Any advices when it comes to upgrading an AMD PC for easy rendering? NO GAMING!

[winterwonderland]

I recently made this thread when I was wondering on what I should do with my 2 PC's, where 1 is an AMD PC, which was also my backup PC. As suggested, I ended up selling the AMD PC that has these components:

Mobo: ASUS TUF B650 Gaming PLUS WiFi
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
RAM: Kingston Fury Beast 16GB DDR5
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB
Storage: WD Blue SN570 NVMe 1TB
PSU: Cooler Master 650w GOLD
Cooler: CM ML240
Case: Phanteks XT Pro

I sold that AMD PC to a good friend of mine who needed an upgrade from his useless 2010 PC that stuttered like mad when he wanted to view 4K content. He does a lot of off-road with his ATV etc., so he records a lot with his GoPro on 4k, so he will be rendering those recordings with that PC. He is no tech savvy soul, so he just wants an easy, non-expensive PC that is capable of some easy rendering, hence why I sold it to him for a cheap price. So: Although the PC is fine as it is now, what upgrades can my friend do to this PC in order to improve the overall performance when doing some easy rendering? Remember that he's not using the PC strictly for rendering only, but also for casual PC use (browsing, office stuff etc.) NO GAMING, though! Yes, yes, he can probably sell the PC and get a new one, but WITHOUT doing that, what alternatives does he have for some simple upgrades that'd actually boost the overall performance a little? Would getting more RAM help, since it's only 16GB?

 

[Cowlord]

man i want ya

 

[Chomiq]

I recently made this thread when I was wondering on what I should do with my 2 PC's, where 1 is an AMD PC, which was also my backup PC. As suggested, I ended up selling the AMD PC that has these components:


I sold that AMD PC to a good friend of mine who needed an upgrade from his useless 2010 PC that stuttered like mad when he wanted to view 4K content. He does a lot of off-road with his ATV etc., so he records a lot with his GoPro on 4k, so he will be rendering those recordings with that PC. He is no tech savvy soul, so he just wants an easy, non-expensive PC that is capable of some easy rendering, hence why I sold it to him for a cheap price. So: Although the PC is fine as it is now, what upgrades can my friend do to this PC in order to improve the overall performance when doing some easy rendering? Remember that he's not using the PC strictly for rendering only, but also for casual PC use (browsing, office stuff etc.) NO GAMING, though! Yes, yes, he can probably sell the PC and get a new one, but WITHOUT doing that, what alternatives does he have for some simple upgrades that'd actually boost the overall performance a little? Would getting more RAM help, since it's only 16GB?

7950X, 7900X or equivalent 9000 series 12 or 16 core CPUs would help. Possibly faster NVMe SSD.

 

[Onasi]

More RAM is always good. Hypothetically, for video rendering grabbing a cheap, say, R9 7900 is also a decent idea.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

the simplest upgrade, and fastest, is to install max memory for that motherboard. Also a video card with more Vram.

 

[Macro Device]

AFAIK video rendering loves GPU speed and IF your mate ain't doing anything 3D related (such as Blender) then they might buy a 7900 XT or something similar (or an NVIDIA card if your market is like ours, meaning AMD GPUs are more expensive than NV ones for some reason).

Agree with "more RAM is always good," and you don't need fast RAM. Just get as much RAM as they can get with their budget. JEDEC sticks are fine. Some of them are decent overclockers if that's ever needed.

Upgrading the CPU is also a good idea if the price is sweet.

 

[Chrispy_]

Depends on what is doing the rendering. Are you rendering on the GPU or CPU? Some renderers use one, either, or both (hybrid). The same is true for encoding. Hardware encoding/transcoding is faster but the end result using Nvidia's NVENC is worse quality - ie, for any given quality it will have a higher bitrate, or for any given bitrate it will have an inferior image quality. For that reason alone, all but the smallest encodes use software - either x265 or x265.

The issue with GPU rendering is that VRAM limitations mean you're spending huge amounts of money on a GPU that can render a scene that only needs 25GB of memory, and scenes that use 50-100GB are simply impossible to render.

Our graphics team are using 4060Ti/5060Ti with 16GB VRAM for the short and sweet GPU jobs, but most of the stuff they render locally is running on CPU so they're on 7950X and 9950X with 128GB VRAM. VRAM is useful up to a point, but AM5 and DDR5 don't really play nicely when using more than 2 sticks so the most cost-effective option is probably a 2x32GB kit of DDR5-6000. If you throw four sticks in there to get a cheap(ish) 128GB, expect to drop speeds down to 4800MT/s or even 3600MT/s which really hurts performance.

64GB is still fine for most of our rendering jobs, though some of the 64GB nodes in the renderfarm are starting to fail more often due to a lack of RAM. It all depends on your workload and scene complexity really.

 

[Chomiq]

Depends on what is doing the rendering. Are you rendering on the GPU or CPU? Some renderers use one, either, or both (hybrid). The same is true for encoding. Hardware encoding/transcoding is faster but the end result using Nvidia's NVENC is worse quality - ie, for any given quality it will have a higher bitrate, or for any given bitrate it will have an inferior image quality. For that reason alone, all but the smallest encodes use software - either x265 or x265.

The issue with GPU rendering is that VRAM limitations mean you're spending huge amounts of money on a GPU that can render a scene that only needs 25GB of memory, and scenes that use 50-100GB are simply impossible to render.

Our graphics team are using 4060Ti/5060Ti with 16GB VRAM for the short and sweet GPU jobs, but most of the stuff they render locally is running on CPU so they're on 7950X and 9950X with 128GB VRAM. VRAM is useful up to a point, but AM5 and DDR5 don't really play nicely when using more than 2 sticks so the most cost-effective option is probably a 2x32GB kit of DDR5-6000. If you throw four sticks in there to get a cheap(ish) 128GB, expect to drop speeds down to 4800MT/s or even 3600MT/s which really hurts performance.

