Video editing build planning

[mackerel]

I'm looking to replace my video editing system since it is getting old and has various quirks, hardware and software. Time for a major refresh. The outgoing system has a 7980XE and when rendering video in Vegas 19 it does hit the CPU hard. It is more the limit than GPU. Given the ARL results I think I can remove that from consideration. That leaves me with what I think are 3 options:

9950X - probably the "best" CPU for the job without going into HEDT.
9900X - quite a bit cheaper, but is it a false economy to go for it?
9800X3D - This will go into my GAMING system, which then frees up the 7800X3D for the video system. While likely much faster ST the MT could suffer. Not a sensible choice, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Mobo: I haven't kept up to date with the X870 offerings if they are price/feature worthy to consider over going for another B650E. I want PCIe 5.0 GPU slot.

Ram: Is the new sweet spot for Zen 5 6400 with low CL? Up from 6000 for Zen 4. Basically I want to get ram that I can plug in, turn on EXPO and forget about it. No manual tweaking. My gaming system currently has 2x32GB 6000C30 assumed 2R, which I got because I wanted 2R. I don't need 64GB for gaming, so I'm debating getting the "same" spec 2x16GB 6000C30 kit which would allow me to do the 1R vs 2R testing I wanted to do. The 64GB kit can remain in the video editing system while 32GB kit can live in gaming system, assuming there is not too big a perf hit from it. I don't know if the video editor is sensitive at all to ram performance. Maybe I should test it.

I'll rehome a 3070 in it short term. When I (probably) get a 5080 for my gaming system the 4070 can then get moved in.

No hard time scales but if I buy it'll likely be next month, by which time the 9800X3D should release.

Use cases (highest priority first):
Video editing/rendering
Prime number finding - Hence Zen 4 is not a good option with its weaker AVX-512
Gaming - Only as a backup system. Should be fine whatever I choose, not optimising for every last fps

 

[Woomack]

All ASRock and Gigabyte X870/X870E mobos that I tested are worth the recommendation. There are no problems with RAM, stability, or anything else. Gigabyte has high bandwidth/low latency mode in BIOS, that ASRock doesn't have. It gives better results in synthetic benchmarks, but barely anything in everything else. Biostar X870E Valkyrie is a bit weird, but I assume you won't even consider this brand. I had no ASUS or MSI mobos in tests. Their B650E/X670E are fine, but I can't say much about X870/E.
The main differences are additional features and PCIe lane distribution, but all have main PCIe 5.0 x4 and at least one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 socket. 2-3 M.2 PCIe 5.0 mobos sacrifice lanes from the main PCIe 5.0 slot. You can see it by looking at the general specs without even reading any details.

The RAM is still 6400 1:1 and CL30/32 ... or 8000-8200 1:2, but it's almost the same, so it's probably not worth it. G.Skill, Kingston, or anything else from popular brands will be fine. I used a 2x48GB Kingston 6400 CL32 kit with XMP, and I had no problems with ASRock or Gigabyte. ASRock requires switching manually to a 1:1 ratio as it runs at 1:2 on auto.

I'm unsure if you see any significant difference between 7800X3D and 9800X3D. Leaks say up to 10-15% in some tests/games, but this is mainly because of the higher base frequency. Regarding the video editing PC, I'm unsure if you will see the difference between the 9950X and anything lower. I mean, it will be faster, but how much, a few seconds or minutes, and is that time worth the price difference? If you do that from time to time, then getting the highest CPU is a waste of money. If you feel like it will save a lot of time, then why not?

 

[mackerel]

On CPU choice, very roughly say it is £400 for 9900X and £560 for 9950X. 40% more cost for 33% more cores! The stupid parts of the internet explodes. £160 extra on top of whatever the total system cost ends up for 33% more cores. That's why I'm thinking 9900X is false economy. The 12 core parts have always been disliked and here it is closer in price to the 8 core than 16 core. I know cores does not equal performance, and if I were to spend a bit more time I should look it up more precisely.

