New Computer Spec For AE is it enough? Suggestions?

[Anthony Uccello]

Also

Would I be better off with a computer that has 24gb of ram and 3.3ghz processors (six), or a computer with 12 gb of ram and 4.0 ghz processors (six)?

Or would I be better off with a mac

Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores) and 12gb ram?

[Anthony Uccello]

So 24gb ram and a six core 3.73 ghz processor is better than 12 gigs and a 4.0 six core processor?

Do harddrives make a difference? 10kpm or SSD over the norm?

[Anthony Uccello]

I’ve already re-customized what Im looking for to allow more ram.

Does 1600 mHZ make a big difference over 1333? (is it worth another $1,000)?

[Anthony Uccello]

Can you suggest a place to get this higher level of customization?

On Dell.ca
MagicMicro.com
and
StealthSystems.com

The max I can get is 24gb, what motherboard do I need to get 48 gb (which I would want :))

[Jason Myres]

At the high-end of content creation there are only two computers that exist:

1) A Mac Pro
(https://store.apple.com/us/configure/Z0M4?mco=MTg2OTQ5OTk)

or

2) or an HP z800
(https://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/nz/en/sm/WF05a/12454-12454-296719-4270224-4270224-3718645.html)

You can build your own machine, but then you’re spending time on computers and not art. There are lots of articles out there on how to save money building your own workstation, but anyone who’s attempting to do that by putting together some i7-based, day-glow, “Mac Pro Killer” is kidding themselves. If the motherboard you’ve spec’ed for yourself isn’t a $600+ dual-processor Westmere or Nehalem, than you’re not even close.

So you have to decide: Do you care about art, or do you care about computers? If you care about art, then you spend ten minutes ordering the nicest configuration you can afford from one of the two choices above, and use the remaining 7h 50m of your day making art.

In AE the things that matter are:
-RAM: Min 6GB. Populate in sets of three or six for Nehalem or Westmere (6GB, 12GB, 24GB, etc).
-CPUs and Cores: dual CPUs are a huge help in AE.
-Dedicated disks for your media. Fast drives can help for scratch locations and rendering to disk.

A good GPU is becoming important for many apps (Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds Max) and plug-ins (Sapphire, Boris), but as Dave will tell you, it’s not quite ready for primetime in After Effects.

If you need to save money, buy used on eBay. Owners of Mac Pros and z800s generally take good care of their machines.

JM

[Anthony Uccello]

Brilliant answer (although the 2nd link isn’t working)

I’ve looked at the macs, and I’ve spent $5k on PC software (vegas, and creative suite, camtasia, mindjet etc). Think I need to stick with PC on this one.

I’ve found this deal for $3500, if you’ve got the time to take a quick look I’d love to hear what you think

CURRENT CONFIGURATION
PARTS : CPU : Intel i7 CPU
Intel Core i7 Extreme 980x, 3.33GHz (Six Core) 12000K
PARTS : Cooling Fans : Intel i7 CPU Fans
Coolit Vantage A.L.C. extra quiet Liquid Cooling System
PARTS : Motherboards : Intel i7 Motherboards
ASUS Rampage III Extreme X58, DDR3, SLI & Cross Fire,SATA3, GB LAN, USB 3.0,iEEE
PARTS : Memory : DDR3 Triple Channel memory
24GB (6x4GB) PC3 12800 DDR3 1600 Triple Channel
PARTS : Video & TV Cards : PCI-Express Video cards
GeForce GTX 580 1536MB PCI EXpress 16X dual head, HDMI
PARTS : Video & TV Cards : TV Tuner & Capture cards
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Hard Drives
128.0GB Kingston SSDNow V Series Solid State Drive, SATA II, 200MBs
PARTS : Cooling Fans : Hard Drive Fans
Fan-Less Aluminum Silent Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes
PARTS : Hard Drives
128.0GB Kingston SSDNow V Series Solid State Drive, SATA II, 200MBs
PARTS : Cooling Fans : Hard Drive Fans
Fan-Less Aluminum Silent Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes
PARTS : CD/DVD/R/RW Drives : DVD Recorders
LG 22x DVD Recorder Dual Layer +R/RW -R/RW
PARTS : CD/DVD/R/RW Drives : DVD Recorders
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Media Card Readers
All-in-One Memory Card Reader Internal Black
PARTS : Sound Cards
Realtek HD digital audio (onboard)
PARTS : Modems
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Networking : Network Cards
Ethernet network adapter (onboard)
PARTS : Controller Cards
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Cases / Power Supplies : Cases
APEVIA X-JupiterJr. Silver, Side Window, front USB,iEEE,Temp control
PARTS : Cooling Fans : Case Fans
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Cooling Fans : Power Supply
Logisys 550W ATX Power Supply w/ 6pin PCI-E
PARTS : Keyboards
Black Windows Keyboard, 104 key, PS/2
PARTS : Mice
2-Button Wheel Mouse, PS/2 Black
PARTS : Speakers
Black Multimedia amplified stereo speakers
SOFTWARE : Operating Systems
NONE SELECTED
SOFTWARE : Office Software
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Monitors
NONE SELECTED
PARTS : Assembly and Test
Standard assembly and test 3-5 business days

