CPU for video rendering

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piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
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Hi,

here is what I currently have:
ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79
Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W BX80619i73930K Desktop Processor
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970
32GB RAM

but it's not enough to render some sequences in Adobe Premiere Pro.

So, what I figured out is that the bottlenecks are my GPU (no CUDA and questionable OpenCL support) and my CPU.
I am planning on upgrading the GPU to EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN Z, but I need your advice about CPU.

Should I consider one of the Xeon processors?
My understanding is that I should be able to install any Xeon E5 series up to version 2 (but not version 3 and up) on my motherboard.
Some of them can be found used at pretty good price points, so the only question is if I will really see any real life improvement in Adobe Premiere Pro, or other Adobe CC applications.
From what I read what really counts is the number of cores, so my current CPU has 6 of them, but with Xeon I could go up to 12, or higher without replacing my motherboard. The clock frequency of the Xeon cores are much lower though than for my i7-3930K, so I am not sure if this makes any sense.

Your advice will be appreciated. Thanks!
 
Makaveli

Makaveli

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2002
4,723
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Instead of doing a full system update why don't you just buy an nvidia gpu if you need cuda support for APP.
 
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N

NAC

Golden Member
Dec 30, 2000
1,105
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Why do you say the CPU is "not enough" to render the sequences? I don't think your CPU or GPU should prevent you from rendering anything. Other systems may render faster of course, but yours should still get the job done. I don't use Premiere Pro, but I know with Premiere Elements, I had a heck of time to render things, and eventually figured out that the program couldn't handle having the same filenames in two different folders. Prior to that, my project would render occasionally, like 1 in 10, and fail the other times. After I fixed that problem (renamed files to be different) it rendered fine 3 times in a row. Another common issue is gaps" in the timeline. And you can google lots of other potential problems with rendering.

My understanding is Premiere can't handle lots of cores that well. Indeed I just built a dual xeon e5-2670 machine, but haven't tested rendering with both CPUs yet. But based on tests I read online, once you start to use the second CPU the times basically don't improve much for almost any task in Premiere. See this:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC-Multi-Core-Performance-698/

Also, a GPU will help some, but only if you use lots of GPU accelerated effects. See this:
https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/Premiere-Benchmark.htm

So, sticking with 1 CPU, you can basically multiply the cores times the GHZ to get the speed. Assuming you overclock to 4ghz, the product is 24. This is equal to a 8 core e5-2670, which runs at 3ghz. You could get a Xeon E5-2687 off ebay for about $400 and it would be a bit faster. Or get a new MB and a 5960X.
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
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Yeah, my 3930 is running at 4.2GHz and by saying it's not enough I meant that right now I am rendering a sequence, which shows me about 23 hours to finish and I started the process some 4 hours ago.
And that would be acceptable, but Media Encoder crashed 3 times before, so this is my 4th attempt. If it repeats I will wait until my Titan X is installed and will try again.
Replacing the motherboard and the CPU would cost me more than just replacing the existing CPU with one of the more powerful Xeons, so I assume I should try it first.

Thank you for all your replies!
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
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Yes, like I said in my original message that has been already decided and my Titan X is on its way, so I will first see if it really improves anything and then try to decide if and which Xeon should I go for.
 
A

asendra

Member
Nov 4, 2012
156
12
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I'm not going to be the one that tells you not to get the Titan because you already got it, and If I could get I would probably just to have one, but are you sure is the best option economically?

I say that because yes, the Titan is faster than say a 970, but "only" 30-40% faster for Adobe renders, which is quite a bit yes, but you're already getting a 500% speed improvement with the 970 vs the CPU and something like a 300% over the AMD car.

I guess what I'm saying is I think is a better use of 1000-1300$ to get a 970 (even better a 1070 in 1-2 months) and a better cpu (maybe a used 5960x?) to also improve everything that isn't accelerated by the GPU.

Just my 2cents.
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
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asendra said:
I'm not going to be the one that tells you not to get the Titan because you already got it, and If I could get I would probably just to have one, but are you sure is the best option economically?

I say that because yes, the Titan is faster than say a 970, but "only" 30-40% faster for Adobe renders, which is quite a bit yes, but you're already getting a 500% speed improvement with the 970 vs the CPU and something like a 300% over the AMD car.

I guess what I'm saying is I think is a better use of 1000-1300$ to get a 970 (even better a 1070 in 1-2 months) and a better cpu (maybe a used 5960x?) to also improve everything that isn't accelerated by the GPU.

Just my 2cents.
Click to expand...

Yes, you are probably right as far as the GPU is concerned. My way of thinking was that making my investment "future proof" is important, so I won't need to do any upgrades for another couple of years. The upcoming GPUs are really tempting, but first of all they are not available yet and I need solution ASAP and also I am pretty sure they will carry some price premium as for the newest and greatest, especially at the beginning.
As far as the CPUs for Adobe Premiere are concerned Xeons are probably much better choice than anything else, because of their multicore capabilities and there is plenty of deals available around, so I need to think about it, but it's going to be after I can check the real life gain from the upgraded GPU.

Thanks again for your reply!
 
N

NAC

Golden Member
Dec 30, 2000
1,105
11
81
piowoc said:
Yeah, my 3930 is running at 4.2GHz and by saying it's not enough I meant that right now I am rendering a sequence, which shows me about 23 hours to finish and I started the process some 4 hours ago.
And that would be acceptable, but Media Encoder crashed 3 times before, so this is my 4th attempt. If it repeats I will wait until my Titan X is installed and will try again.
Replacing the motherboard and the CPU would cost me more than just replacing the existing CPU with one of the more powerful Xeons, so I assume I should try it first.

Thank you for all your replies!
Click to expand...

