Advice needed on PC workstation for 8K files in After Effects

[David Lawrence]

[Dave LaRonde] “Walter Soyka would be a good person to comment on your needs. “

Thanks Dave, I agree and seeing that he’s a leader on this forum, hopefully he’ll chime in. 🙂

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[Walter Soyka]

[David Lawrence] “As much as I’m a Mac loyalist, I realized there’s no way I’ll get the performance I need with a Mac so sizzlecore PC here we come.”

Nice! Come on in, the water’s fine!

[David Lawrence] “I imagine I’ll want as much RAM as I can get since AE loves RAM. I’m not sure what I should be looking for in terms of CPU, GPU and external storage. I don’t need or expect realtime playback, I just need to do simple, multi-layer, masked composites. I need the UI to be responsive when I work and output render times to be reasonable.”

The GPU doesn’t matter for this use; if you’re interested in targeting a computer-based headset in addition to Cardboard, pick your GPU for that.

Given your requirements above, I’d probably prioritize clock speed over core count.

For storage, I’d recommend going solid-state and PCIe-attached, if your requirements allow for the lower capacity versus a spinning-rust RAID. You might consider transcoding those MP4 files to uncompressed image sequences, trading away disk space for lower CPU load.

I love my HP workstations (HP sent me one to test a few years back, and I’ve bought several since then), but if you want to DIY, check out this advice from Teddy Gage [link] from the AE-List.

[David Lawrence] “I’ll be working in some version of After Effects CC.”

As Dave hinted, if you install CC 2015, go ahead and install CC 2014, too. Ae CC 2015 is the first release with a revamped internal architecture, so it comes with a mix of advantages and disadvantages. You’ll definitely want to render from CC 2014 (multiprocessing!), but unless you run into a bug, working in CC 2015 is nice with has some big interactivity improvements.

I’d be remiss if I let it go without comment that NUKE is making a major push in VR compositing [link].

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

And above, I was remiss in not mentioning Mettle Skybox [link] for VR work in After Effects! Check it out, it may be helpful to you.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[David Lawrence]

Thanks Walter, appreciate the advice. This is a bit of a new world for me but I look forward to diving in! 🙂

[Walter Soyka] “The GPU doesn’t matter for this use; if you’re interested in targeting a computer-based headset in addition to Cardboard, pick your GPU for that.”

Not targeting a HMD like Oculus right now, but I would like to send downsized top/bottom output via HDMI to my 1080p 3D monitor to check convergence. Does AE prefer NVIDIA or AMD GPUs?

[Walter Soyka] “For storage, I’d recommend going solid-state and PCIe-attached, if your requirements allow for the lower capacity versus a spinning-rust RAID. You might consider transcoding those MP4 files to uncompressed image sequences, trading away disk space for lower CPU load.”

PCIe-attached SSD would be great. I just don’t know if we can get enough capacity. I don’t yet have any sample files so it’s hard for me to benchmark how much storage we’ll plow through. My guess is we’ll want a lot but since these are short tests, we may be okay with SSD size drives.

Instead of uncompressed image sequences, would transcoding to CineForm make sense? I really like this codec.

[Walter Soyka] “I love my HP workstations (HP sent me one to test a few years back, and I’ve bought several since then),”

Would love to know what you’re using. We likely have different needs, but it would give me a good starting point. Everyone seems to love their HP workstations so I’m happy to go with them. Wish their website was easier to navigate though. Currently thinking a configure-to-order Z840 with a lot of RAM. That’s as far as I got.

[Walter Soyka] “As Dave hinted, if you install CC 2015, go ahead and install CC 2014, too. Ae CC 2015 is the first release with a revamped internal architecture, so it comes with a mix of advantages and disadvantages. You’ll definitely want to render from CC 2014 (multiprocessing!), but unless you run into a bug, working in CC 2015 is nice with has some big interactivity improvements.”

I’m planning to install both and follow your guidelines. It’s nice AE saves backwards compatible files.

What version of Windows are you using? 8.1 or 7? (I assume you’re not using 10). Any thoughts on what version of Windows is best for production?

[Walter Soyka] “I’d be remiss if I let it go without comment that NUKE is making a major push in VR compositing [link].”

I watched Jon Wadelton’s Siggraph demo and like what they’re doing. We don’t need the alignment and stitch tools since the JUMP assembler will take care of that for us, but the compositing tools are intriguing. Lat Long blur is something I already want. I also noted that he says compositing is an area where they’re still figuring out so it may be a while. Guess it’s a new world for everyone else too.

Thanks again!

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[Dany Targa]

If I were you, I would get this for AUD$6,200.

In my opinion this is the both the best you can get, the most reliable parts and the most sensible cost.

