What computer to buy for PrPro 2015? More GPU than RAM?

Question

My current laptop isn't handling PrPro 2015. Its brand new i7, 12GB RAM, but its not playing video smoothly in the editing process. Looking at buying something more substantial.

Is it true that High performance GPU is better than massive amounts of RAM? Dose PrPro only take advantage of 10-12GB of Ram and the rest is essentially useless?

The price of some of the high performance gaming desktops I was looking at is between $2000 and $4000, really hoping for some advise before spending so much. As an example; will the specs of the desktop below help me? Will it make the program work faster and not freeze up and skip in the editing process?

What are you guys running? Any recommendations?

Thanks

Clarissa

CyberpowerPC Desktop | Intel Core i7 | 2GB Graphics | Windows 8.1 Professional | Liquid Cooled

Processor & Memory: ◦Intel Core i7-5820K Processor 3.3GHz ◦64GB DDR4 RAM

Drives: ◦2TB 7200RPM SATA3 Hard Drive + 120GB Solid State Drive ◦DVD-RW (Writes to DVD/CD)

Operating System: ◦Microsoft® Windows 8.1 Professional (64-bit)

Graphics & Video: ◦2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Graphics

Communications:
◦10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN

Audio: ◦Integrated High Definition 7.1 Channel Audio Processing

Keyboard & Mouse: ◦USB Keyboard ◦USB Mouse

Expandability (Total Slots):
◦2x 5.25" External ◦1x 3.5" External ◦7X 3.5 Internal ◦1x 2.5" Internal ◦4x PCI-E x16 ◦2x PCI-E x1 ◦8x DIMM 240-pin

I/O Ports & Slots: ◦1x PS/2 Style ◦9x USB 3.0 ◦4x USB 2.0 ◦1x Optical SPDIF Port ◦1x DVI ◦1x HDMI ◦1x Display Port ◦1x RJ-45 ◦5x Audio Jacks (2x Front, 3x Rear)

Additional Information: •Power Supply: 800 Watt •Cooling: Liquid Cooled •Dimensions : 7.5” x 16.7” x 19.3”

Answer 1

My setup: I am running a GTX 760 4gb RAM, i7 3930k overclocked to 4.2ghz (very stable), Sabertooth x79, 800 watt corsair PSU

I once read a really good article and I wish I could find it again to link it, but it basically talked about bottlenecks in an editing system and was supported by actual builds and real world tests. But the just of it was, that unless you are running dual Xenon processors with 64gb RAM the added benefits of a 900+ nvidia gpu was marginal at best. The recommend specs were thus an i7, around 16-32 gb of RAM, SSD's, and GTX 700 series.

This setup works pretty well for me, and I can recommend it. Instead of forking out extra money for the 900 series GPU, get one with more memory and more CUDA cores (something PP really utilizes especially with 3rd party plugins) in the 700 series. Cap the RAM at 32gb unless your going Xenon. But at that point your going to need a GeForce Titan to remove the bottleneck.

I have found that the mercury playback engine with cuda is considerably better at processing frames especially with effects, than the 'program mode' processing.

For reference I can play 85mbps DNX 1080p at full ress with magic bullet looks on with no lag. If I'm running of an external hdd, it takes some time to start the play head once its stopped (less than a second, but enough to annoy). SSD's are a must.

Answer 2

The answer to your question is yes, the desktop with those specs will to increase playback speed with heavier loads over the laptop you currently have because it is a stronger system. It's hard to say if it will remove the glitchyness completely, because that depends on the bit-rate and codec you are using.

Is it true that High performance GPU is better than massive amounts of RAM?

Not necessarily. If you routinely work with a codec that is memory intensive, the RAM may well be of more use than large mass of CUDA.'

Dose PrPro only take advantage of 10-12GB of Ram and the rest is essentially useless?

Not necessarily, regardless of how much RAM Premiere itself uses the codec may use more and may -as in a case I recently had- be leaky.. I experienced, Very bad timeline playback on my system with 16gb Ram, upgraded to 32GB and am fine. Tech support tells me the Premiere ProRes implementation is leaky..

What are you guys running? Any recommendations?

I currently use a i7-4790, GTX 760-2GB, 32GB RAM, 256 SSD (for OS/Pograms), 2x1TB Samsung SSDs for projects/footage, 2x3TB 7200 segates RAID 0 for Preview files/Final Exports, and misc backup drives.

I spent under $2k for this system a year ago. I edit tv segments with about 10 layers of interment overlays and 2 or 3 overlapping ProRes 422 streams on an on-going basis.

Some thoughts:

• Remember CUDA only helps certain functions in Premiere. You can have the fastest video card ever and if your source/previews are sitting on a USB2 5400 drive, you ain't going no-where.
• Consider shifting your money from a top end video card to some speedy SSDs and a solid motherboard. All chipsets are not equal for video editing. For me -I like a sexy matx form factor over a huge tower: I would get This ASRock board The newer x99 chipset, the 2011-3 socket -means you can upgrade to xeon 18-cores if you like, and supports 64gb of ecc memory, (BUT you can use that cpu in your list it's solid). Much more useful (to me) than the top of the line Titan or what-have-you CUDA-bucket. You can always upgrade your video card later. (Note: I don't claim it's "the" perfect system -it's what I would get.)
• Consider a raid0 or ssd for you preview/render drive. Previews and final exports can always be recreated so the risk of RAID 0 is a low one. Make your preview format a non-compressed format and you will have very high playback bandwidth. It will also speed up your exports somewhat.
• Whenever I build a new system I like to what Video Guys currently recommends. Every couple years they research up a new system for DIY Prosumer Editing station: http://www.videoguys.com/blog/computer-hardware/videoguys-april-2015-update-system-recommendations-for-video-editing/ (Note: they tend to get a little dated between times -nice thing is they tested it.)
• Consider putting money towards a "nice" monitor like the DELL U2713HM For those of us that don't have $30k color suites.. get a nice "pre-color calibrated" monitor with high resolution to work that timeline. Or maybe two of them.. It's worth it to be able to tell the client that it's colored properly on a calibrated monitor.