Then there's the comparison vs what I currently have. I don't have a CB23 result on hand for my system and it is doing a long video render right now. Looking online doesn't help but the low end of hwbot results, which I presume might be stock like mine, are around 20k points. That puts it about equal to the 9700X. Not exact, but 9900X might be say up to 1.5x and 9950X up to 2x perf of the 7980XE. In CB23, I don't know how Vegas scales as it isn't trivial to test that.

I standardised on 4k60 videos. While the decode/encoding stage can be offloaded to GPU, most everything else is done on CPU and that's the limit. I'm getting up to 25fps rendering rate depending on complexity of what's going on. I work on a rule of thumb whatever the video length is, multiply by 3 for how long it'll take. So it can take several hours currently. While rendering I can't do anything else on the system. I think a faster CPU would also increase editing comfort, since 4k is a bit laggy compared to 1440p or lower, and I don't want to go through proxy files or things like that. I'm guessing CPU ST perf will help out there. If you make the argument that faster is a waste of money if I don't do enough with it, I might as well stick with what I have than "upgrade" to a smaller improvement at great cost.

The 9800X3D is more of a side thing and was never serious. I'm going to guess everyone will hate it because it'll be higher priced than what people want it to be. I built the 7800X3D system as the "best" CPU for pure gaming at the time. I need a faster GPU more than I need a faster CPU. Putting aside it wont be any time soon, even if they did 9950X3D with dual cache I'm guessing the incremental cost over 9950X would not be insignificant.

 

[rainless]

Don't you think it's time to move on from Vegas?

I mean an NLE that's still CPU dependent in 2024 is just kinda... "EWWWWwww!"

Even Adobe eventually got their act together and leaned into GPU acceleration.

You should really look into DaVinci Resolve. It would replace Vegas and After Effects at the same time. (Plus it even covers audio with Fairlight.)

I know there's a learning curve and everything... (I switched from Premiere and After Effects myself... many years ago), but you're talking about something much more powerful and capable that could really make that hardware of yours sing.

 

[mackerel]

You should really look into DaVinci Resolve.

I already have it installed. Finding the time to learn it is a different thing. If I need something done now, I go to what I know. Also I've had a similar discussion elsewhere. I hear that Resolve still uses CPU for some things. Do correct me if that is incorrect. Vegas does have many GPU accelerated functions, but what I'm using often isn't one of them.

Also, my version of Vegas is an old one from 2021. It might help if I was current, but I'm too cheap to pay for it, hence looking at Resolve. Says the person looking at 16 core CPUs.

Edit: having thought about it a little, I propose a little test. I'll try to render the same video from both, but will keep it simple so save the learning curve. I'll need to learn the basics anyway, like project/rendering settings, and the main function I use is applying a LUT. Resolve is big into grading so that should not be a problem right?

 

[rainless]

I already have it installed. Finding the time to learn it is a different thing. If I need something done now, I go to what I know. Also I've had a similar discussion elsewhere. I hear that Resolve still uses CPU for some things. Do correct me if that is incorrect. Vegas does have many GPU accelerated functions, but what I'm using often isn't one of them.

Also, my version of Vegas is an old one from 2021. It might help if I was current, but I'm too cheap to pay for it, hence looking at Resolve. Says the person looking at 16 core CPUs.

Edit: having thought about it a little, I propose a little test. I'll try to render the same video from both, but will keep it simple so save the learning curve. I'll need to learn the basics anyway, like project/rendering settings, and the main function I use is applying a LUT. Resolve is big into grading so that should not be a problem right?

Should be absolutely no problem at all.

Resolve is heavily, HEAVILY... GPU dependent. Virtually any problem you have can be solved with a faster GPU or more vRAM. I believe even rendering relies mostly on GPU. CPU and RAM are only used for two things:

1. Fusion (Resolves take on After Effects functionality)
2. Nodes.

I like to keep my color grading fairly minimalist. I'm not one of those guys with extremely complex node trees or anything like that. Generally speaking, three or four nodes, and I'm DONE. If I were to use a LUT... for example... I'd create a node for it and slap the LUT on the new node as opposed to the original so that... just in case it all goes south... I can just delete the node and try again and I haven't messed with my original image. Then I might sometimes want to do some foreground/background stuff or split my image into different layers of coloring... but I'm an editor and a visual effects artist mainly... not a straight-up colorist.