CPU – Intel Core i7 5960X Extreme Edition ($1599)
MOBO – ASUS X99-Deluxe/U3.1 Motherboard ($699)
STORAGE – Samsung 850 Pro Series 2TB 2.5in SSD ($1299)
GPU – ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix DirectCU II 4GB ($529)
MEMORY – 2 x Corsair Dominator Platinum CMD32GX4M4A2400C14 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 (2 x 32GB = 64GB for $1498)
CPU COOLER – NZXT Kraken X61 280mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler ($199)
CASE – NZXT S340 Mid Tower Case White ($109)
POWER – Corsair AX860i Platinum Power Supply ($325)

I strongly insist on getting the NZXT S340 case – This case really is amazing! I have one and I could not love it more. The best thing is that it’s one of the smallest mid-tower cases yet it can fit the huge CPU cooler listed above. I take it with me to work every day.

If you want to really splash out, I would add this as a dedicated After Effects cache drive – Intel 750 Series PCI-Express 1.2TB SSD ($1,499) – it’s PCI Express meaning it plugs directly into the Motherboard.

But again, if I were you I would be buying 2 x PCs for under $10K – that way you could copy the finished After Effects composition onto both PCs and set up one PC to render the first half of a composition, and the second one to render the second half of the composition. Halving the time it takes to render.

If you go this option, buy this PC instead for $4,907 – you will barely notice a performance difference between this and the $6,200 PC above:
CPU – Intel Core i7 5930K ($869)
MOBO – ASUS X99-Deluxe/U3.1 Motherboard ($699)
STORAGE – Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB 2.5in SSD ($679)
GPU – ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix DirectCU II 4GB ($529)
MEMORY – 2 x Corsair Dominator Platinum CMD32GX4M4A2400C14 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 (2 x 32GB = 64GB for $1498)
CPU COOLER – NZXT Kraken X61 280mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler ($199)
CASE – NZXT S340 Mid Tower Case White ($109)
POWER – Corsair AX860i Platinum Power Supply ($325)

I highly recommend that you buy all these parts yourself. It’s easier than you think and you will learn a lot. The only thing you may not want to do yourself is assembling everything inside the case. If you have never done this before then you may want to pay an I.T guy to do it.

If you don’t go with my recommendation, at least get the same, newest technology.
CPU – get an “Intel Socket 2011-3” CPU
RAM – get “DDR4” ram
MOBO – To support the above CPU and RAM, get an “X99” motherboard

The only reason you would not buy this newer tech is if you were buying a gaming PC.

If you want to see what else is out there, use this website to find parts and build your own PC.
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/ – you can easily find parts to reach $10K if you really want to spend the money. Just organise parts by price and choose the most expensive, which are usually the best parts. This website also lets you know if all the parts are compatible with each other.

I highly recommend the newest technology if your PCs main purpose is After Effects.

This is my current AUD$3,000 PC that I purchased specifically for After Effects a few months ago. Apart from having 32GB instead of ideally 64GB RAM, this is the cheapest option for a dedicated After Effects PC and handles everything fine.

MOBO – ASRock X99X Killer Motherboard ($379)
RAM – G.Skill Ripjaws 4 F4-2400C15Q-32GRR 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 Red ($499)
STORAGE – Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5in SSD ($365)
CPU – Intel Core i7 5930K ($869)
CPU COOLER – NZXT Kraken X61 280mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler ($199)
PSU – Silverstone Strider Gold 850W ST85F-GS ($189)
GPU – EVGA GeForce GTX 970 Superclocked ACX 2.0 4GB ($519)
CASE – NZXT S340 Mid Tower Case Black ($109)

On a side note, if you were buying a $3,000 gaming PC you would be looking at the older “Intel Socket 1150” CPUs, MOBO and DDR3 RAM as this currently has the best cost/performance value. Typically with a gaming PC you are looking to save money on every part except the GPU because you want the best GPU you can afford. The best GPU the “GeForce GTX TITAN X” for $1,799. But again, you only need a semi-decent GPU for After Effects or any Adobe software.

[Walter Soyka]

[David Lawrence] “Does AE prefer NVIDIA or AMD GPUs?”

The only place this matters to Ae itself is the (soon-to-be-obsolete [link]) 3D ray-tracing renderer; here, Ae needs an NVIDIA card with CUDA for GPU acceleration.

That said, I generally prefer NVIDIA on content workstations.

[David Lawrence] “Instead of uncompressed image sequences, would transcoding to CineForm make sense? I really like this codec. “

I really like CineForm, too. Decode should be lighter than H.264.

(Sidebar: I’m looking forward to trying Cinegy’s DANIEL2 [link].)

[David Lawrence] “Everyone seems to love their HP workstations so I’m happy to go with them. Wish their website was easier to navigate though. Currently thinking a configure-to-order Z840 with a lot of RAM. That’s as far as I got.”

Yes, the website is horrible. I know you mentioned $5-10k, but considered that might be low. How much can you really spend?

[David Lawrence] “What version of Windows are you using? 8.1 or 7? (I assume you’re not using 10). Any thoughts on what version of Windows is best for production?”

