Time to Build a Faster, Super NLE/3D Workstation: Seeking Suggestions

M A Weiss · 25 Jan 2019

My three year old dual Xeon E5-2667 is just not up to video editing, and apparently isn't compatible with the installer for Windows 10, so any attempts to fix poor performance with a better version of Windows and updated apps is not in the cards. With the new apps being limited to Windows 10 now, this machine is at a dead end on Windows 7. Besides, there must be faster and better hardware now.

So, I'm looking for something with two or four CPU capability, M.2 drives, more than 40 PCI lanes, full extended ATX, at least ten SATA ports, IEEE1394 (nice if available, but I can add card if needed), no onboard anything (video or sound), support for the fastest multicore CPUs from Intel, support for multiple GPUs. I'm looking to the future, being able to edit 8K video and model animate and render in 8K.

I'm not sure there are any single processor solutions that would be adequate. I looked at the i9-9990XE, but that only runs 28 threads. My current system runs 32 threads. Something with two or four CPUs may give me the extra horsepower I need for working with mult-camera ultra-HD edits and 50M+ polygon worlds in Maya.

I spent $15K on my current system, built in Aug 2015, but it's performance as an NLE was disappointing, about even with the Core2Quad it replaced.

I often dream about how a quad CPU motherboard with four Quadro GV100 GPUs would run Adobe Premiere and Maya, but such a system would set me back more than forty grand, about four times what I want to budget for this replacement system.

I can always part out my dual Xeon system to recoup some of the cost of the new system, but I'd like to keep it at or under 10 grand, unless there is an exceptional configuration that would be worth the extra cost in realworld productivity gains. I just don't want to get stuck with another "lemon" that sticks and stutters and drops frames at random.

Realistically, I'm probably going to go with a couple of RTX2080Ti GPUs and dual processors, if I can find ones with enough cores and fast enough clock/turbo modes for low threaded apps to still perform well. The wife and I decided to cancel a trip to Japan that was going to cost a tad over 10 grand, so I decided to spend that money to fix this problem that's been a constant irritant for 3-1/2 years. No more Supermicro motherboards.

copiertech25 · 02 Feb 2019

Dual E5-2667's would only be 12C/24T. Performance wise a 9980XE or 7980XE with 18C/36T would blow it out of the water with single and multithread performance. Have you considered Threadripper? The 2950X would give you really great performance and a single processor is faster now adays than the dual processors of the past. We have a dual Xeon Precision with similar performance to your rig and our Threadripper 1950X and i9 7980XE systems make it look like a toy. Just some thoughts of mine.

M A Weiss · 03 Feb 2019

Currently we have 16 cores and 32 threads. The problem is extremely long GOP video from DJI Phantom drones and 4K 60P video in Apple Prores with Lumetri Color LUTs added. With Windows 10 installed from the ground up, the new Task Manager shows both CPU and GPU use and now we're starting to spot some interesting things. Playing 4K 60P, the CPU usage is only 32%, but the GPU (GTX1080Ti) is hitting 92% and dropping a lot of frames. If I turn off Lumetri and just play the video in S-log raw state, no frames are dropped and GPU is down under 50%.

So now I'm starting to think it's a GPU limitation, rather than CPUs.