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Seeking advice on editing hardware
(Sorry if this is in the wrong place, wasn’t sure where to post!)
I’m looking to buy/build a new editing PC and am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Spent hours online but most recommendations seem to cater to the every-day-youtube-editors while my needs are much more professional. Could some of the more pro/high-end people on here offer some advice, please?
MORE INFO:
My typical work:
* I edit feature films, TV shows, commercials, online videos, recently some VR too – a whole variety of projects really. Mostly HD but recently some 4k also.
* 70% of my work is with DSLR, GoPro & Similiar footage, the rest a variety of sources – Black Magic, Red Cam, high-res image-sequence timelapses etc
* I do a lot of color correction, utilize a lot of external plug ins, often have multi-cam footage, often have small graphics, elements imported from photoshop etc.
* I edit primarily with Premiere Pro, some After Effects stuff as well.
* I work worldwide and am always on the move, working in a different city/country every other month.My current set up:
* The past 4 years I’ve been on an expensive high end HP Workstation (laptop) – which has been great at first, but it’s barely keeping up with my needs nowadays.
* Most my projects I edit off of external hard drives.What I’m seeking:
* PC, not Mac. Can’t stand apple products, just a personal preference.
* I want to be able to import HD clips (ideally 4k also), apply some basic color to it + warp stabilizer or similar – and still get smooth playback preview within Premiere without having to constantly render. My current setup has gotten painfully slow and laggy.
* I need to be able to transition between software (Premiere/AE/Photoshop etc) smoothly and quickly.
* Portability – VERY important. I work on the go *all the time*. Portable laptop workstation as I’ve used so far would be ideal – although only if it can match the performance of a desktop machine without hitting astronomical prices. I’m also considering the option of building a still small/fairly portable but nonetheless desktop set up.
* Durability – I commonly need to go between extreme climates and it’s not unusual for me to be in a deep jungle / on a beach / in a busy city within just a couple weeks. I care well for my equipment but a cheap flimsy plastic thing won’t do.
* Price – I can spend more if it means confidence and peace of mind for the next few years to come. Ideally within a $3,000 range, but i’m flexible and mostly want to be confident that the price is worth it. Certainly don’t want to blow money on pointless gimmicks.Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Matt / EtheriumSky.com -
7 Replies
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It would be hard to recommend anything right now because the Zen CPUs will be out soon. I hope the video link below helps.
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4k needs 6,8,10 cores and laptops don’t have six cores. you can always get smaller cases with micro atx or even mini itx.
this compares 4 core to six core performance inside premiere
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Premiere-Pro-2017-Intel-Core-i7-7700K-i5-7600K-Performance-884/#Conclusion -
AMD will have a 32 core CPU but what will the price be? I am not going to buy a Kaby Lake CPU until I see what the competition has to offer. AMD’s Zen CPU may or may not be all that great. Only time will tell.
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I can tell you right now a 32 core will not help anything at the HD to h.264 render.
At this resolution, Premiere is code hard limited to 12 cores.As for 4k to 4k h.264, clock speed is more important than cores as seen in this effeciency graph. the 6950k is faster than the dual xeon 28 core.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC-2015-3-CPU-Comparison-849/#Exportingto4KSo unless AMD has super turbo clock speed and much lower prices, they will simply be unable to compete. Besides, I
believe they said they were raising prices and not doing the price undercut model anymore.adobe forum final conclusions are:
1) There does not seem to be any hard coded limit on CPU threads for H.264 output workflow for Premiere Pro (ie 4k to 4k utilizes 100% CPU on 24 threads — dual Xeon 6-core w/ HT’s)
2) However, there is a definite limit as to how may CPU threads will get utilized for a HD to HD H.264 output workflow; I was seeing 90+ % CPU utilization, but only when I had dropped available cores to around 12 threads. With 24 threads available, I was only seeing about 50% CPU utilization (think about that as closer to 100% utilization on 12 cores and the rest are just sitting around).
3) Both Premiere Pro and Media Encoder can run at the same time and utilize more cores than either will by itself (for HD workflows and lots of available CPU cores) When I ran both simultaneously, total CPU utilization was hitting just above 90% (w/ 24 threads available). -
[Chris Wright] “I can tell you right now a 32 core will not help anything at the HD to h.264 render.
At this resolution, Premiere is code hard limited to 12 cores.”What if you are rending an AE project while editing in Premiere Pro?
[Chris Wright] “As for 4k to 4k h.264, clock speed is more important than cores as seen in this effeciency graph. the 6950k is faster than the dual xeon 28 core.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC-2015-3-CPU...So unless AMD has super turbo clock speed and much lower prices, they will simply be unable to compete. Besides, I
believe they said they were raising prices and not doing the price undercut model anymore.”As of today we don’t know what AMD’s Zen CPUs have to offer. Only time will tell?
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Thanks a lot for all your input! Though to be perfectly honestly, i’m finding myself even a bit more confused…
I’m fairly smart but def not an expert on the hardware stuff. I’m a director who got pulled towards editing quite some years ago, I know the software aspect well, but as for which processor i want etc – no idea. It doesn’t help that i keep reading articles with very much conflicting info re: importance of RAM, importance of Video Card, kinds of processors and different hard drives. I’ve read articles that largely negated one another regarding what’s more important for editing and i’m really not sure how to go about this…
Could any of you maybe share the kind of set ups you use/would use for similar type of work to mine?
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I would hate to suggest anything before the new CPUs from AMD hit the market. Once they arrive I can give you some good advice. I will probably do another video like the one below but with newer hardware.
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