So four nodes and I'm out.

If you have like TWENTY nodes going... however... that's probably when CPU and RAM become a bigger factor.

I think Resolve 4 might've been the first version I used... so I've been using it a very... VERY long time. And, over the years, I find myself relying on the CPU less and less.

 

[mackerel]

I like to keep my color grading fairly minimalist.

I shoot log so I normally apply the default curve for my camera. Sometimes I might have to do more from there.

No idea what nodes are, guess that'll be part of the learning curve.

 

[infinitevalence]

more vRAM

MHWAAHHAHAHA

and im done here!

 

[mackerel]

On Resolve and VRAM, I was under the impression it would just crash if it ran out. I have since been informed elsewhere that more recent versions no longer crash, but just run slowly as it swaps to system ram. Any comments on this?

 

[rainless]

On Resolve and VRAM, I was under the impression it would just crash if it ran out. I have since been informed elsewhere that more recent versions no longer crash, but just run slowly as it swaps to system ram. Any comments on this?

Burg Eltz... the castle. That's the reason I upgraded to an RTX 2060 Super. Initially I had a GTX 960 with 3GB of vRAM. So I got the 2060 Super which had... 6? 8GB of vRAM? (Can't remember...). At least double.

Before that I had no problem with only 3 gigs in Resolve. But I wanted to do kind of a cloud effect in the foreground and background of the castle. As I recall... it did not crash. Crashes are pretty rare in the past three or four versions of Resolve... in my experience.

If I recall correctly, with the Eltz situation, it didn't crash... it just ground to a halt. But that was only when trying to preview the animation. When I exported it the rendering worked just fine. Once I got the 2060 Super going... the previews worked just fine.

What happened with Resolve vs. Vegas rendering? Who won?

 

[mackerel]

Burg Eltz... the castle. That's the reason I upgraded to an RTX 2060 Super. Initially I had a GTX 960 with 3GB of vRAM. So I got the 2060 Super which had... 6? 8GB of vRAM? (Can't remember...). At least double.

960 came in 2GB and 4GB versions. I had the standard 2GB version and tried to SLI it. That... was not a good experience Looking up the 2060 Super that was 8GB.

My only concern is that since I mainly work in 4k, that'll be quite demanding. Guides elsewhere suggest 8GB is ok at that resolution.

What happened with Resolve vs. Vegas rendering? Who won?

I haven't done it yet. Still got some other priorities to take care of before I dedicate time to learning Resolve. Should happen some time this week though.

I did notice in my last render on Vegas, where I was paying more attention to resource usage given this discussion, it was using both the CPU and GPU. CPU typically varied from 45% to 65%. Overall GPU usage hovered around 65% mark.

 

[Grepron]

For video editing, I'd lean toward the 9950X if budget allows—it'll handle heavy tasks without being as pricey as HEDT options. As for RAM, sticking with 64GB in the editing system is smart; you probably won’t notice much of a hit with 2x16GB for gaming. The setup sounds ready to rock once the 9800X3D drops! Also, that 4070 will be a nice boost for the editing system once you move the 5080 over.

 

[mackerel]

I've finally done a performance test between Vegas 19 (not current) and Resolve 19.0.3 (current).

System: 7980XE stock, 64GB ram 2R 2133 MT/s 4ch, 3070 stock.

Source file: 56 seconds 3840x2160 59.97fps HEVC ~110MBps D-LOG

In both editors, I dropped in the source file. Added the LUT to it, and hit render. Timeline is 3840x2160 59.97fps. I have turned on GPU acceleration in Vegas. I didn't touch settings in Resolve, but did see GPU was enabled and set to "Auto".

