Requesting Help on my PC build

[Riccardo Luppi]

Hey, so what would be your requirements?

Like: are you going to do editing only, simple or heavy colourgrading, vfx etc?

In general you would want an at least 8gb GPU. Right now a great entry point at a budget would be an RTX 3070.

As for the CPU, I would definitely recommend Ryzen, possibly a 3900 could be an interesting one. If your budget allows for it, even 5900, but that is not necessary.

Get at least 32gb of ram. Ideally 3000 or higher frequency.

[Steven Martillo]

Hello Derek!

I agree with Ricardo, the two most important points for audiovisual works are the gpu and the cpu, and with your budget of 1500 or less you have several options that are very good, and I also recommend Ryzen, you can find the

-AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (for about 440 USD approx.)

and a gpu,

-Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (for about 399 USD approx.)

I am also a supporter of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 however this one is already around 499 USD.

so the margin for the rest of things may be affected … as I understand that you will also need to buy, ram memory, motherboard, storage, cpu cooler, power supply etc …

for the ram memory I recommend these

-Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4 3200MHz (approximate price: 190 USD)

starting from this base you will have a good margin to buy the rest of components, if you are looking for a motherboard make sure it is compatible with these components, one that is compatible with these and enters the budget may be the

-ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-PLUS (Wi-Fi) which costs around 180 $.

although prices may vary depending on where you live, stock etc… but this is the price I found!

[Derek Charles]

My Required tasks are – color correction/grading on hours of clips with mixed audio tracks. Weddings, concerts, events… So besides LUTs I’m not doing any motion graphics, effects or whatever else… I should probably start that when I get this more capable computer… I need render times down. My current laptop always overnight renders. for a 30-50 minute file ~4gb would take 8+ hours to render.

I shoot with a Sony A7iii XAVC-S codec 24p 4k but my next camera will be the Sony A7Siii and that will shoot 60p in 4k at a high bitrate. I always edit and deliver on a 1080p timeline though.

I shared your replies above to a friend and they replied

“Puget say Intel has better performance overall right now. GPU acceleration is probably important if supported. and 32GB is minimum but I think I can find good deal on 64GB as long as motherboard will support that much. Storage is very important for workflow and scratch disk”

Again, touching on all these subjects for me would be a huge help. Also, I do process astrophotography stacking as well, if that matters.

Thanks!

[Derek Charles]

My Reuired tasks are – color correction/grading on hours of clips with mixed audio tracks. Weddings, concerts, events… So besides LUTs I’m not doing any motion graphics, effects or whatever else… I should probably start that when I get this more capable computer… I need render times down. My current laptop always overnight renders. for a 30-50 minute file ~4gb would take 8+ hours to render.

I shoot with a Sony A7iii XAVC-S codec 24p 4k but my next camera will be the Sony A7Siii and that will shoot 60p in 4k at a high bitrate. I always edit and deliver on a 1080p timeline though.

I shared your replies above to a friend and they replied

“Puget say Intel has better performance overall right now. GPU acceleration is probably important if supported. and 32GB is minimum but I think I can find good deal on 64GB as long as motherboard will support that much. Storage is very important for workflow and scratch disk”

Again, touching on all these subjects for me would be a huge help. Also, I do process astrophotography stacking as well, if that matters.

Thanks!

[Riccardo Luppi]

Hey Derek,

so Interl does perform better on the newer processors, but for the past generations that is not the case. Since you are on a budget, it is the safest bet to go on something a bit older but still very capable, like a Ryzen9.

Please remember that GPU acceleration matters mostly when OFX-heavy grading is involved. For editing and most Fusion work, the CPU will do the heavy lifting. That said, as long as you go with an NVIDIA RTX card with 8 GB of RAM or more, you’ll be good to go.

About the RAM, if you can go with 64GB then do so, but I would suggest going for a faster 32GB set-up rather than a 64GB slower one.

Finally, disks are indeed crucial. The disk read and write speeds can definitely limit your playback and render speeds. Having your system and program installed on an M.2 will be the best. the have at least one SATA SSD for the files you are currently working. Archival can be done on HDD, don’t worry.

[Derek Charles]

Hey, I greatly appreciate the help so far!

I’ve been doing research and had some additional follow-up questions:

1. With the Ryzen recommendations, in the attached benchmark it looks like Intel is the better performer especially in the $400 USD price point and below or am I missing something?
Do the E-cores within some of these current Intel CPUs matter in Resolve? I’m assuming DVR and Fusion will take advantage of them properly.

2. How about the IGPU on some of the Intel CPUs and Quick Sync? Does DVR utilize Quick Sync in a beneficial way compared to the latest Ryzen CPUs, which lack any onboard graphics?

3. As for the RAM topic, I believe I read that the price-to-performance of DDR5 is not quite there yet compared to DDR4. Guessing there’s not a huge boost yet in DVR/Fusion/etc. going with
DDR5 today over DDR4? If I can, I’m looking to get a 64GB 3600MHz CL18 DDR4 (2x32GB) kit for only ~$10-20 USD more than a 32GB DDR4 kit and over a more expensive 32GB DDR5 kit.
Unfortunately, DDR5 motherboards look to still carry a price premium over DDR4 boards as of right now too.

4. How efficiently are dedicated GPUs leveraged in the DVR suite? Is it true that Nvidia and its CUDA cores are preferred over AMD GPUs here?

Any thoughts on a great value previous generation Nvidia GTX/RTX card that would work well? Current graphics card prices esp from Nvidia are becoming laughable.
Is VRAM capacity crucial in the DVR suite for a 4K workflow?

[Derek Charles]

[Riccardo Luppi]

Hey mate,
so in order
– for the CPUs, you mentioned the under 400USD price range. Most of the CPUs in the list are well above that pricepoint. Core count really matters with DaVinci, same the CPU cache. Puget Benchmarks are valuable but are just that. A real-world usage can differ because of, mostly, sustained load on the processor and multiple operations at once. I would recommend at least a 12 core CPU. for that, AMD is cheaper.
– iGPU is futile with DaVinci. Unless we are talking about M1 Apple processors, you want a dedicated GPU. And yes, vRAM is critical. That, along with the bandwidth of the GPU, will most probably be your bottleneck. 8GB is the bare minimum for 4K.
– Definitely go for a fast DDR4. DDR5 is still too pricy for anyone on a budget.

[Derek Charles]

Are those prices in US where I am though?, most are under 400 USD. Making sure you saw the chart – More cores isn’t always better if they’re slow.

Faster cores > more slower cores sometimes, hence the benchmark results?

Thanks