New AE, C4D, Premiere Workstation Approx €3000,-

Hardware Hub Build a PC
1

Hey there!

I came across this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tyudcr1uLY

...and I happen to be looking to build myself a new After Effects, Cinema4D, Premiere workstation. I also use my current machine for gaming, however this hasn't got priority for the new rig.

Here's the context:

  • The Netherlands (hence the Euro)
  • Adobe CC + Cinema 4D (animation, video)
  • Windows 7 Pro
  • No peripherals needed nor soundcard
  • Reasonable experience in building rigs
  • Dislike overclocking or any special cooling, I prefer things to work out of the box (duh) although I did do BIOS upgrades in the past
My current rig (2012) - which I built myself - is a:
  • Intel i7-3930K @ 3.2 GHz
  • 32Gb RAM
  • Asus P9X79 WS mobo
  • NVIDIA Quadro 2000D
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670
  • Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced case
  • Corsair 750W power supply
  • 2 SSD's Samsung 256 GB
  • 1 HDD WD 2 TB
  • 2 Dell monitor set-up - I cannot live without this

Performance has room for improvement, I think. My current rig is disappointingly sluggish at times. I wish to get as close to a 2014 Mac Pro 12-core performance as possible for a budget of around €3000,- Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the way to achieve this is as follows:

  • 2 Intel Xeon CPUs on a dual CPU mobo
  • Preferably 64 GB RAM per CPU
  • SATA III SSD's with Marvell controller on mobo
  • Or, in short, blindly follow this list: https://teksyndicate.com/videos/build-workstation-pc-our-dual-xeon-build-and-guidelines-help-yours

I am willing to do/have the following:

  • A new, silent case
  • Possibly invest in more relevant videocards (especially with updates to the Mercury engine by Adobe)
  • A new power supply (750W is probably not enough anyway)
  • 2-monitor set-up, I do not wish to relinquish this config

Alright, now for some questions I have:

  1. I was wondering how relevant that video still is? Has new hardware been released since then that would makesignificant improvements?
  2. What is the use of still using a regular HDD instead of only SSD? Memory-to-price ratio?
  3. Since that list is from september, has much changed?

Thanks! I will share anything I can find as well as the building process once I get to it.

 

2

why not just trow a 8 core xeon in your current rig?

http://www.alternate.nl/Intel%28R%29/Xeon%28R%29-E5-2650V2/html/product/1097903?tk=7&lk=10280

And spend the rest on GPU upgrade.

3

no special cooling but want a silent case? (with better cooling your fans won't have to work so hard)

also you might want to wait for the new 2011 chips to come out

what exactly are you bottled necked doing ? duel xenons don't really come into play until you are rendering.

what gpu are using when working? your quadro2000 is kind of dated

P.S. Firepro workstation cards suck right now there drivers are subpar

4

Oh I hadn't even considered that as an option. 

I read somewhere - am having trouble finding the article - that upcoming changes to After Effects' Mercury Playback Engine would nerf the support by GPU. But I might have read this wrong.

I would have to switch memory from non-ECC to ECC, too - correct?

5

Ah I see that the cooling wishes might indeed be a bit of a catch :D 

What do you mean by "bottled necked doing"? I'd like to more fluidly use After Effects (quick previews, rendering while dragging the CTI). Here's my info from AE.

  • Fast Draft: Available
  • Texture Memory: 391,00 MB
  • Ray-tracing: GPU
  • OpenGL
  • Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
  • Device: Quadro 2000D/PCIe/SSE2
  • Version: 2.1.2
  • Total Memory: 1,94 GB
  • Shader Model: 4.0 or later 
  • CUDA
  • Driver Version: 6.0
  • Devices: 1 (GeForce GTX 670)
  • Current Usable Memory: 1,45 GB (at application launch)
  • Maximum Usable Memory: 2,00 GB
6

Has well e and ddr4 worth waiting for

7

"bottle necked" - like when your computer starts to become slow

(also have you turned multi-processing on in AE? I think I turned mine off because it became a little buggy)

http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/memory-storage.html

(also a quadro wont work along side with a Geforce GTX - AE will only be using 1 of them unless nvidia released some magical driver that I have never heard of ) 

8

memory switch is not realy needed basicly.

Ecc memory does offcourse help if you realy render alot, will be less sensitive for errors. but you allready have ram, so yeah, thats allways something to concider later eventualy. If you render alot professionaly, then ECC memory is indeed more safe