I'm in the process of putting together a high-end video editing workstation geared towards Premiere Pro and After Effects. In the past, I worked as a 3D generalist using Cinema 4D, and I'm considering diving into ComfyUI as well. My main priorities for this build are stability, smooth timeline playback, and dependable editing of H.264 and H.265 10-bit footage, primarily from a Sony A7S III. This setup isn't for gaming.
I work from a Synology NAS connected via 10GbE, so I chose a motherboard with dual 10Gb Ethernet ports. I'm also planning to incorporate several existing M.2 SSDs for local storage and moving 4 HDDs from my current build.
I live in the Middle East, where hardware costs tend to be higher than in the US or EU.
Here are the specs I'm considering, without VAT (business pricing):
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (approximately $590)
- GPU: RTX 5080 16GB (PNY OC) (around $1,240)
- Cooler: be quiet! Silent Loop 3 (360mm) (about $180)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte Z890 AERO D (TB5, 10Gb LAN) (around $685)
- RAM: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 128GB (2x64GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 (around $1,295)
- SSD: Crucial P510 2TB PCIe Gen5 (about $265)
- PSU: Corsair HX1200i (1200W, Platinum) (around $300)
- Case: be quiet! Dark Base 901 (about $340)
Total estimate:
- Around $5,100 USD (not including VAT, actual business cost),
- Around $6,300 USD including VAT.
As for my current build, I'm using an Intel i9-9960X with 128GB of DDR4 RAM and an RTX 2080 Ti. Recently, I've been facing issues with the 2080 Ti being unstable, especially when working with Adobe Dynamic Link; it's become nearly impossible to run both Premiere Pro and After Effects simultaneously without crashes, which is really impacting my workflow and productivity.
2 Answers
Your build looks really well thought out! I see why you’re considering keeping your RAM with only 2 sticks; DDR5 tends to get finicky when there are more than two in use. If you're aiming for 256GB in the future, sticking to 2 might prevent potential issues for now and make it easier to upgrade later without bottlenecks. Just a thought!
Overall, this build seems solid! Just keep an eye on upcoming Intel Nova Lake chips coming next year. It might make sense to consider an enterprise-level NVMe SSD (like U.2 form factor). They can handle sustained reads/writes better, compared to consumer SSDs like the P510. It could come at a steeper price, but it’s worth considering for a high-end system like yours. Just be cautious about how much you use; you can get away with using about 25% to keep it efficient.
Yeah, I’ve heard about the 290k release next month. It does make me second guess buying now if it means switching to a new motherboard next year! But I'm hoping this setup will still give me a solid performance for my current tasks.