My workstations are still on Windows 7, but I’m planning to update to 10 soon. I have 8.1 on a laptop and 10 on my Surface; everything seems to be running well.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “I really like CineForm, too. Decode should be lighter than H.264.

(Sidebar: I’m looking forward to trying Cinegy’s DANIEL2 [link].)”

Wow, DANIEL2 looks INSANE! I could use that yesterday.

[Walter Soyka] “Yes, the website is horrible. I know you mentioned $5-10k, but considered that might be low. How much can you really spend?”

I’ll know later this week. Google may have in-house resources we can use – either a loaner workstation or specific preferred vendors. Or they may tell us to buy what we need. Right now I want to make sure whatever we ask for is right for the job.

[Walter Soyka] “Given your requirements above, I’d probably prioritize clock speed over core count.”

Both you and Dany mention fast CPU as being one of the most important factors for good AE performance. Any thoughts on Intel’s Quad-core Devil’s Canyon 4GHz i7 (vs Xeon)? The Haswell-E CPUs seem to have the fastest clock speed on the market for a reasonable price.

Does AE take advantage of dual CPUs?

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[Walter Soyka]

[David Lawrence] “Both you and Dany mention fast CPU as being one of the most important factors for good AE performance. Any thoughts on Intel’s Quad-core Devil’s Canyon 4GHz i7 (vs Xeon)? The Haswell-E CPUs seem to have the fastest clock speed on the market for a reasonable price. Does AE take advantage of dual CPUs?”

As I mentioned, Ae is in transition right now. The answer to this simple question is somewhat complex. Please pardon a little meandering below…

First, for Ae CC 2014 and previous, while many (most?) effects in Ae CC 2014 are multithreaded, Ae’s general architecture is not pervasively multithreaded.

In Ae CC 2014 and previous, the renderer and the GUI were synchronous. Interaction with the GUI precluded rendering, and rendering precluded interaction with the GUI.

Multiprocessing was a feature developed many years ago as a bit of a kludge to allow Ae to take advantage of multiple CPUs. It allows Ae to render multiple frames at the same time by launching separate background instances of the Ae renderer, each of which can work on a single frame at a time. Each renderer instance has its own private area of RAM. Each of these instances loads its own copy of the project file, each of these maintains its own copies of the footage and its own layer caches in memory, and upon completion of a rendered frame, each hands the final frame back the main process. (This inefficiency is one reason why we recommend so much RAM for Ae, even for projects with smaller rasters than yours. You need the RAM to be able to use the CPUs to render.)

Note that this multiprocessing architecture only allows Ae to spread multiple frames across multiple simultaneous renderers; it does not allow multiple renderers to contribute to the same frame.

The big feature of Ae CC 2015 is a major re-architecture. The renderer and the GUI have been split for the first time in Ae’s 20+ year history; rendering and GUI interactions are now asynchronous, and non-blocking. This will (hopefully) be the foundation for all kinds of performance improvements — but they are not all here today. In fact, some major features like Ae CC 2014’s multiprocessing or cache in background have no current replacement in Ae CC 2015.

The reason I was pushing you for faster clock speeds versus higher core counts right now is that most of your interactions will not benefit from stacks of CPUs.

I don’t know how long that will be good advice; as the new architecture is developed, a future version of Ae could benefit more from lots of cores than any individual core’s clock speed.

I’d suggest striking the best balance you can, while considering your RAM usage. Four cores seems a bit light for me for final renders, but the higher clock speeds will make for faster interaction and iteration.

A little more on RAM: I tend toward Xeon over i7 partially to be able to go dual-processor for CC 2014 multiprocessing, but mainly to support ridiculous piles of RAM. The i7 Dany lists above “only” supports 64 GB. An 8k square image needs 256 MB of RAM at 8 bits per channel, so holding 4 of them in memory consumes 1 GB of RAM! At 60 frames per second, every 64 GB of RAM in the machine will give you about 4.27 seconds of single-layer, full-resolution, in-memory storage. Even previewing at reduced resolutions, you will want all the RAM you can stuff in the box.

Also, to make up for the limitations of RAM capacity, a fast cache drive is a must. Even if you can’t go PCIe-attached SSD for primary storage, get it for Ae’s disk cache.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “As I mentioned, Ae is in transition right now. The answer to this simple question is somewhat complex. Please pardon a little meandering below…”

Walter – many thanks for the detailed reply. Very helpful in understanding different considerations. Sounds like this is probably one of the worst times to invest in heavy iron for AE. 😉 Oh well, we deal with what’s on the table today. I’ll pass this info up to the mothership and keep you posted. Thanks again!

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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publicmattersgroup.com
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facebook.com/dlawrence
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vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums

[Chris Pettit]

Cant tell you how much I appreciate your responses to Davids questions Walter. Interesting to get all of your perspectives on current state of AE. Just bought a new machine and will be installing CC (reluctantly) so appreciate all the info.