Balanced components that offer the best performance to value ratio in a video editing workstation designed by Videoguys’ Techs for Avid, Adobe and more
Videoguys’ DIY 11 Video Tutorial and Guide Helps You Build an Affordable Video Editing and Streaming Workstation
Balanced components that offer the best performance to value ratio in a video editing workstation designed by Videoguys’ Techs for Avid, Adobe and more
Videoguys’ new tech guy, Scott Smith, has completed the much anticipated DIY11 build. The goal was to put together a top notch NLE & Streaming machine for around $1,500. Scott did the research and the build is complete and tested. Holy smokes! This machine runs lightning fast, the case is whisper quiet and the NLE performance is superb. You can check out the complete article with tech notes and specific recommendations online at http://www.videoguys.com/blog/category/guides/diy-systems/
The most important thing to keep in mind when building a new computer for video editing is balance. This is true whether you edit with Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere, Grass Valley Edius or Sony Vegas Pro. The performance will only be as good as the weakest link in the chain and, for video editing, that chain has 4 key links – motherboard, CPU, GPU and RAM. If any of these four points are below the other 3, you will bring down the overall NLE performance of the workstation. In addition, if one of the components is significantly higher than the other three you are not only wasting money, you may actually get less performance and the super fast component can create bottlenecks in other areas.
Videoguys DIY11 hits the perfect balance in these four areas with:
- ASUS Z97-PRO motherboard with Thunderbolt II, based on the latest Haswell chipset.
- Intel 4790k i7 CPU safely overclocked to 4.4GHz using the simple overclocking tools in the ASUS Z97-PRO board’s EFI BIOS
- NVIDIA GTX970 series graphics card packed with 4GB of RAM and 1,664 CUDA cores
- 16GB of GSKILL RAM. As a rule of thumb, Videoguys now recommends 3GB of RAM per CPU Core. Since RAM comes in 4, 8 or 16GB sticks that comes to 12GB for a Quad core, 16GB for a Hex core, 24GB for an 8-core, etc.
In addition to these four key links, DIY11 was also configured with:
- 240GB Crucial Solid State boot drive to run the recommended Windows 7 Pro operating system and other applications. Videoguys’ techs recommend hooking up a G-RAID with Thunderbolt for video storage with maximum throughput.
Videoguys.com does not actually sell the DIY systems but challenges their techs to put together a recipe that their customers can follow successfully for great results. For readers who are not inclined to build a machine from scratch their techs recommend the HP Z workstations. Scott, Gary and the other techs that built DIY11 actually work with HP, Adobe & Avid to create Videoguys Tech Select HP Z Workstation configurations which are optimized to deliver the highest possible NLE performance bang for your buck. They are available at Videoguys.com starting at just $2,799.
Read the complete Videoguys DIY 11 Guide at http://www.videoguys.com/blog/category/guides/diy-systems/ and, for a limited time, you can register to receive a special coupon toward your next purchase from Videoguys.com.
Videoguys.com has been serving video editing and production professionals and consumers for over 25 years as a value-added mail-order reseller specializing in customer service and tech support. Resellers, VARs and dealers are welcome, and will be referred to the wholesale division; Broadfield Distributing, Inc. Resellers can easily establish an account by calling 800-634-5178 or at www.broadfield.com and can expect the same level of personalized service and support.