New Build For Video Editing PC

[Matt Kipis]

I’m thinking of changing the MOBO to the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite X AX?

[Rob Ainscough]

Saw this a week ago, but got swamped with work. Before I add my 2 cents, just be aware the is no magic hardware to make Pr go that much faster. Things to look for are FX that are GPU accelerated (very few of the good ones actually are GPU accelerated).

I have to put my 2 cents in for DaVinci Resolve … I know I sound like a fanboy for DaVinci, but I’m not, it’s only because I’ve worked/work both Adobe and BMD path and see users tossing excessive money at Adobe to make it go faster. It’s just super easy to setup a headless DaVinci workstation that will render your project in the background allowing you to continue on the same project … what I call “no wait” workflow.

Anyway, onto your hardware choices.

ASUS “Prime” motherboards are ASUS low end variants … look for the Z790-E chipset which provides PCIe 5.

I would remove the “Cache M.2 drive”. Get a Gen5 M.2 4TB and put it in the PCIe 5 slot from the Z790-E supported.

Don’t add 8TB HDD, that can actually slow your entire system down. If you want Backup storage I suggest getting a external HDD (USB3) or NAS … 8TB seems kinda small for backup … what sort of video files/formats are you working with?

The nVidia 4070Ti is a good card but for a few $$ more the AMD 7900XTX will render out faster especially if you’re using Topaz Video AI plugins (AMD fully support CUDA).

Cheers, Rob.

[Matt Kipis]

Thank you for the reply its very helpful. I have some follow up questions

For perspective my current rig is

rtx 2070 super

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

ddr4 ram

slower SSD’s

I also film with an FX3 and I Record in 4k 60fps H.265

I was hoping to see a big boost in timeline speed and rending mostly based off the new CPU and faster cache drive

for the MOBO I decided to get the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite X is that a good choice?

When you say DaVinci is faster to be more specific are we talking timeline speed, Effects speed or final render out speed? for me the most important is the timeline speed.

Can i get away with a 1TB SSD cache drive? if i just delete it constantly. Gen5 4tb are expensive now.

Also will a see a noticeable timeline speed boost going from 7000mbs gen4 to 11000mbs gen5

I have never heard that before about HDD, how would a 8TB HDD slow down my whole system if its just for back ups not running any projects of it.

I did watch a Youtube video proving that the AMD cards are actually better now for rendering h.265/H.264 videos for PP. I was just a little worried switching from NVIDA because of adobe support. I didn’t know AMD supported CUDA now.

The 4070 TI prices having been dropping so the 7900 xtx cost about 34% more here than the 4070TI so its a fair bit more. What would the render speed increase be approx? if its only 5 to 10 percent maybe not worth the cost.

Thank you

[Rob Ainscough]

The DDR5 performance will help. H.265 Adobe doesn’t like for timeline editing, I’d convert that to a ProRes flavor before starting a project.

I used to be a fan of ASUS, but their quality and performance seems to have taken a dive for the worse over the years (especially recently). I’ve used Gigabyte boards many years ago but it did fail me, haven’t tried them recently. I’ve been using MSI boards recently and they seem good (not great but good) and stable.

So far DaVinci has been faster in everything, timeline, renders, FX, and even DaVinci Fusion (equivalent to Ae) working faster than similar Adobe projects. But I do use BMD external hardware that only works with DaVinci so my workflow is much improved there also. Learning wise, DaVinci is node and Adobe is layers. DaVinci UI is more intuitive and the “pages are just tabs” are one click where-as in Adobe Pr I have to change “workspaces” to get the optimal UI layout … so going back and forth between Color grading and edit and fusion is super easy.

As far as Timeline boost, you will improvement with Gen5 but don’t expect miracles, much of what happens is the timeline is decoding (hence my suggestion to convert H.265 to ProRes) … some compressions just turn Pr into a performance nightmare. You can always use proxies for editing, but for color grading no way one should be using proxies IMHO.

Oh, you listed 4070Ti … I would recommend the 4070Ti Super 16GB variant at $829 or the AMD 7900XTX at $929 … both work well, but the 7900XTX will render faster. I use Topaz Video AI as my benchmark tool since they leverage the GPUs rendering performance almost entirely and reflect relative performance rendering.

