Hi all,

I am looking at building myself a new machine to be used extensively for editing on Avid Media Composer. I am a freelance editor, and would work on the station 6 - 8 hours per day.

This is the build I have currently:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mhbXd6

Please advise on any changes you would make to the system,

and is that GPU supported by Avid Media Composer?

I see in the supported driver list that Avid has, the only drivers listed as supported belong to nVidia's Quadro range GPU's?

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Stuart Smith

Hi Stuart,

I would take a look at the Videoguys DIY information at

http://www.videoguys.com/blog/diy11/

I have done 2 of their builds so far and they have functioned very well.

Denny

Thanks Denny, appreciate the response.

Will look at their build.

Cheers

Stuart

i'm into higher endish diy stuff.

i recon i buildt like 5 supermicro bases socket 2011 machines last year.

pm me if you want the blueprintz.

Videoguys have discontinued their DIY recommendations. The one linked is VERY old, and everything on their list is likely not even sold anymore.  Videoguys used to be great, but now they're probably the last place to look for solid PC advice, and they are no longer a good resource for video editors. 

There is really no good information our there right now about new Avid PC builds.

Avid Inc. really focuses on very, very large customers who use huge shared-storage solutions and overpriced turn-key computers that meet very specific criteria. 

Hi -  So my motherboard just failed on my edit machine.  I am in the same boat.  Problem is Videoguys no longer discuss DIY - machines.  I  had  a few motherboards pciked out a while back but now things have changed and

so I am not sure if what I picked is still a good choice

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ASUS X99-DELUXE II LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Gigabyte Z170X another possible mother board

GIGABYTE X99-Designare EX (Intel X99) Motherboard  another possible board

So any advice out there would be appreciated since I need to get up and running ASAP

thank you

Atomike:

Videoguys used to be great, but now they're probably the last place to look for solid PC advice, and they are no longer a good resource for video editors. 

When did this happen? 

Pheral:

When did this happen? 

I would say about a year ago. Their last DIY page is about 2 years old, and now (as best as I can tell) they are trying to sell full HP systems themselves rather than help out the little guy trying to make an editing PC.  I used to feel a great deal of comraderie with that site since they seemed to want to help out the one-man-band with good DIY recommendations. Now, it seems they want to sell pre-made HP PCs that are WAY too expensive. So, no longer a great resource any more. 

I don't want to say they're a bad site, since they did, at one time, give great free information. And it's hard to be upset with a site for doing good things in the past. But are they worth visting now? No. They're not. You can safely delete that bookmark.

So far I am leaning towards the Gigabyte X99 Designare EX MB - (was also looking asus X 99 Delux II)

Now there are twoI7 chips - 6830 which has less lanes and 6850 which has 40 lines - supposed to be the max

I am relly not sure I understand "Lanes"  and will it benefit my editrorial workflow? Or can I save money and the lesser 6830

thank you

Asus Z-170 Pro Gaming motherboard working really stably with i7 6700K, using the MB's own dynamic overclocking to 4.6GHz, 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM. Tower cooling fan on CPU, very carefully mounted. Not one moment of trouble, with loads of AMA H.264, XAVS, etc. MC 8.7.2

LDV20:

 

I am relly not sure I understand "Lanes"  and will it benefit my editrorial workflow? Or can I save money and the lesser 6830

 

the lanes are the number of possible pci-express connectiions.

you need them do connect to add on cards like, gpus, raid controllers, thunderbolt devices.

not having enogh lanes available will limit the bandwith with which those cards are tied to the system.

usually i'd say that trying to save money here, limiting expandability of the system, is a bad idea.

I just recently built this combination and it's working very well.  I transcoded some 4k material from a Sony a7s II and was able to run background video and 4 picture in pictures without rendering.

Intel Broadwell i7 6800k
Asus X99A-II with 32GB RAM
6 Seagate 2TB drives in RAID 5 with the on board RAID controller, ATTO Speed test says that I am getting over 700MB/Sec reads on this with over 300 MB/sec write.  Way better than I expected
Samsung 950 Pro M.2 512GB SSD for the OS and programs
Matrox MXO mini max, yes it works even though not officially supported for Win10
Quadro M2000 video card pulled from my old machine
Pioneer BD
Siig card reader
Siig Firewire card so I can talk with my audio mixer and in case some old DVCam needs to be loaded
850 Watt powersupply
Phantecs case

Cost of the entire build including the card I pulled from the old machine would be around $2600.00

Thank you mcabery  -  Your build with asus x99-II is one of my choices - still trying to make up my mind.  FYI I spoke to videoguys and even though they are not involved in DIY edit machines, I was told to look into the

Asus prime Z270 -A -  I picked i7 7700 - to go along with this MB - so I am wondering what the differenee between the Z270 vs the X99 -  even thogh the Z270 is newer with /gen 7 intel - that does not mean it will be better than X99 system?   Or I am wrong and will it be?  That is question I am trying to find the answer to.

thank you

LDV20:

 picked i7 7700 - to go along with this MB - so I am wondering what the differenee between the Z270 vs the X99

 two different architectures. x99 is compatible with socket 2011 processors. this is the current high performace architecture, 40 pie express lanes, 4 channel ram, processors with 10+ cores.

z270 is mainstram architecture. 20 pcie lanes, 4 core cpus max, dual channel ram.

if you don't need more than 4 cores, it's fine. heavy gfx lifitng belongs on socket 2011.

mcabery:

6 Seagate 2TB drives in RAID 5 with the on board RAID controller,

dangerzone. onboard raid 5 will eat your data. I've seen grown men cry.

this is more dangerous than single drives.

you can do raid 1 onboard, other than that you need a 500$ raid card.

Thank you  Lukas Boeck - I like how you expalined the difference.

Here is what is required of my workflow system:

1. AMA editing - avchd - Xdcam - Xdcamex - plus some others
2. Transcoding various file formats to DNxHD - 145,175 and up
3. Screening 4K - maybe a bit of editing (in this instance 4k jobs go out to high end editor)
4. Compressing projects with Sorenson squeeze
   
5. Using some Boris effects as well as avid effects
6. Color Correction - (basic - again heavy duty stuff goes out to eirther post house or editor)

Recently I finished a corporate video with loads of AVCHD and bins,  My past system every so often would sort of slow down - get the spinning wheel.  Never a problem but had to wait a bit.  I atributed that to the CPU

as it was six years old I think I7 950.  Being that some AMA like avchd is cpu intensive I want to make sure that what I build now will be able to handle this as I own   FS700' which I use on some work.

Heavy duty gfx is not my thing now - that gets farmed out. 

So I hope this explains my needs helps direct me to the proper set up.  I will go for X99 and I7- 6850 if need be,

I also need a new video card looking at quadro M2000 - so the less expensive system allows room to buy the video card.

Thank you