Vegas: I had previously created a custom YouTube preset for 4k60 H.264 output. From pressing go to completion took 162s. Output file was 59MBps. During rendering, I observed CPU and GPU usage. CPU usage varied from around 50-70%, mostly in the high 60's. GPU usage also varied. I'd give it an eyeball average of 50% but it varied from 40-60+%.

Resolve: I saw a YT button under Quick Render and used it, not knowing what settings it applied. Output file was H.264 at 58.5MBps, near enough the same as my Vegas preset. CPU usage was just above 50% and GPU usage was just above 60% for the duration of the render. This took 37s, or about 4.3x faster than Vegas.

Conclusions: without changing hardware, Resolve rendered over 4x faster, and felt much smoother just navigating media. That's a pretty big "free" upgrade in perf! In terms of hardware, CPU usage was still above 50% during rendering, which indicates to me it could benefit from more. I view over 50% as "all cores used" and you're fishing around the scraps of HT for more perf at that point. Longer term I think I'll still look at the 9950X, but just switching editors will likely bring about more perf benefit that throwing hardware at it short term.

Edit: also ran same test on my 780X3D stock, 6000C30 2x32GB, 4070 stock. 27 seconds! GPU fluctuated around 50%, CPU was >95%, maxed out between Resolve and whatever else was in background. Definitely still CPU hungry.
Edit 2: I forgot to say, I forgot to look at the VRAM usage during the tests. The max reported VRAM usage after doing both tests on the original system was around 4.5GB so it seems 8GB is fine for this basic level of usage. See how much it goes up if I start piling on the fancy stuff.

 

[rainless]

Conclusions: without changing hardware, Resolve rendered over 4x faster, and felt much smoother just navigating media. That's a pretty big "free" upgrade in perf! In terms of hardware, CPU usage was still above 50% during rendering, which indicates to me it could benefit from more. I view over 50% as "all cores used" and you're fishing around the scraps of HT for more perf at that point. Longer term I think I'll still look at the 9950X, but just switching editors will likely bring about more perf benefit that throwing hardware at it short term.

Yeah... as I said... Resolve is no joke.

I haven't had a project in a while (Been working on my app and various 3D/programming projects) but I am doing an extended tutorial series soon that will have lots of fancy animations and titles and whatnot... So I'll finally get to see how my new i9 12900K performs in conjunction with my 4060.

I was happy enough with my 9600KF and the 8GB 2060... but the new setup should... by all means... be able to blow that out of the water.

Haven't upgraded to Resolve 19 yet... although now would probably be a good time to do that since I'm not currently working on any projects. (I feel like I only just upgraded to 18.5...)

 

[mackerel]

Based on comments earlier, I was thinking maybe I'd see lower CPU than I was. Still, it is getting much more perf out of the same hardware so I can delay that spending for now, at the risk of getting something else to play with!

Learning how to use it is the next step. The basics should be the same, but when I tried doing edits that would take no time on Vegas, I got absolutely nowhere. I also know I don't know how to do things properly! My usage in Vegas was mainly by trial and error. Now seems as good a time as any to learn how to do things the correct way and unlearn those bad habits. I'm part way through the tutorial video from their site. Many keyboard shortcuts, and they did it using Mac.

Other benefit to switching to Resolve is I can install it on all systems. Once I get a central storage set up properly, I could edit on one system, and render on others. My productivity limit will be my motivation! Vegas only gives you two installs per licence, and I'm not sure you're supposed to use both at same time either.

 

[rainless]

Based on comments earlier, I was thinking maybe I'd see lower CPU than I was. Still, it is getting much more perf out of the same hardware so I can delay that spending for now, at the risk of getting something else to play with!

Learning how to use it is the next step. The basics should be the same, but when I tried doing edits that would take no time on Vegas, I got absolutely nowhere. I also know I don't know how to do things properly! My usage in Vegas was mainly by trial and error. Now seems as good a time as any to learn how to do things the correct way and unlearn those bad habits. I'm part way through the tutorial video from their site. Many keyboard shortcuts, and they did it using Mac.

