Looking for some advice with regards to a CPU to use with a Video Editing rig.

[Heroic_Void]

Hello there, the time has come for me to upgrade my old PC, along with the i5 3570K that has served me well admittedly. But altogether my old system just wasn't cutting it. So I decided to splash out on a new build. Here is a rough idea of what the finished rig would look like (note that I will go into an explanation a bit later on about the title of my post).

CPU: Intel i7 5930K or Intel Xeon E5-1650 V3*

Cooler: Corsair H115i

RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4

SSD 1: Crucial MX100 256GB (Already Purchased)

SSD 2: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 512GB (this would be used for the OS (Windows 8.1), Sony Vegas of course and other intensive applications)

HDD: Western Digital Black 2TB (Already Purchased)

GPU: MSI GTX 780 3GB VRAM (Already Purchased)

Motherboard: Asus X99-A

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold (Already Purchased)

*So my main issue is really here (although suggestions elsewhere would equally be welcomed). I have approximately £500 to spend on a CPU and and can't really go over that if I want to be able to afford this build. My main problem is the choice between the processors. I have visited many websites on the subject of i7's vs Xeon CPU's when it comes to rendering and I see a mix of Xeons will be better by default, i7's will beat Xeon's 1v1 but a Dual CPU set up Xeon's will crush the competition. I unfortunately don't have the budget to fork out £1000+ on a High End CPU(s).

So I thought if I could get some suggestions on what would be the best with regards to Xeon or i7 CPU's when it comes to rendering HD footage (since I mostly work on 2K projects). But for family as well I might need to quickly blitz through a 1080p home video. Or even if I should get another processor separate from the 2 I listed altogether. Any suggestions are greatly welcomed.


I mean from what I've seen of the 2 Processors above according to CPU Boss the Xeon beats the i7 when it comes to using both single core or all cores together.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-E5-1650-v3-vs-Intel-Core-i7-5930K

And you also have the Xeon's natural ability to cope with really heavy workloads. As they're designed for Servers/Workstations they can take that bit more.

But then Passmark seemingly gives the Xeon a lower rating.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2389&cmp[]=2336

Really not sure what to go with. I'm being drawn to the Xeon myself.

I should mention my budget is around £1200 for a Motherboard, M.2 SSD, CPU, RAM and some type of cooling solution (whether that be Water or Air). I can probably stretch the budget to about £1250 if I need to.

 

[mackerel]

Given the choice between those two CPUs, I don't think there is much in it. The Xeon would get you 100MHz more turbo which you can claim back by a slight overclock on the i7 anyway. The other differences I don't believe will make any significant difference to performance.

My only question would be, do you need the extra PCIe lanes of the 5930k, if not the 5820k would save quite a bit of cash and you can overclock to similar levels anyway. I'd be cautious about those benchmark results. Unless you know for sure they're like for like comparable, other system components could have as big or bigger influence.

I'm about to dabble with video myself, and have to wonder where the bottlenecks are. Would faster disks help for example?

 

[Johan45]

Between those two I'd go with the 5930K or even the 5820K unless you have a need for the extra PCIe lanes like multiple GFX cards and save a bit of $$$. The advantage here is that the Haswell"E" CPUs can be overclocked fairly easily. AFIK the Xeons have locked multis. So any advantage it has at stock will be lost quickly once you get the other chips into the low/mid 4G range.

 

[Heroic_Void]

Given the choice between those two CPUs, I don't think there is much in it. The Xeon would get you 100MHz more turbo which you can claim back by a slight overclock on the i7 anyway. The other differences I don't believe will make any significant difference to performance.

My only question would be, do you need the extra PCIe lanes of the 5930k, if not the 5820k would save quite a bit of cash and you can overclock to similar levels anyway. I'd be cautious about those benchmark results. Unless you know for sure they're like for like comparable, other system components could have as big or bigger influence.

I'm about to dabble with video myself, and have to wonder where the bottlenecks are. Would faster disks help for example?

The PCiE lanes would be helpful for the future, I reckon it might be better to go with them as a means of future proofing.

By faster disks do you mean the SSD's?

Between those two I'd go with the 5930K or even the 5820K unless you have a need for the extra PCIe lanes like multiple GFX cards and save a bit of $$$. The advantage here is that the Haswell"E" CPUs can be overclocked fairly easily. AFIK the Xeons have locked multis. So any advantage it has at stock will be lost quickly once you get the other chips into the low/mid 4G range.

Yeah the Xeon's are locked I believe. But they can be overclocked by changing the BCLK Frequency.

 

[mackerel]

Faster disks - any disk the video will be stored. On the 2TB Black? I was serious debating buying a 960GB SSD (around £160 each) to act as temporary working space for videos. It will also be stored elsewhere long term, and backed up separately. I'm not sure how important disk speed is and it may be overkill. I already have my CPU and system so I'm not easily going to change that.

