Monkeh: Thank you very much again. I'll be checking out the E5-2667 v4, while also looking into a 10-core as slicendice was suggesting. I understand where I was confused about what you said earlier, though.
Alright then, those processors are completely out of my mind then, and off the table, thank you for clarifying.
I even checked a compatibility list, I must have missed something. Thank you again, I appreciate it.
Howardlong: Thank you so very much for that detailed and well thought out reply. You obviously put time into your posts.
If you are using them as workstations in a rack, be aware that they're really noisy beasts. In addition, if you're running video from them you'll be lucky to get a 5m run to work at 4k 60Hz: I've achieved this by converting from DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 at the card and running Amazon Basics 5m HDMI cables to the HDMI 2.0 monitors. There doesn't seem to be much of a market for long DP cables.
Thank you for your input on this. Finding a decent way to display in 4K or decent 1080p for that matter, has been a complicated situation trying to use longer cords for my set up. Noise is definitely not a problem though. The room where this will all be operated has a huge AC that will be running the most of the time which will drown out the loudest of fans. I'm also thinking of by large box fans and hooking them up directly into my custom built rack for cooling, so they'll be producing noise anyway.
I am aware that many software products don't scale over many cores, but I would add that if you do much effects processing, many of these don't even touch the GPU. I would also add that it's unlikely you're going to leave your multicore beast sitting there just doing a render, you can of course continue to use it for plenty of other things with all that grunt. However thing I would say that if you use h.265/HEVC rendering, Skylake and Broadwell-E support 8 bit natively but you will need Kaby Lake for 10 bit HDR. This is where a modern GPU like the NVidia 1000 series will help, as they do support 10 bit HEVC assuming your software takes advantage of it.
Good to know with the cores, I was quite hoping they would allow me to do more than just sit there waiting for a render to finish.
Would this EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 GPU be sufficient? Based on the kind of model you listed? Or could I do better than that?
slicendice: Thank you very much again. You've been rather helpful this whole time, and your posts very clear and detailed. Thank you for taking the time out to write this all out for me, I appreciate it a lot.
If on Adobe software only, then 10 CPU cores is enough, 32-64GB of RAM is enough, and some mid range Gaming GPU will help in most cases at least a bit.
ECC memory is always a good thing when producing video and audio at professional level.
If any advanced 3D rendering software will be used or any CAD software will be used where 3D realtime view is a must then a Radeon FirePro or nVidia Quadro GPU is a must. They ensure compatibility, has a lot more GRAM, generally are faster on such software than Gaming GPUs due to optimized drivers, and most high end Pro grade GPUs has ECC memory, which I already stated to be quite important. Price could be an issue though.
The motherboard should have a 3-5year warranty. Meaning the components used (especially caps and voltage regulators) are top grade. Many Asus MBs have this and I highly recommend Asus MBs from the professional line. Does not cost that much either, except for the Best of the best MBs with almost all features a MB can have.
If producing music with a software that supports hardware accelerated audio processing, then getting a compatible soundcard/HWencoder/HWdecoder that supports on the fly post processing effects is better than having tons of CPU cores. The cards are way faster and the CPU pretty much sleep while listening to multitrack audio in realtime with a lot of effects and filters applied. Rendering all the effects on CPU only, very quickly ends up in distorted sound or other artifacts.
Everything you said in that last post was very helpful for breaking down exactly what I might be looking at here. I'll be getting to more on that in a moment, but figuring out the performance difference between CPU/GPU/Sound card is invaluable for this machine to be built properly.
Either way we are way off topic now.
No need to worry about that, it was actually informative for me, and quite good for my note taking, so not too off-topic.
After detailed defining what the computer will be used for and what exact software will be used on that device, than it will be much easier to determine what hardware will be required.
I probably should've done that a lot sooner, shouldn't I have?
I
believe I've compiled a complete list here. If I notice something missing, I'll add it on to this list.
Everything is pretty much evened out as far as priority goes, so balancing this out is a good idea, but I'd rather push the envelope farther, rather than compromise between pieces. This is meant to be a long term computer investment that will be used day in and day out for professional grade production, so I'm comfortable with spending in the range of $5000-$7000 if it is absolutely necessary, but lets definitely try and figure out the best choices overall. I don't want to under or over spend for absolutely no reason.
In the Adobe department, I'll be heavily reliant on...
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 (4K/2K editing, very complicated projects, with a lot of effects, etc.)
Adobe After Effects CS6 (I create a lot of logos, such as YouTube intros for clients with a lot of effects and things piling up in a project)
Adobe Flash Pro CS6 (Animation projects, a lot of card board animation, but as well it's used as a stand in for my other program RETAS, which is a Japanese frame by frame program meant for anime projects, when I'm doing more Japanese style animations, which get complicated as far as a lot of high quality images at 24 fps.)
Adobe Illustrator CS6 (Used regularly in conjunction with After Effects/Flash/RETAS, as most of the pre lay work is done in here.)
Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Besides the usual photo editing done in this program, it fills in for whatever illustrator may lack in, so it's used less than Illustrator, but still often.)
Adobe InDesign CS6 (Laying out book designs quite often, the usual things you do with these programs.)
Adobe Dream Weaver CS6 (I do actually build websites quite frequently, but I don't host a lot of them from my own computer, but I will likely have at least one likely massive website running from here.)
Very expensive programs... That's mostly in order of who will be used most often.
In the music production department...
Reaper 5 is my primary DAW where I do basically all of my music editing.
Omnisphere 2 is one of my most frequently used synthesizers, and it utilizes 16 channels (generally 8 ) and is one of the biggest issues as far as music production I'm having with slow play back, especially in real time.
I'm also using Komplete's Kontakt 5, and other high end instrument VSTs.
There is a good amount of effects processing done throughout here.
On my current system, it simply isn't possible to run even two of any of these programs together, and one of them alone takes up the entire CPU. Basically, I have all of the programs, and nothing to run them on. At first, I was figuring I could make due while I wait to save enough money, but the money put into the programs is a waste if I don't have a powerful computer to run them.
I believe I've covered everything, if something else comes the mind, beside internet browsing, which does need to be very high speed, but that is left to my router/modem combo, I'll add it to this post, or in my next post if it's not something too important.
Thank you again to everyone, you've been really helpful. I've been jumping between researching, a job, all of these projects, and reading up on your posts and computers in general, while doing my usual around the house routines, so your help with all of this is extremely helpful and time saving, so its a real life saver everyone! ;- )
EDIT: I forgot blender, and yes real time 3D modeling capability is definitely a must. As far as the NVidia Quadros, I'm seeing prices from $800-$4000.