it ?

The thing is about buying 2x16gb is that you still have room to add the other 2x16gb later on.

 

32GB is already plenty I'd suggest to give it a go first and only add down the road should the need rise since unused memory is wasted memory.

[GreatWhiteWine]

13 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

The thing is about buying 2x16gb is that you still have room to add the other 2x16gb later on.

 

32GB is already plenty I'd suggest to give it a go first and only add down the road should the need rise since unused memory is wasted memory.

Ok, that's pretty much what we were thinking also. Thanks.

[GreatWhiteWine]

@VEXICUS, @star_pilot475, @lee32uk, @Wolfycapt

 

Any comment on the list proposed by @Princess Luna?

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (€507.00 @ Amazon France)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (€80.98 @ Cdiscount)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€212.26 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (€143.99 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Kingston A2000 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€73.92 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€221.46 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: PNY GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Dual Video Card  (€369.99 @ Amazon France)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case  (€56.89 @ Cdiscount)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (€80.89 @ Alternate)
Total: €1747.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-21 13:11 CET+0100

 

[Akira Shimazu]

15 minutes ago, GreatWhiteWine said:

@VEXICUS, @star_pilot475, @lee32uk, @Wolfycapt

 

Any comment on the list proposed by @Princess Luna?

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (€507.00 @ Amazon France)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (€80.98 @ Cdiscount)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€212.26 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (€143.99 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Kingston A2000 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€73.92 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€221.46 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: PNY GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Dual Video Card  (€369.99 @ Amazon France)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case  (€56.89 @ Cdiscount)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (€80.89 @ Alternate)
Total: €1747.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-21 13:11 CET+0100

 

@Princess Luna are you sure kingston SSD is great? i meant some review said it was dead for couple month. and dont you think the MX500 is kinda too budget for 9900k build? what about something like intel 660P? 

[Princess Luna]

6 minutes ago, Wolfycapt said:

are you sure kingston SSD is great?

Of course it's not "great" nor it has to be, it has a very standard 'normal' NVMe build, it's Micron TLC NAND with DRAM and pretty average controller present on plenty of other devices from SanDisk, Western Digital, Patriot, ADATA etc etc on their mid end offerings.

 

For a boot drive it is more than adequate, there aren't any red flags on it.

 

9 minutes ago, Wolfycapt said:

and dont you think the MX500 is kinda too budget for 9900k build?

No? the MX500 is as good as Sata3 2,5inch SSDs gets... for storage purposes the *more* expensive 660p won't really bring anything more to the table... Furthermore the MX500 uses TLC NAND opposed to the QLC NAND on the 660p, while not very meaningful it does mean it *should* in theory have better longevity.

[Akira Shimazu]

33 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Of course it's not "great" nor it has to be, it has a very standard 'normal' NVMe build, it's Micron TLC NAND with DRAM and pretty average controller present on plenty of other devices from SanDisk, Western Digital, Patriot, ADATA etc etc on their mid end offerings.

 

For a boot drive it is more than adequate, there aren't any red flags on it.

 

No? the MX500 is as good as Sata3 2,5inch SSDs gets... for storage purposes the *more* expensive 660p won't really bring anything more to the table... Furthermore the MX500 uses TLC NAND opposed to the QLC NAND on the 660p, while not very meaningful it does mean it *should* in theory have better longevity.

ah good point. might add this to my build.

[GreatWhiteWine]

3 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Unsuitable for her needs, Premiere Pro really stops scaling properly past 16 threads, lots of benchmarking is showing that the 3950X for this task in specific is not showing any gains from the 3900X, the processing power is there but the software is unable to properly use it.

 

Do you think she'd be interest on 1440p ultrawides? argueably a better experience than 4K since it doesn't have Windows scaling issues and 21:9 is just gorgeous for video editing.

About the monitor, what do you think about the BenQ PD2700U?

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/benq-pd2700u-4k-hdr-monitor,5975.html

 

Seems like a nice monitor for a non gamer and not so expensive.

[Syscloche]

Hey everybody, ex-half sister's OP here (the Disappointed Mac Lady). First, thank u all for ur advices.

 

I know my set up seems a bit oversized regarding my today use but my point was to be sure to be able to scale my system more easily in the future. II would like to be in peace for at least 6 years. I want room for evolution et scaling of this set up. But for sure I don't want to built a tank to shoot a mosquito neither.

 

My number one priority is to not loose time, watching a damned progress bar when creating .mogrt. I don't want to feel any of the renderer. I waste so much time with my previous and really old computer (Mac Pro Mid-2010) I know, middle age

 

- Why AMD Ryzen 9 3900x and not the Intel Core i9? AMD for the all system more recent tech, more scalable in time with new tech to come, like PCI-E4.0, and AM4 socket.

- Yes the MSI GTX 1080 Ti for the 3584 CUDA cores

- NVME: 500Go for the system, then 1To partitioned half half for the renderer and the files. This is why I chose maybe more expensive ones but more relatable, my point was to put the renderer aside from the system and the storage to increase the efficiency. I will use my old SSD from my mac for pure storage.

- I'm gonna definitively buy a cooler. But I heard water systems are actually more noisy than a regular fan? The Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 seems to be the thing.

- Motherboard: 2 friends of mine told me Gigabyte is not a good brand, they had issues (dunno which I'm a newbie). I don't have any other valid argument except the cute glowing lights, I really like them. And the latest bluetooth, wifi etc.

- Power supply: 850w seems too much but again I would like to be able to scale easily if needed (for example if one day I want a video card that requires 2 power slots)

- After digging, an ultra wide screen would be perfect to welcome an After Effects fluffy timeline. I also need a relatable color screen, Ben Q is one of the most common brand in the business I'm gonna look into that and wait for Black Friday to not have to sale a kidney.

- Finally, I chose the Fractal R6 blackout for the space and the easy cable management. At first a pro will build it for me but I need to easily access stuff by myself, without too many screws and tricky access, plus, there is a real "temperature safe space" for the NVME.

 

So what do u think?