 

[Heroic_Void]

Faster disks - any disk the video will be stored. On the 2TB Black? I was serious debating buying a 960GB SSD (around £160 each) to act as temporary working space for videos. It will also be stored elsewhere long term, and backed up separately. I'm not sure how important disk speed is and it may be overkill. I already have my CPU and system so I'm not easily going to change that.

Oh I'm probably going to be storing Vegas and the videos on the M.2 SSD. I really want to maximize the rendering speed.

The other SSD is mainly for FLAC Music and some other stuff.

The 2 TB Black would have all the non essential programs, all my games etc.

 

[OC-NightHawk]

If you intend to overclock and only have one socket on the board get the 5930K. Forget about the Xeon.

The 5930K will do 4GHz in its sleep. The lottery kicks in further up. With good cooling and a little luck you can get up to 4.7GHz or more.

Also you don't need an expensive ASUS board. I am having great luck with the MSI X99A SLI plus. Fantastic board that isn't super expensive. Bonus it is all blacked out and very easy on the eyes too.

 

[Heroic_Void]

If you intend to overclock and only have one socket on the board get the 5930K. Forget about the Xeon.

I myself probably wasn't going to Overclock the CPU. I always worry about pushing it too far so the Xeon might be a better option for me then.

I would really want to go with a Dual Xeon build but I don't think I can do it with my current budget unless I completely changed things around.

 

[Johan45]

Overclocking on the X99 will be super easy. Get a decent cooler set the XMP profile and up the multi to 4.0 you can probably leave every thing else on auto and it will be fine.

 

[Heroic_Void]

I'm only really worrying because I have G.A.D so my worry is always amplified. I guess the watercooling will help keep it stable right? And the overclock to 4.0GHz will make it a beast when it comes to rendering.

 

[Johan45]

When and if you get that system come back and start a thread in the Intel CPU section. We can guide you through the overclock and I think you'll find with sufficient cooling 4.0 only scratches the surface. Turn that kitten into a tiger ha ha

 

[Heroic_Void]

When and if you get that system come back and start a thread in the Intel CPU section. We can guide you through the overclock and I think you'll find with sufficient cooling 4.0 only scratches the surface. Turn that kitten into a tiger ha ha

Say somehow I could get the i7 5960x. How much better could that be for rendering/OC'ing. I take it it's the best CPU around besides from the £1000+ Xeons.

I'm trying to rearrange my budget if I can without sacrificing quality.

 

[Johan45]

You go from 12 to 16 threads so, if the software will use all of them there would be a substantial increase just because of that. But assuming it'll OC better isn't wise. Still the same lottery as everything else. On top of that it's abit hotter and harder to cool. But if it were running the same core clock it would win out everytime VS it's siblings. For the premium over the 5820K I wouldn't think it was worth it myself.

 

[mackerel]

I don't know how higher end video software scales with cores, but in an ideal case, multiply running clock by number of cores to get an indication of your total processing power. Starting OC with 8 cores will give you more than 6, will give you more than 4, on the big assumption you get the same clocks. If you can't, then it will be a balance of fewer faster cores vs. more of slower ones. Given the same processor technology, you're going to have to resort to the same voltage boost to get higher clocks in all of these cases, so it could end up more slower cores can do more work at less power than fewer faster ones. I'd say if you went for the 8 core, it would be worth getting decent cooling for it before you think about overclocking. Personally I like to get the low hanging fruit, that is as much clock as I can without pushing voltage much. Once you start increasing voltage, the power consumption increases faster than the extra work potential.

What existing systems have been used for video editing? As a thought exercise, maybe it would be possible to extrapolate a relative performance for a new system against that?

 

[Heroic_Void]

I don't know how higher end video software scales with cores, but in an ideal case, multiply running clock by number of cores to get an indication of your total processing power. Starting OC with 8 cores will give you more than 6, will give you more than 4, on the big assumption you get the same clocks. If you can't, then it will be a balance of fewer faster cores vs. more of slower ones. Given the same processor technology, you're going to have to resort to the same voltage boost to get higher clocks in all of these cases, so it could end up more slower cores can do more work at less power than fewer faster ones. I'd say if you went for the 8 core, it would be worth getting decent cooling for it before you think about overclocking. Personally I like to get the low hanging fruit, that is as much clock as I can without pushing voltage much. Once you start increasing voltage, the power consumption increases faster than the extra work potential.

What existing systems have been used for video editing? As a thought exercise, maybe it would be possible to extrapolate a relative performance for a new system against that?

I use my laptop which the specs are.

CPU: Intel Core i7 2670QM 2.7GHz
RAM: 20GB DDR3
SSD: 256GB
GPU: Nvidia Quadro 1000M

And my current PC which is,

CPU: Intel i5 3570K

Cooler: Noctua DH-14

RAM: GSkill Ripjaws 1866 MHz (2X4GB)

SSD 1: Crucial MX100 256GB

HDD: Western Digital Black 2TB

GPU: MSI GTX 780 3GB VRAM

Motherboard: P8Z77-V LX


PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold

 

[Johan45]

Just with the 5820K over the i5 you have two more real cores plus 6 virtual threads. I wouldn't be surprised if that alone will cut the time in half. Plus Haswell has ~ a 10% advantage in IPC

 

[OC-NightHawk]

Honestly unless you are going to be doing heavy 24/7 video encoding/rendering I wouldn't worry about two Xeons. That is major overkill and will require more expensive supplemental parts.

