Howdy Folks,
Over the past month or two I have been researching a new computer build for my joint. I run a commercial studio and I do audio and video work, editing, mastering, etc. I experienced sluggishness when my work moved to 4K video work, so I babied my system by adding a GTX 980 vid card and more memory, but that was a temporary solution. I still had to proxy a lot of video in order to work at a reasonable pace, but post coloring and such were slow. Transcoding helped a little too, but my computer was still struggling. My computer, 7 years old based around a x58a UD3r board, still ran fine with cubase and protools. It was the video that was too much. Over the past 5-6 months working with 4K footage, my drive setup in the computer went from 4 TB to 8TB. That shows you the amount of data 4k is. It takes a lot to process that data. I had to do something.
I did a lot of research online, talked to some folks I know in the video editing side of the industry to see what they were using and recommended then talked to a few computer specialists I know and here comes the new system. I am building it myself because some components of the old system will be transplanted to the new system. I’ve built every system for the studio when I moved from analogue to digital. If you are completely new to this, I recommend buying a system from one of the online retailers that specialize in workstations specific to audio/video recording. It could save you from wasting your money because high-end computers are expensive. So on to the new system…
The List:
CPU: Intel Core i7-6800K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
Motherboard: Asus X99-DELUXE II
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200
OS Drive: Samsung 750 Evo 500GB
Scratch Drive: Samsung 750 Evo 500GB
Client Audio Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM
Client Video Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM
2 HDD Cages for client drive access: iStarUSA BPN-DE110SS HDD Cage
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card
Audio Card: RME HDSPe AES32
DSP Card: UAD2 Quad
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit
19" 4ru computer case.
I went with the Asus board because it is highly expandable, kind of future proof. It should last me a while. The system should be quiet too, much more than my current system. When I started 4k editing, my current computer would overheat and I had to add a number of intake/exhaust fans to keep it cool when rendering something out. I still get beep warnings from the motherboard from impending meltdowns!
Anyway, parts start arriving tomorrow and the build will start sometime next week. If you are interested, I will try to keep you posted.