Wow. That is a really long time to render. I'm just curious - how long is the video, and does it include color grading and a huge amount of effects? My last project was 2 hours and rendered in maybe 7 hours on my i5 machine (and no supported GPU). It included mostly 4k downscaled to 1080p, and only had effects for maybe 15% of the timeline, and nothing crazy - just for brightness/color grading.

Please report back when you get the Titan to say how much it helped.
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
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NAC said:
Wow. That is a really long time to render. I'm just curious - how long is the video, and does it include color grading and a huge amount of effects? My last project was 2 hours and rendered in maybe 7 hours on my i5 machine (and no supported GPU). It included mostly 4k downscaled to 1080p, and only had effects for maybe 15% of the timeline, and nothing crazy - just for brightness/color grading.

Please report back when you get the Titan to say how much it helped.
Click to expand...

Yes, the video is 93 mins long, multicam edit from 4 cameras, color grading, all kind of effects applied to both video and audio. Last night Media Encoder crashed again, so I am now waiting for my new GPU before I try to export it again.
 
Markfw

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
25,564
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will it use more CPU cores better ? or more GPU ? You can get 24 threads (12 cores) on an old Xeon box for just a few hundred. I have twin 5570's (I think thats what they are, socket 1366, 2.93 ghz ??) and I got the motherboard for $200 and the chips for like $100 each.

Edit, all Xeons use the same HSF setup as regular CPU's
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
55
0
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Markfw900 said:
will it use more CPU cores better ? or more GPU ? You can get 24 threads (12 cores) on an old Xeon box for just a few hundred. I have twin 5570's (I think thats what they are, socket 1366, 2.93 ghz ??) and I got the motherboard for $200 and the chips for like $100 each.
Click to expand...

From the earlier discussion and from this research:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC-Multi-Core-Performance-698/
it looks like there is very diminishing return above 6-8 cores, so investing in something more expensive wouldn't really give me any return. However, assuming that this upgrade will last for at least few years there is always a chance that Adobe (or any other software company) may come up with some solution to use more cores more effectively and obviously I don't plan on upgrading every year, or so.
Also, the consensus is that GPU upgrade may give me more bang for my bucks than CPU upgrade.
 
H

hhhd1

Senior member
Apr 8, 2012
667
3
71
piowoc said:
Yeah, it has "only" 2560 CUDA cores, while Titan has 3072. It would be great to be able to try them both before making the decision :)
Click to expand...
the performance per CUDA core on the 2 cards are not the same.
 
S

supaidaaman

Senior member
Nov 17, 2005
375
0
0
-Are you rendering to h264 direct from pp or through media encoder?
-With that big of a file you should render to a lossless format and then encode from there.
-I'll take my lossless file into AE and fix any edits with the huge export rather than doing it over again.
-Rendering a quicktime animation file will probably be faster than h264.
-If you are using certain PP effects that aren't GPU compatible, then Im pretty sure it disables cuda, and it doesnt matter if you have 100x sli titans, it will still render on the cpu.
-Adobe CC 2015 (mainly AE and PP) sucks and is full of crashes and bugs.
 
wingman04

wingman04

Senior member
May 12, 2016
393
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I would of held out for the GTX 1080 the Titan x is 25-30% less in performance, both cards are for gaming.
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
55
0
61
supaidaaman said:
-Are you rendering to h264 direct from pp or through media encoder?
-With that big of a file you should render to a lossless format and then encode from there.
-I'll take my lossless file into AE and fix any edits with the huge export rather than doing it over again.
-Rendering a quicktime animation file will probably be faster than h264.
-If you are using certain PP effects that aren't GPU compatible, then Im pretty sure it disables cuda, and it doesnt matter if you have 100x sli titans, it will still render on the cpu.
-Adobe CC 2015 (mainly AE and PP) sucks and is full of crashes and bugs.
Click to expand...

Yes, I was trying to render through media encoder directly to H264 with "match sequence settings" enabled. The original footage was 1920x1080. What format should I use instead?
I believe the problem is with my GPU, because the CPU is used only in about 30-45% during the rendering. My Radeon 7970 has 3GB memory and when I run GPU-Z it shows that all memory is constantly used. I assume this is why it media encoder is crashing after some time.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks!
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
55
0
61
wingman04 said:
I would of held out for the GTX 1080 the Titan x is 25-30% less in performance, both cards are for gaming.
Click to expand...

Titan X, as well as GTX 1080 have comparable number of CUDO cores and processing power to Quadro cards, which are much more expensive.
 
J

jihe

Senior member
Nov 6, 2009
747
97
91
piowoc said:
Yeah, my 3930 is running at 4.2GHz and by saying it's not enough I meant that right now I am rendering a sequence, which shows me about 23 hours to finish and I started the process some 4 hours ago.
And that would be acceptable, but Media Encoder crashed 3 times before, so this is my 4th attempt. If it repeats I will wait until my Titan X is installed and will try again.
Replacing the motherboard and the CPU would cost me more than just replacing the existing CPU with one of the more powerful Xeons, so I assume I should try it first.

Thank you for all your replies!
Click to expand...
Maybe you should layoff the overclock if media encoder is crashing.
 
P

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
55
0
61
jihe said:
Maybe you should layoff the overclock if media encoder is crashing.
Click to expand...

It's kind of strange, because I have never had any issues with any other software and also, when I start rendering job it crashes after 8-9 hours of continuous work, but the CPU load never exceeds 50%. The same with RAM. What I realized was that GPU is under stress, because all of its 3GB memory is constantly in use and it's temperature is about 58C, but this should be perfectly fine, because it's about 47C when idle.

I will have Titan X tomorrow, so hope to be able to figure out what the problem is.
 
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