If you duplicate my build I think it would do just fine.

5930K
Two GTX 970 cards
32GB DDR4 2400MHz
MSI X99A SLI Plus
Your choice of 750W SLI certified PSU, drives and case.
I'm using a Corsair H100I GTX AIO water cooler for the processor. It works well but there are options from other brands too.

Go this route save your money. A mid range X99 board is still really good and will do overclocking. Keep in mind the HaswellE chips are all unlocked extremes.

Don't throw money away on one or two Xeons, EEC RAM and EPS12V power supplies. They are not needed.

To give you an idea of the gaming performance here is my 3D Mark 11 score from last night.

I'll run Cinebench tonight to give you an idea of rendering performance to help you gauge if the performance is in line with your expectations.

 

[Heroic_Void]

Honestly unless you are going to be doing heavy 24/7 video encoding/rendering I wouldn't worry about two Xeons. That is major overkill and will require more expensive supplemental parts.

If you duplicate my build I think it would do just fine.

5930K
Two GTX 970 cards
32GB DDR4 2400MHz
MSI X99A SLI Plus
Your choice of 750W SLI certified PSU, drives and case.
I'm using a Corsair H100I GTX AIO water cooler for the processor. It works well but there are options from other brands too.

Go this route save your money. A mid range X99 board is still really good and will do overclocking. Keep in mind the HaswellE chips are all unlocked extremes.

Don't throw money away on one or two Xeons, EEC RAM and EPS12V power supplies. They are not needed.

To give you an idea of the gaming performance here is my 3D Mark 11 score from last night.

I'll run Cinebench tonight to give you an idea of rendering performance.

I think I am getting a bit over my head in this stuff really. I think it's just because I so badly want to make sure I make the right decision and get the most for my money.

 

[JLambeth87]

I own a video production company so we edit all the time. Assuming you are using the latest version of Vegas Pro the tech specs recommend multi-core CPUs. This is good which means the more cores you have the better it will perform:

2 GHz processor (multicore or multiprocessor CPU recommended for HD or stereoscopic 3D; 8 cores recommended for 4K)

I would go with the i7 5930K and, like others have said, OC it to 4Ghz.

Also it is able to use the GPU to help render so you might want to look into a faster GPU. I have used a 780 on my old edit system and it worked great. Now my new system has 1 Titan X (with a second Titan X on it's way) and it has made a MASSIVE difference in rendering times.

A few people have mentioned disk speeds. This is a HUGE bottleneck and is overlooked in most systems. The reason you want fast disks is because your system will only be able to render the footage at the rate it's able to get fed the footage from the disks. You would want at a minimum 2x 7200RPM HDDs in a RAID 0 if you are wanting media read from them and then during your renders you want to have them rendering the files to a different drive than where the media is coming from. This opens up the whole flow and will help with rendering times.

Josh

 

[Heroic_Void]

I own a video production company so we edit all the time. Assuming you are using the latest version of Vegas Pro the tech specs recommend multi-core CPUs. This is good which means the more cores you have the better it will perform:

2 GHz processor (multicore or multiprocessor CPU recommended for HD or stereoscopic 3D; 8 cores recommended for 4K)

I would go with the i7 5930K and, like others have said, OC it to 4Ghz.

Also it is able to use the GPU to help render so you might want to look into a faster GPU. I have used a 780 on my old edit system and it worked great. Now my new system has 1 Titan X (with a second Titan X on it's way) and it has made a MASSIVE difference in rendering times.

A few people have mentioned disk speeds. This is a HUGE bottleneck and is overlooked in most systems. The reason you want fast disks is because your system will only be able to render the footage at the rate it's able to get fed the footage from the disks. You would want at a minimum 2x 7200RPM HDDs in a RAID 0 if you are wanting media read from them and then during your renders you want to have them rendering the files to a different drive than where the media is coming from. This opens up the whole flow and will help with rendering times.

Josh

Haha I guess if you own a company and you are saying that I certainly wont argue the case

This is what I had as a build roughly.

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1650 V3 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£473.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£117.79 @ Kustom PCs)
Motherboard: Asus X99-A ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£197.96 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£86.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£86.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For £0.00)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£245.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For £0.00)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (Purchased For £0.00)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For £0.00)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For £0.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) (Purchased For £0.00)
Total: £1209.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Would you perhaps be able to give me some tips on what you think I should get to maximize the value I could get? I don't know if what I've got there is good enough. I didn't know if you'd be able to perhaps rework my list and suggest an alternative setup perhaps given your knowledge.

Thanks.