[Darby Edelen]

[Anthony Uccello] “This system will have dual 2gb radeon 5970s.”

These graphics cards will provide you with no benefit in AE and cost you upwards of $900. I’d recommend spending that money on more RAM or more CPU cores.

As long as you have (one) graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.0 you should be good. This should mean almost any graphics card made in the last 2 or 3 years.

Getting a better graphics card may help you during OpenGL previews and with some plug-ins (The Foundry’s Kronos plug-in supports CUDA acceleration on higher end NVIDIA cards, which makes a HUGE difference, but it’s a very specific use case). Personally I never use OpenGL preview because it is an entirely different render path, it is not likely to show you what your final render will look like and it is very rarely faster (and almost always buggier) than adaptive resolution.

Darby Edelen

[Anthony Uccello]

Thank you for that information really helps!

Im removing the video cards (I thought the bigger the video memory the better :|)

As per a suggestion above Ill be getting 1 SSD for the main install.

Will rendering a video to an SSD vs Non SSD be any faster?

[Jason Myres]

AE will should be fine on that configuration, but some things you might want to consider:

RAM: 24GB is great and you have the right dim count (6 x 4GB). No changes.

CPU: i7s are good at many things, but I would take a look at a Dual Quad-Core Xeon (Nehalem or Westmere). Dual CPUs means double the memory bandwidth, double the L2 and L3 (if not more) Cache, basically two entire processor pipelines for your apps to work with. If for instance you were able to get one 8-core i7, it would not be as fast as dual 4-core Xeons. Can’t emphasize this enough. This is where you want to spend any extra money. You will feel where it went every time you render or do a ram preview.

SSDs: If used as a boot disk, they can make booting and screen refreshes faster, but I would get one or two 1TB Hitachi’s for OS and media, and then aim your scratch folders at the one SSD or two SSDs as a RAID0 stripe. Don’t put anything valuable on it, just scratch, render, and other temporary files. A good alternative might be to use one or two 300GB WD Raptors.

GPU: A GTX580 is a nice card, but if you’re interested in ever using Adobe Premier or Photoshop under acceleration, its not currently on the supported cards list. I would change to a GTX470 or try to grab a Quadro 3800 or 4800 as they are being phased out, but are still very powerful.

Support: Call it experience, but it’s tough when you’ve spent $3500 and there’s no one to call when things go south. I’d buy from a vendor who will at least provide you with daytime support.

The new Mac Pros and z800s are a little out of your budget, so if I were you and wanted to buy new, I’d take a look at this:

https://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-t7500/pd?refid=workstation-precision-t7500

If you want are OK with buying used, I purchased my last two Mac Pros from eBay. Both were good deals, in mint condition, and I’ve had no problems with either of them.

JM

[Anthony Uccello]

Another great answer

Thank you

Im going to think very carefully about what you’ve just suggested.

I was looking at the Quadros, they were pricey but maybe the way to go….