PC for video editing (Adobe Premiere Pro)

[alvalol]

This might seem like a very basic question, but why would it be such a bad idea to overclock a video editing PC? The actual performance in rendering would not be worth it or what?

 

[mnewsham]

This might seem like a very basic question, but why would it be such a bad idea to overclock a video editing PC? The actual performance in rendering would not be worth it or what?

you are more likely to damage something, it is generally just not something one does in a professional environment, unless you are specifically working on over clocking things.

While overclocking does work the majority of the time, for someone running a 1k-2k workstation, why risk it?

 

[Sleepingforest]

This might seem like a very basic question, but why would it be such a bad idea to overclock a video editing PC? The actual performance in rendering would not be worth it or what?

You definitely don't want to risk corruption or breakdown due to overclocking. Plus, most editing programs scale better with cores than clockspeed (to a point. Amdahl's Law inevitably kicks in).

 

[alvalol]

Makes complete sense. I was reading a thread here : http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1117115?tstart=0 where they notice that this processor has some issues with video editing.

"The LGA 1155 E3-series Xeons do not support registered memory at all - they support only unbuffered memory (with or without ECC)"

They basically say that it's a pretty bad processor for video editing.

Here, they say the opposite :
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1937165

Haha!

Sorry if I'm annoying coming back and forth with my remarks, but I just want to make sure that I do the right choices. Thanks again to you guys for the help. I owe you one.

 

[wotan]

IMHO, you are silly to start building a CS6 Premiere machine right now. CS6.5/7 is on the horizon (in the next month) and that will bring AMD OpenCL accelleration. Then we will see which one is faster -- I'm in the same holding pattern myself.

 

[alvalol]

Wotan, I see your point, but it does not seem like a valid argument. If I followed that thought, I would never buy anything, since new things are always coming up, right? I mean, CS7 might be THE BEST THING EVER, but I think CS6 is pretty good too for the projects I have in mind. Which is perfect for now.

Thanks for the heads-up, though!

 

[mnewsham]

You aren't using registered memory are you?

 

[alvalol]

Uhm, right. I think I got concepts mixed-up as they depicted this processor in a pretty bad way.

 

[wotan]

Wotan, I see your point, but it does not seem like a valid argument. If I followed that thought, I would never buy anything, since new things are always coming up, right? I mean, CS7 might be THE BEST THING EVER, but I think CS6 is pretty good too for the projects I have in mind. Which is perfect for now.

Thanks for the heads-up, though!

I completely agree except that CS7 is (probably) coming out in a WEEK OR TWO! And you're talking about investing in hardware that you'll probably use for 2 years. And OpenCL might over a HUGE performance boost over CUDA (bang for buck, anyway.)

http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cs7-next-release-coming-out.html

 

[Torn Mind]

Isn't this openCL support thing just a matter of deciding on a GPU? And doesn't Nvidia support it anyway?

 

[Cerb]

Makes complete sense. I was reading a thread here : http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1117115?tstart=0 where they notice that this processor has some issues with video editing.

"The LGA 1155 E3-series Xeons do not support registered memory at all - they support only unbuffered memory (with or without ECC)"

They basically say that it's a pretty bad processor for video editing.

No, it just means you get something for the enormous added cost of going with a Xeon E5. Registered ECC DDR3 gives you error-checking for command/address and data. Unregistered ECC DDR3 gives you error-checking on data. Unregistered non-ECC DDR3 gives you neither. Most memory will run without errors, but a sufficiently minor bit flipped could be unknown, and a bad DIMM or PSU could go unnoticed. The cost of the platforms supporting such RAM, however, remains pretty high (like $3k+ budget high).

The Xeon E3 is a cheaper option than a Core i7. It also support unregistered ECC RAM, with the right chipset, but the reason mfenn selected it was because an i7 is more expensive, and offers pretty much nothing over the Xeon, unless you overlock or need IGP--and they can come with IGP (E3-xxx0: no IGP, E3-xxx5: IGP). Adobe's software loves Hyperthreading, so the cost of the Xeon E3 over an i5 is very much worth it. Without overlocking, an i7 is $50 too expensive, or more, relative to them.

