Video Workstation/ Gameing PC

WarlieC

Member
Hello,

I am attempting to build a midrange budget PC to use as a workstation for premiere pro cc as I am a video editor and I also want to use this for gaming. I have posted the specs bellow. any help or advise would be very appreciated. I've done quite a lot of research into what is needed and I understand that this set up is classed as an entry level video workstation (this is because of budget £2500). just want to dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s before spending so much money.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE (GREEN)

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-6850K (3.6GHz) 15MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® RAMPAGE V EXTREME/U3.1: E-ATX, USB 3.1, SATA 6 GB/s

Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 16GB)

Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!

1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 850 2.5" EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) (For running OS and software)

2nd Hard Disk
2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 3.5" SSHD - UP TO 5X FASTER THAN HDD! (For storage)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE

Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY

Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i V2 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Liquid Series Ultra Quiet Fans

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

Price £2,489.00 including VAT and delivery

Thank you for taking a look,
WarlieC
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
You could (should?) look at a Ryzen R7 build. The extra cores and threads help in Premiere Pro and video encoding.

R5cinebench.png

The gaming performance isn't as good, but it will still do the job in that department.

It's also a lot cheaper.

The Rampage mobo you had in your spec is very expensive. Not sure why you had selected it but if it was for having lots of USB ports then you can get he Crosshair mobo instead of the X370.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE (GREEN)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.0GHz/20MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME X370-PRO (DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/SLI) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
FREE FOR HONOR or GHOST RECON: WILDLANDS with select GTX 10 Series GPUs!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Hard Disk
2TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 1400MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i V2 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Liquid Series Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price £2,136.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-pc/!vRP7!NY4a/
 

WarlieC

Member
Hi, Thank you very much for the quick response! theres just a couple of questions i have about the set up you have suggested. i will go in order just to make life easier.
1) Ive been told previously to avoid AMD builds because of overheating problems? which i why i hadn't even considered the AMD possibilities, is this true? what are pros and cons to AMD over Intel?
2) I chose the rampage as i wanted this system to last at least 5 years, i had done a couple of hours research on motherboards but overall couldnt personally see much difference other than the ports, so i went with reviews and for the board that would allow future upgrades to other components.
3) it seems going with this build type compromises on RAM speed and capacity, on my previous build i had liked the availability to upgrade and install more RAM at a later date if needed, however it seems this build has a maximum of 32GB
4) I see that you have put a M.2 SSD drive in instead of a SSD in the hard drive slot, will this increase the performance?
5) I am looking to make this build work for gaming and editing equally. Im upgrading from an iMac which i bought 5 years ago and have missed PC gaming for a long time now, i want to make sure i can continue to work at high performance and also game and high performance too.

thank you again for the feedback, you have definitely thrown a spanner in the works! (in a good way)
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
1) Not sure who said that or why. There were a few very high end AMD CPUs from the last generation (FX Series) that generated huge amounts of heat, and were never really a sensible option. AMD's Ryzen family is where they've more or less caught up with Intel's 6+ core CPUs in terms of performance, and are offering them for a much lower price (Intel's Extreme CPUs were basically unchallenged for a long time hence the high prices.

2) If you don't have a specific need of features on the Rampage (or any high end mobo) that cheaper one doesn't have, it's fine to buy the cheaper one.

3) The X370 motherboards support 64gb RAM. They also support fast RAM speeds. When Ryzen initially launched there were issues where faster RAM speeds weren't supported, but these issues were addressed to a pretty large degree in very short order.
You can see other custom PC builders offering Ryzen with 3000MHz RAM, 64 GB RAM, etc. Why PCS aren't doing this yet I couldn't say. But the point is you should be able to add more RAM in the future.

4) The NVMe drives are much faster and not much more expensive. For loading the OS and anything else that cares about storage speed, it will improve performance.

5) The best overall gaming CPU is actually the i7 7700k, which is a quad core. Ryzen is not as good at gaming as the 7700k (neither is the 6850k). It's probably also somewhat under the 6850k for gaming. However, it still delivers decent performance and in many cases there may not be much of a perceptible difference. Where you will notice a difference is in video encoding/ exporting, etc where the R7 1800x will do its job ~25-40% faster than the 6850k.

If the PC's 80% for gaming, 20% for video editing, I'd get the i7 7700k and a Z270 chipset. If it's 80% video editing, I'd get Ryzen. If it were 50-50, I'd probably still suggest Ryzen because the difference between Ryzen and a 4 or 6 core Intel CPU in gaming is a fair bit smaller than in multithreaded tasks like video editing.

I wouldn't buy an i7 6850k for very much at all at the moment, since Ryzen is cheaper and better at video editing, and the 7700k is cheaper and better at gaming. And thanks to the 7700k's high frequencies and IPC lead, it's only ~20% slower or less in multithreaded tasks, despite the 6850k having 50% more cores and threads.

As Arstechnica put it:
Being "not as fast as the 7700K" doesn't make a processor "bad" for games. It just means it's not quite as fast as literally the fastest gaming processor ever made.
https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/03/amd-ryzen-gaming-performance-analysis/
 
Last edited:

WarlieC

Member
Thank you for being so detailed, this has really helped with my decision! ive now got to decide what i care about more, my personal life (gaming) or my Job! haha. No doubt i will go for the latter as you have made excellent points about the comparison of both builds. You have probably just saved me a lot of money! so thank you very much! Just to double check i will post the build that i have created with your advice below. i have chosen the cheapest RAM as i will install the better RAM (Corsair CMK32GX4M2B3000C15 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) Vengeance LPX DDR4) myself. one final question, why did you choose the CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET? over the standard 550W power supply?

