Building a video editing workstation

S

steditrak

Active member
I'm not sure where else to post this question, so I'll try it here:


If you were to build a video editing workstation from scratch running Windsows 7 64 bit and Sony Vegas Pro 13, Which components would you use?


Case
Power supply
Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Anything else you have in mind


Much appreciated
 
Really? $5-6K?

Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75960X

You want an Intel i7, no question. This is the latest-generation 8-core.

ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

Flagship motherboard from the best mobo manufacturer, built for gaming, latest chipset, very robust. Plenty of RAM slots. DDR4.

2 X G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4-19200) Desktop Memory Model F4-2400C15Q-32GRR

64 GB of DDR4 RAM.

Crucial MX100 CT256MX100SSD1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

System drive. Keep your OS and software here.

Crucial MX100 CT512MX100SSD1 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Data drive. Separate your video from your software.

GIGABYTE GV-N960IXOC-2GD GeForce GTX 960 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready ATX Video Card

Blazing GPU. Lots of CUDA cores.

Cooler Master Silencio 652S - Silent Mid Tower Computer Case with Sound Dampening Panels, Three Silencio FP 120 Fans, and ...

Sound-dampening is crucial for keeping things quiet while editing audio.

EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 220-G2-0850-XR 850W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Power Supply Intel ...

850w power supply; you don't want to run out of power. Detachable power cord is essential.

Cooler Master Sleeve Bearing 120mm Silent Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators (Value 4-Pack)

2 X Dell UltraSharp U2412M Black 24" 8ms LED Backlight Widescreen LCD IPS Panel Monitor

LG Black 16x Blu-Ray BDXL SATA Internal rewriter with 3D Playback, Model BH16NS40

Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader w/ USB Port / Extra Silver Face Plate

Corsair Sabre RGB CH-9000090-NA Black 8 1 x Wheel USB Wired Laser Gaming Mouse

Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard with Tactile High-Speed Keys 920-003887 - Black

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM

That's about $4300, leaving you room for sound, which I haven't dealt with here. Also recommend a second graphics card to drive a large (34"-40") third monitor for previewing, maybe 4K, but at least a good HDTV.

Could you go cheaper? Sure. Easily. And still build a screamer. But with that budget, it's what I'd do, or pretty close to, anyway.

Any changes will depend on what all you plan to do with it.
 
Guy ! he don't need a system like that to run Windsows 7 64 bit and Sony Vegas Pro 13. He can get a much cheaper system .
 
He gave me his budget; I based my response on that. The fastest processor with the most RAM is always a solid recommendation. Video editing is the most brutal thing you'll ever do a computer, and as things like 4K become the norm, there's no such thing as too much power. You compromise because you're forced to; with a $5-6K budget, he won't have to compromise on the power.

You say he doesn't need it to "run Windows 7 64-bit and Sony Vegas Pro 13," but the software isn't what he needs it for. It's the video, and working with it. I mean, you can run Windows 7 64-bit and Vegas on a Celeron with 2 GB of RAM, but I wouldn't recommend trying to edit video that way.
 
You're not understanding what I'm saying. Those are the recommended minimum system requirements to run the program. They are not the specs to do effective and robust video editing with.

Yes, Vegas will run on those low specs. Yes, you will be able to "work" with it. But you won't be able to work effectively, or robustly. It'll be a slow, agonizing experience with choppy playback, no prayer of viewing much of anything above 480p at full resolution, lagging more and more with the number of video streams, tracks, layers, and effects you add, and render times will be god-awful, if it doesn't fail in the middle. At 4GB of RAM, you'll almost certainly run into out-of-memory errors; Windows 7 64-bit uses about 1.5 GB all by itself.

There is no such thing as too much power for video editing, only too much for your budget.
 
I agree with David. You will want the fastest processor you can afford with plenty of Ram (especially if you edit long projects such as weddings).

I would add the following items:

a UPS in case of power failure
a RAID 10 (1+0) for redundancy and stripping
 
StMad said:
AMD outperforms NVidia for Vegas preview and render, no?
Click to expand...

Could be. I've never been a fan of ATi (now AMD) drivers, so I've always stayed with Nvidia. I myself wouldn't go with AMD GPUs only because of that one benchmark. But YMMV.
 
I've been trying to decide whether upgrade my 560ti to AMD or Nvidia...it's so frustrating having such a crappy preview on a decent system (3930). Perhaps there's no solution which will allow me to preview as smoothly as other editors. Damn Vegas, definitely a love/hate relationship.
 
From (very trusted) user OldSmoke on the Sony Vegas forum:

The ideal Nvidia setup is 2x GTX580 which is what I had previously in my system. The even better setup is a mix of GTX580 and R9 290. This way you get both, OpenCL/GL support for timeline performance and you can still render to MC AVC and Sony AVC with CUDA support; MC AVC and Sony AVC are not supported by the R9 290 series.

Mike
 
I'd be very wary of mixing video drivers (having both Nvidia and AMD/ATi/Radeon), which is a general matter, not just for Vegas. Also not sure if Vegas is able to leverage SLi. I've not read that it can, and other NLEs which leverage GPU processing don't.

EDIT: Reviewing the GPU stuff, Vegas only lets you pick one GPU for acceleration, so I'm not sure that multiple cards -- especially having both Nvidia and AMD/ATi/Radeon cards -- will do anything for you for rendering, etc. (I suppose you could manually switch between them for certain functions, but again, I'd be wary of mixing the drivers.) Having, for example, two 580s may help IF Vegas is able to leverage an SLi array, but I'm not finding anything which indicates it does. It seems just to pick one card and use it.

What I'm not sure about is using the multiple cards for multiple monitors -- if you're splitting monitors between cards, will Vegas leverage GPU acceleration for the monitor which has the preview display from the card which feeds the monitor, even if it's not the selected acceleration GPU, or will it still only use the selected GPU for all acceleration functions? This, I don't know. There's a separate activation for GPU acceleration for previews. (Of course, if your cards are in SLi, the point's moot because you can't do that.)
 
David, I wish I could answer your questions but the technical side of computing has never been my strong suit which is why I rely on the advice of other trusted users. That's why I recommend going to the Sony Vegas forum and checking out posts by users such as OldSmoke.

Mike
 
Well, I've done that, Mike; I'm saying that answers to those particular questions aren't to be found. Sony has never been particularly good about releasing detailed nuts-and-bolts info.

And I just plain disagree about mixing Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, because of driver conflicts, something which was brought up as a problem in that very forum thread.

But I will check directly with some people at Sony and see if I can get some clarity on those issues I do bring up.
 
Vegas uses OpenCL for graphics rendering, which is better implemented on late model AMD (OpenCL 2.x) cards. Nvidia is still using OpenCL 1.1
The latest Intel 8 core desktop CPU has built in graphics features with support for OpenCL 2.x.

Nividia/Cuda is more popular at the moment for a variety of 2d and 3D compositing and rendering applications.
A lot of vendors are trying to get Nvidia to support OpenCL 2.x, but Nvidia is dragging it's feet.

If your primary work is Vegas Editing, then the latest AMD R290 based cards are a great and getting better.

If you are planning on using software that takes advantage of Nvidia Cuda cores, then go with them.

I do not recommend mixing graphics cards from different vendors.

If you're going to spend that much money, look at an AMD Firepro V7000 or better. Supports 10bit color with an appropriate
moniter.
 
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