Isn't this openCL support thing just a matter of deciding on a GPU? And doesn't Nvidia support it anyway?

Yes and yes, but their Kepler support has been subpar (no performance improvements from Fermi, and no real work going into new features, either), so it is an open question right now, who's got the better GPU option. OTOH, the rest of the PC will be the same either way.

 

[alvalol]

What do you guys think about this one :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($319.99 @ Amazon Canada)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($116.98 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($114.00 @ Canada Computers)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($114.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.99 @ NCIX) x2
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card ($279.00 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.99 @ Memory Express)
Power Supply: Antec Basiq Plus 550W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($67.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer ($23.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Other: Sata Cable
Total: $1253.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-04-30 15:49 EDT-0400)

 

[mnewsham]

well if you have looked at the thread you would know that we think you should get the xeon as it is cheaper and performs better for what you will be doing without having to worry about it failing because of OC.


But i digress, people do what they want, advice be dammed 😛

 

[alvalol]

Hehe. I was just asking as this was recommended to another user. Just making sure I don't make a mistake!

 

[giantpandaman2]

What do you guys think about this one :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($319.99 @ Amazon Canada)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($116.98 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($114.00 @ Canada Computers)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($114.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.99 @ NCIX) x2
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card ($279.00 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.99 @ Memory Express)
Power Supply: Antec Basiq Plus 550W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($67.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer ($23.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Other: Sata Cable
Total: $1253.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-04-30 15:49 EDT-0400)

Not good. Go with the mfenn build. If the RAM question is that important to you, move up to the next level of Xeon. You have room in your budget. Getting a "K" cpu for overclocking is foolish considering you're worried about errors due to RAM. Overclocking will give you far more errors than normal RAM.

If I were you, I'd wait for the CUDA vs. OpenCL numbers. A few weeks is nothing compared to the crazy amount of speed you might garner from getting good GPU acceleration. The 600 series nVidia GPUs just aren't that good for compute compared to the current AMD's or the last gen nVidias.

I agree with mfenn. You need at least a 1920x1080 monitor for HD video editing. I'd say at least 2 of them.

 

[Cerb]

What do you guys think about this one : (...)

Cheaper mobo (H77?), cheaper CPU, less of a GPU, and depending on disk limitations, consider an HDD RAID 0 non-OS volume.

mfenn's SSD choice is a good steady-state performer, in case you need it for some amount of heavy IO, with a good track record so far, for a good price; CPU+mobo are good; RAM is pretty much RAM; and the rest is the basic stuff he recommends everywhere.

Even if you can make good use of the GPU, there are at least three video card families to consider, and don't be surprised if you really only end up needing a $100 video card, but 16GB more RAM, instead of a $200-300 card. An IGP-enabled Xeon really wouldn't be a bad way to start out, if you wanted to go ahead and get new hardware, but also wait and see about the software benefits from GPUs (same deal with 2x8GB RAM in a 4-slot board, really). With Haswell delayed, there's not much else that will be different in several weeks or months, except prices (especially RAM).

The Kepler GPUs aren't better for compute than Fermi, but are lower power, quieter, and will get any upcoming driver enhancements. I'd also take AMD's OpenCL v. CUDA slides with enough salt too mummify my corpse 🙂 (FI, why aren't they AMD v. nV w/ OpenCL?).

 

[mfenn]

I completely agree except that CS7 is (probably) coming out in a WEEK OR TWO! And you're talking about investing in hardware that you'll probably use for 2 years. And OpenCL might over a HUGE performance boost over CUDA (bang for buck, anyway.)

http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cs7-next-release-coming-out.html

What makes you thing that a machine you build today wouldn't be capable of running CS7? Intel isn't coming out with a processor next week, nor is Nvidia coming out with a GPU.

