4k video editing and light gaming

Cideway · August 25, 2017

1. Budget & Location

So I'm based in Australia and would prefer new and locally sourced parts for warranty and tax reasons. I have a budget about AUD$5,500 for the build.

2. Aim

The main usage for the system will be 4k video editing and photo editing 2-3Gb , I also play games, the main ones are Civ 5&6 with huge maps, Hitman (2016) and Dues Ex Mankind divided are the main games I play.

I am looking at having performance for booting and running Premier/Photoshop RAID 0.
A storage disk for games and movies and such.
A high performance SSD for working on projects separate to the system drive (quicker loading and saving) and then move them into storage once finished.

Enough internal storage to access everything I need to at the moment. with a RAID 1 for redundancy.

64Gb of RAM was the original plan but I have seen reports suggesting that Premier/Photoshop show diminishing returns beyond 32Gb, so was thinking to either stick with 32 or go 64 and use 32 as RAM and 32 as a RAM disk for scratch disks.

3. Monitors

I currently have a high colour performance screen at 1680x1050, eventually looking to replace it with a 2560x1440 or a 4K (expensive for good colour screens). I might occasionally run it through my 4k TV too for couch gaming. I may even go two screens but that depends on size and benefit.

4. Peripherals

Happy with the keyboard, mouse and monitor that I have at the moment. No issues

5. Why are you upgrading?

My current system is an AMD FX8120, slightly overclocked with 12Gb of Ram and a AMD 7770 and a 500Gb HDD for my system drive. This system is fine for photo editing and sufficient for 1080P video, I can run Civ 5 slowly on huge maps, the huge maps in Civ 6 crash and 4k editing is painfully slow.

I also have a Thermaltake Frio Extreme Cooler which I would ideally re-purpose but open to other cooling solutions if better performance (and quieter) is available for a reasonable cost. My case is a Thermaltake New Soprano I would also look to keep using this.

For hardware I am looking at.

CPU AMD Ryzen 1800x $659.00

MB Asus PRIME X370 Pro $229.00

Video Asus Dual OC GTX 1070 8GB $659.00

PSU Corsair TX750M $139.00

RAM G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200 16GB $199.00

Storage

HDD Seagate BarraCuda 4TB $172.00

Archive RAID 1

HDD Seagate BarraCuda Pro 8TB $499.00

Boot RAID 0

SSD Samsung 850 Pro 500GB $309.00

Project disk

SSD Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250GB $170.00

As you can see most of my proposed budget is going towards the drives so I am open to suggestions on configuration ideas, better solutions for drives if people have any, I only access the drives from one computer so don't see the benefit of a NAS or similar solution. I also have additional off site and on site backups so that isn't so much a concern.

Would the RAM Disk for a scratch disk be redundant since it wouldn't use it because of the quantity of RAM that the system would have?

Would it be worth getting one 1070, or running two 1060s in SLI (or AMD cards if better) and how much benefit would SLI cards be for video editing work compared to a single card?

Will probably overclock the CPU, less likely to do the video and RAM though.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cideway
left a table out

CostcoSamples · August 25, 2017

For memory, I think the G.Skill Flare X 3200 CL 14 is still the best for Ryzen.

For your boot drive, the 2x 850 Pro in Raid 0 will not make a noticeable difference compared to a single 850 Pro. I would avoid RAID SATA drives and either just get one 850, or get an NVMe drive. I like the Intel 750 series because of the reliability features which are normally only found on enterprise class drives. For instance, it has full Flush-in-Flight data loss protection (which is very uncommon).

Since you will be using NVMe drives (which use PCIe lanes), I recommend a single GPU such as GTX 1070 or Vega 56 (once 3rd party cards are available).

brob · August 25, 2017

@Cideway,

The cpu cooler overhangs the memory area. According to a review I read, even with 32mm tall memory modules it's a tight fit. The 42mm tall Ripjaws V will be problematic.

The psu is not really good enough for the build.

Not sure why regular storage is being split off from the RAID array. Why not use the array for those files as well? As you may know, RAID 1 is not backup, one should always have regular backups.

RAID 0 ssd arrays do not necessarily provide better performance than a single larger ssd, especially for a boot/system drive. In any case using an NVMe M.2 drive makes much more sense.

You may find https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Premiere-Pro-CC-2017-1-2-CPU-Comparison-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Kaby-Lake-Ryzen-7-969/ and https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Photoshop-CC-2017-1-1-CPU-Comparison-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Kaby-Lake-Ryzen-7-976/ illuminating with respect to the best platform for Premiere and Photoshop.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7820X 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor ($798.00 @ Shopping Express)
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME X299-A ATX LGA2066 Motherboard ($429.00 @ Shopping Express)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($443.96 @ Skycomp Technology)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($316.00 @ Shopping Express)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($595.00 @ Shopping Express)
Storage: Hitachi - Deskstar NAS 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($459.00 @ Scorptec)
Storage: Hitachi - Deskstar NAS 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($459.00 @ Scorptec)
Storage: Hitachi - Deskstar NAS 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($459.00 @ Scorptec)
Storage: Hitachi - Deskstar NAS 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($459.00 @ Scorptec)
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card ($759.00 @ Shopping Express)
Case: Fractal Design - Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($163.90 @ Skycomp Technology)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($195.00 @ Shopping Express)
Total: $5535.86
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-26 02:37 AEST+1000