Other benefit to switching to Resolve is I can install it on all systems. Once I get a central storage set up properly, I could edit on one system, and render on others. My productivity limit will be my motivation! Vegas only gives you two installs per licence, and I'm not sure you're supposed to use both at same time either.

Yeah... that sucks.

I had a big project just as I was moving here. While I was still in Berlin... I would edit on my desktop (Windows 10 at the time) during the day and edit on my brand new MacBook Air M1 at night. I had all the files on an external SSD formatted to exFat. No problems at all. Once I moved... it was the MacBook all the way as I had to wait a while before I could drive my desktop down to the French Riviera.

Never any trouble going back and forth or using two copies at once or any of that. It always just WORKED.

They even have a rather robust network editing setup.

I don't remember much of a learning curve switching from Premiere to Resolve. You can set up editing in Resolve to work just like Premiere... or you can do it more like Final Cut Pro (there's a "Cuts" tab... that's more like Final Cut... and an "Edit" tab that's basically like Premiere). I don't even remember what Vegas was like. But I imagine it's either like one of those or the other.

Then there's a tab or Color Grading and a tab for Delivery (Exporting) and that's pretty much it besides the special sections for Fusion (Adobe After Effects-type stuff) and Fairlight (audio editing).

The trickiest thing, to me I guess, is the way that Titles work in Resolve. They just don't work like they do in any other NLE that I've ever used. Now that I've been doing them in Resolve for years... I know how to do it... but I still wouldn't go so far as to say it makes sense.

 

[mackerel]

I don't remember much of a learning curve switching from Premiere to Resolve. You can set up editing in Resolve to work just like Premiere... or you can do it more like Final Cut Pro (there's a "Cuts" tab... that's more like Final Cut... and an "Edit" tab that's basically like Premiere). I don't even remember what Vegas was like. But I imagine it's either like one of those or the other.

I haven't used Premiere for perhaps 30 years so no idea what it is like now. Nor do I have any idea whatsoever about FCP since I don't Mac. Having said that, I'm looking at the M4 Mini as a potential plaything and see where Apple has gone since my last Mac Mini (Intel) from around 2006.

Vegas allows you to do things on the timeline, so I typically drop things on that then edit clips on the timeline itself. They also make it really easy to crossfade as you just drag and overlap clips. I heard Resolve doesn't do that, but I haven't tried yet. The tutorial is making it look more managed when working with clips and inserting them onto the timeline, so that will take time for me to adjust to.

My projects tend to be very small. I rarely need more than a few video tracks so extensive media management would just be an overhead. I'm sure that has more value on massive projects.

The trickiest thing, to me I guess, is the way that Titles work in Resolve. They just don't work like they do in any other NLE that I've ever used. Now that I've been doing them in Resolve for years... I know how to do it... but I still wouldn't go so far as to say it makes sense.

Is that basically text? Vegas implementation isn't great either but it is quite intuitive and works, other than trying to move it. I wont be missing cropping and element placing on Vegas. The standard implementation is awful. Very unintuitive to scale and move things around spatially. I did later find an included plugin for upscaling which looks like it could do it better for a scaled crop but haven't had need to use it since.

 

[rainless]

Is that basically text? Vegas implementation isn't great either but it is quite intuitive and works, other than trying to move it. I wont be missing cropping and element placing on Vegas. The standard implementation is awful. Very unintuitive to scale and move things around spatially. I did later find an included plugin for upscaling which looks like it could do it better for a scaled crop but haven't had need to use it since.

Yeah that is text. One thing that's an absolute DREAM on Resolve is the absolute amount of control you have on every single track. Each time you click on a track it's like having a little mini After Effects. You can control scale, rotation, opacity, and even stabilization and some other things, right in the little context window for every single clip. It's really an INFINITE amount of power.

I'm glad you reminded me... I've been looking for something to do... and I keep forgetting to update to Resolve 19. Like I said... I only recently upgraded to Resolve 18.5.... so I need to figure out what new features were added to BOTH versions now...

EDIT: Well it turns out I *did* upgrade to Resolve 19 when it came out. So I just updated to 19.0.3 now.