 

[mfenn]

The Kepler GPUs aren't better for compute than Fermi, but are lower power, quieter, and will get any upcoming driver enhancements. I'd also take AMD's OpenCL v. CUDA slides with enough salt too mummify my corpse 🙂 (FI, why aren't they AMD v. nV w/ OpenCL?).

Exactly. Nvidia GPUs are perfectly capable of running OpenCL as well as CUDA.

 

[snoylekim]

I see after effects as well as premiere.. I think making sure that a decent video card w/ at least 2 Gig of video memory will make any recommended build more solid , especially if complex effects or Digital Content Creation w/ 3d or animation are in the use case .. The HD4000P graphics would suffice for documentary/'vanilla' cinematography, but would probably start showing some strain with effects as mentioned above.. it'll also eliminate the need for dedicated processor and memory resources .

 

[alvalol]

I see after effects as well as premiere.. I think making sure that a decent video card w/ at least 2 Gig of video memory will make any recommended build more solid , especially if complex effects or Digital Content Creation w/ 3d or animation are in the use case .. The HD4000P graphics would suffice for documentary/'vanilla' cinematography, but would probably start showing some strain with effects as mentioned above.. it'll also eliminate the need for dedicated processor and memory resources .

This is a pretty good point you're making. In my initial question I mentioned "GTX 670, GT 660i or GTX680", because these were recommended to me in another forum when I asked the same question.

 

[snoylekim]

This is a pretty good point you're making. In my initial question I mentioned "GTX 670, GT 660i or GTX680", because these were recommended to me in another forum when I asked the same question.

Two of my colleagues are very good amateur videographers that use lots of After Effects and Premiere Pro, and both use GTX 670s in their rigs ..I think they use the 'hack trick' to add to the supported pro card list as well to even get more from them. I do vanilla videography, and lots of still photography, and I have a AMD reference 7970 in my rig , but that's because I got a heck of a deal on a white box Diamond card, so in it went 🙂 ..

 

[alvalol]

Is this what you guys have been talking about : http://m.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/01/amd_huma/ ?

 

[Cerb]

Is this what you guys have been talking about : http://m.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/01/amd_huma/ ?

No. The new Adobe CS7 will use OpenCL, allowing Intel, AMD, and nVidia GPUs to all flex their might. Previously, they used CUDA, so you had to get a nVidia video card [and sometimes edit a file to allow consumer ones to get used].

CUDA is nVidia-only, while OpenCL is a committee thing, and is supported by all 3 major x86 graphics players.

As such, don't assume that the same cards will be the best.

Relevant link: http://techreport.com/news/24616/adobe-amd-bring-opencl-support-to-premiere-pro

 

[Sleepingforest]

HuMA isn't the issue here. I'll give a quick explanation:

Video and photo editing programs do a variety of tasks, computationally speaking. Different effects, filters, and tools require different calculations by a computer. By now, these tasks fall into 2 basic camps: ones that are quickest when calculated by the CPU, and ones that are quickest when calculated by GPU. The ones that are calculated by CPU are bascially all high parallelized, which means they benefit far more from increasing CPU cores (or threads) than from clockspeed.

The GPU operations are a little more complicated. As things are now, there are two competing platforms for GPU coding: CUDA and OpenCL. CUDA is most common right now (and is what CS6 supports) while OpenCL is the incoming challenger. There are two key facts. One: CUDA is limited to Nvidia GPUs while OpenCL is available on any GPU. And two: Nvidia's most recent GTX-series GPUs are frankly terrible at both OpenCL and CUDA in comparison to the last generation of GTX graphics cards and this generation of Radeon cards.

That's why you should wait for Adobe to announce CS7's features. If it supports OpenCL well, you could spend less on the GPU and get more RAM (also very helpful for editing).

 

[demiro]

I was going to start this same thread, but alvalol saved me some time. Thanks!

Unfortunately, after reading the thread, I think the responses are going to cost me some money. Typical, I'm sure.

The more I research a build the more I am tempted to buy something off the shelf and just stop thinking about it. Sorry if that is a heretic sort of thing to say around here. 😉