I posted some benchmarks on my 7900XTX 24GB and nVidia 3090 using Topaz Video AI here:

https://community.topazlabs.com/t/video-ai-4-2-x-user-benchmarking-results/64143/30?u=robin.ainscough

4090 24GB here:

https://community.topazlabs.com/t/video-ai-4-2-x-user-benchmarking-results/64143/56?u=robin.ainscough

4070 Ti Super 16GB using Topaz Video AI here:

https://community.topazlabs.com/t/video-ai-4-2-x-user-benchmarking-results/64143/65?u=robin.ainscough

community.topazlabs.com

Video AI 4.2.X - User Benchmarking Results

My AMD 7900XTX and nVidia 3090 are pretty close in performance with the AMD slightly better overall. I haven’t tested my 4090 nor 3060 yet.

[Matt Kipis]

can you please clarify regarding HDD slowing down my system? im curious about this

I really dont want to work with proxies, id rather upgrade my hardware or even switch to Davinci. I do get freezes with PP..

Iv been using adobe for 15 years im a little worried about changing but maybe i should try if it will speed up my work flow and has less freezes. The main effects i use is, Warp stabilizer, motion blur, and speed ramping, is the quality just as good as after effects and PP? I always thought AE was the best at speed ramping.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Matt,

I too have just recently started the move to Davinci, as Adobe is going out of their way to destroy the development of their professional tools. And, promote Adobe Express, which I have heard from clients does not do a very good job.

There is plenty of tutorials available for Davinci + you have tighter integration with hardware too. I purchased the Blackmagic mini panel as it comes with Davinci Studio included… – You can start for free with the free version.

I am also moving back in to Avid Media Composer just for the sake of it.

In effect, if you build your system right, you should be able to have all three of the above installed. And, use at your convenience.

HDD is a spinning thing, bulky, and will never spin as fast as you want it to. Particularly when the operating system are fighting with the NLE software, whilst writing ot virtual memory, and accessing other pieces of software. Not forgetting that anying mechanical has a higher possibility of breaking down -having said that, SSD also has it own set of problems.

My current system (Laptop PC) has got 1 x 1Tb SSD for operating system and software. Then I put in 2 x 4Tb Samsung 990 M2 Pro SSDs (Up to 7,450 transfer rate) with space for a 3rd drive.

Amen to not using proxies. Just recently had a project presented where the proxies had the wrong audio configuration, which PPro could not work with.

On the above setup I can comfortably work with 4 tracks of 4K in my PPro sequence.

My best advice: By all means use HDD for back-up. Just make sure to disconnect when not using them. As they will randomly stop and start – which will slow down your system. Or worse, your NLE software will decide that they have the files they need, and start scanning them. Maybe evn add them tour project.

Depending on who pays for your work, you should also consider that SSD external drives are reaching a cost for archieving comparable to video tapes of yesterday, if you can charge that back to the client?

My go to is the Samsung T7 or T9 drives.

Hope that this helps.

Atb
Mads

[Matt Kipis]

Thank you for the reply, To go for a gen5 SSD for cache drive ill also need to get a more expsenive MOBO, the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Pro X.

Does everything think its worth going gen 5 for the faster cache drive and if there’s a noticeable difference in timeline speed? between 7000 and 11500mbs?

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Matt,

There is no top-end as to how much money you can spend on a new system.

The better question is for what your main purpose is: PPro with nice to have AE. Or, intending to go full in with AE?
From that you got to work out your ROI – Is the investment for your own projects/learning. Or, do you have paying clients?

And, no matter what you buy today, it will discounted and/or out of date tomorrow.

I know that this doesn’t answer your specific answer. But high-speed SSD will not hurt. Although I doubt that when editing, that you will notice any difference between 7,000 and 11,500.

Atb
Mads

[Matt Kipis]

thank you so just to confirm, you don’t think ill notice any difference in editing between those 2 speeds? im just a little surprised. The poster above told me to go gen5 for cache drive. If there’s a noticeable improvement in timeline speed during editing i do think its worth it. I searched online and i cant find any benchmarks for PP or AE for Gen 4 7,400 and gen 5 11,500 SSDs

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

If you can afford Gen5, by all means go for it. But money might be better spent on seperate SSD’s for Media. Keeping in mind that we will soon see 8TB drives come down in price (and physical size).

If you have not done it, You should also consider beefing your RAM up to a minimum of 128GB.

Atb
Mads