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE (GREEN)

Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.0GHz/20MB CACHE/AM4)

Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME X370-PRO (DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/SLI) - RGB Ready!

Memory (RAM)
4GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 4GB)

Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!

1st Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED

2nd Hard Disk
2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 3.5" SSHD - UP TO 5X FASTER THAN HDD!

M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i V2 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Liquid Series Ultra Quiet Fans

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

LED Lighting
50cm Green LED Strip

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language

DVD Recovery Media
Windows 10 (64-bit) Home DVD with paper sleeve

Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365

Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode

Browser
Google Chrome™

Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days

Promotional Item
FREE FOR HONOR or GHOST RECON: WILDLANDS with select GTX 10 Series GPUs!

Quantity
1

Price £1,980.00 including VAT and delivery
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
why did you choose the CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET? over the standard 550W power supply?
It's better build quality than the VS series as far as I know, plus it's more efficient being 80+ gold rather than 80+ white as the VS series is. It's also modular which means fewer cables cluttering the case.

i have chosen the cheapest RAM as i will install the better RAM (Corsair CMK32GX4M2B3000C15 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) Vengeance LPX DDR4) myself
This sounds like a good idea.

The motherboard memory compatibility list says that the officially supported speed of that kit with Ryzen is 2666MHz with DOCP (the AMD version of Intel's XMP profiles afaik).
https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-X370-PRO/HelpDesk_QVL/
However, people reviewing the X370 pro said things like:

As we've already mentioned, the latest BIOS should mean the Prime X370-Pro is game for some overclocking and able to reach 2,933MHz with most memory kits
https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/03/30/asus-prime-x370-pro-review/9

Note that there have been various BIOS updates released in quick succession for the Ryzen mobos. You may find yourself wanting to update the BIOS for improvements to memory compatibility, AGESA updates, etc. Do consult with PCS before doing so however, since it can have warranty implications if it goes wrong, so I gather.
 

WarlieC

Member
Brilliant, im not comfortable overclocking anything myself so i will invest in the Corsair 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) 2400Mhz Vengeance LPX DDR4 instead. Im not 100% sure what you mean by the BIOS updates or what i would need to do to achieve that. Again, just want to say thank you very much for your help so far!
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
If you buy faster RAM than your motherboard or CPU can officially support, it's generally not a problem it just runs at a slower speed. The only 'problem' is that it's a few £ more expensive.

The DOCP speed for the RAM kit you listed is 2666MHz, so that would be better than the 2400MHz. If DOCP works like XMP, it doesn't require any manual overclocking (or any thought/research) whatsoever, it's literally just a case of selecting the pre-prepared profile that says "2666MHz" from a drop-down menu in the BIOS.

I'd probably get the 3000MHz stuff and run it as fast as the BIOS lets you. If that's limited to 2666MHz you can always revisit the memory speeds when you're more comfortable with how it works. I think memory "overclocking" covers a fairly wide range of activities. For instance my motherboard supports 2400MHz DDR3 but describes this as "overclocked". But the actual process just involved me plugging the RAM in, switching the PC on, picking the XMP profile in the BIOS from 1 menu, and it just working. As opposed to manually tinkering with timings, voltages, and all that stuff.

Ryzen is said to benefit a lot from faster RAM, especially for gaming.

As with anything, make sure you know the returns policy of the place you're buying from so that if you run into any compatibility issues you can return it. A lot of vendors won't accept returns of opened RAM, or at least not without some kind of fee involved. There's at least one very major vendor however that will accept returns of just about anything with few questions asked.

---

The BIOS is kind of like the operating system for the motherboard. Manufacturer's release updates for their mobos' BIOSes. There have been a lot of updates for Ryzen because it's a very new architecture so there have been tweaks to improve things like RAM compatibility with motherboards, and also improved microcode for the Ryzen CPUs.

Updating the BIOS is something that should be done very carefully. There's a guide here: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1572-how-to-flash-bios-on-asus-board

And do consult with PCS before doing it.
 
Last edited:

Flo

Silver Level Poster
I am not the most tech-savvy person around but isn't the hybrid drive kind of pointless when paired to a decent SSD? Oussebon is probably the one to ask though :)
 

Frank100

Rising Star
Hi,

In answer to Flo's question I would say the SSHD isn't a good option. As there is M.2 SATA in the build a normal HDD would be better.

Frank100
 

WarlieC

Member
Hi,

In answer to Flo's question I would say the SSHD isn't a good option. As there is M.2 SATA in the build a normal HDD would be better.

Frank100

Hi Frank, I was just wondering why you say this? ive been lead to believe that running a SSHD is a lot faster. When im video editing im moving large files around constantly so speed of transfer means a lot to me. Loading bars are the bane of my life.
 

WarlieC

Member
Updating the BIOS is something that should be done very carefully. There's a guide here: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1572-how-to-flash-bios-on-asus-board

And do consult with PCS before doing it.

Hello again, i had replied earlier this morning however the post seems to have disappeared. Just wanted to say thank you for all the advice again and let you know that i will probably go with the 3000mhz RAM like you said. I have checked the basic warenty guidelines and it seems fine however im now reading through their more detailed warranty agreement now (So much fun). Im really looking forward to getting my hands on this build, it should be perfect for what i need, and you have helped save me a lot of money!

Best,
WarlieC
 

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
Hello again, i had replied earlier this morning however the post seems to have disappeared.

When you are new to the forums your posts will often get auto-moderated which means they can't be seen until approved by a mod, that post (and the latest one as well) is visible now :)
 
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