64GB is still fine for most of our rendering jobs, though some of the 64GB nodes in the renderfarm are starting to fail more often due to a lack of RAM. It all depends on your workload and scene complexity really.

When OP mentioned rendering, I believe they meant video rendering, not 3D rendering.

 

[Chrispy_]

When OP mentioned rendering, I believe they meant video rendering, not 3D rendering.

So encoding?

I covered both rendering and encode/transcode in my reply since I'm well aware that people who encode call it rendering, despite me correcting them at work for two decades, and despite the software they've used professionally every day for a decade calling it an "encode" using an "encoder" and working with "codecs".

Actual video "rendering" is just video playback. A potato Intel Atom from a decade ago can do it with fixed function hardware, there's no need to buy a new PC to do that, unless you're focusing on the latest AV1 codec, which needs a GPU from the last 5-6 years or so that includes a hardware AV1 decoder.

 

[winterwonderland]

the simplest upgrade, and fastest, is to install max memory for that motherboard. Also a video card with more Vram.

Yes, that was my initial thought that he should start there to begin with, as that is not overly expensive. Any good RAM suggestions? I'd say 64GB should be more than fine for him. If you use partpicker, "proshop" is the most reliable shop here in Norway.

Depends on what is doing the rendering. Are you rendering on the GPU or CPU? Some renderers use one, either, or both (hybrid). The same is true for encoding. Hardware encoding/transcoding is faster but the end result using Nvidia's NVENC is worse quality - ie, for any given quality it will have a higher bitrate, or for any given bitrate it will have an inferior image quality. For that reason alone, all but the smallest encodes use software - either x265 or x265.

The issue with GPU rendering is that VRAM limitations mean you're spending huge amounts of money on a GPU that can render a scene that only needs 25GB of memory, and scenes that use 50-100GB are simply impossible to render.

Our graphics team are using 4060Ti/5060Ti with 16GB VRAM for the short and sweet GPU jobs, but most of the stuff they render locally is running on CPU so they're on 7950X and 9950X with 128GB VRAM. VRAM is useful up to a point, but AM5 and DDR5 don't really play nicely when using more than 2 sticks so the most cost-effective option is probably a 2x32GB kit of DDR5-6000. If you throw four sticks in there to get a cheap(ish) 128GB, expect to drop speeds down to 4800MT/s or even 3600MT/s which really hurts performance.

64GB is still fine for most of our rendering jobs, though some of the 64GB nodes in the renderfarm are starting to fail more often due to a lack of RAM. It all depends on your workload and scene complexity really.

When OP mentioned rendering, I believe they meant video rendering, not 3D rendering.

That sounded WAAAY too professional and "industrial" compared to what he will be doing. It's not like he is running a graphics company or anything such. He's just doing some simple 4k rendering and editing of his recordings, no mumbo jumbo heavy editing and such.

 

[Onasi]

That sounded WAAAY too professional and "industrial" compared to what he will be doing. It's not like he is running a graphics company or anything such. He's just doing some simple 4k rendering and editing of his recordings, no mumbo jumbo heavy editing and such.

As Chrispy mentioned, that’s encoding. And, since he is also editing a bit, timeline performance will also be useful. So yeah, more RAM (honestly any will do, I agree that JEDEC speeds are fine for this) and potentially a CPU with more cores for better timeline and quicker encoding times (I assume he would use software encoding).
So, basically:
- 64 gigs of cheap JEDEC RAM
- a 7900 if one can find it on a deep discount
- alternatively, if he wants quick and dirty using HW encode - any recent budget NV GPU to take advantage of NVENC

 

[winterwonderland]

As Chrispy mentioned, that’s encoding. And, since he is also editing a bit, timeline performance will also be useful. So yeah, more RAM (honestly any will do, I agree that JEDEC speeds are fine for this) and potentially a CPU with more cores for better timeline and quicker encoding times (I assume he would use software encoding).
So, basically:
- 64 gigs of cheap JEDEC RAM
- a 7900 if one can find it on a deep discount
- alternatively, if he wants quick and dirty using HW encode - any recent budget NV GPU to take advantage of NVENC

Ok, gotcha. Thanks.

What is JEDEC RAM? Is that something else than this or? https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3j...-32-gb-ddr5-6000-cl30-memory-kf560c30bbek2-64

Yes, I know that he could go for 6400, but that is a massive price jump, so 6000 would do for now for RAM.

I will probably start with the RAM to begin with, then see if a new CPU is needed or not.

 

[Macro Device]

What is JEDEC RAM?

RAM that runs at stock standard clocks such as 4800 MT/s for DDR5, also including very laxed timings that allow for stable operation in ANY environment. These are the cheapest and the most reliable options out here.

Your buddy doesn't need 6 GT/s, it's a massive overkill. Woulda been a different story if he was a gamer or something but for the tasks mentioned, 4800 MT/s CL40 RAM is as good as 6000 MT/s CL30 RAM. Maybe slightly worse but this will be effectively wasted money if you go that route.

 

[dgianstefani]

9700/X + a 2x16 or 2x32 GB memory kit, if 2x32 get a 5600 MT kit.

Sell the 7600X and the 1x16 kit in there, kits should be matched.

As others have said more storage is probably a good idea.

It's Prime Day so 9950X also an option.

The AMD GPU is essentially irrelevant for video editing, barely any software supports it and if it does, it's slow/buggy. I would honestly sell it to fund CPU upgrade and use iGPU for display, since it's 2D outputs. Exclusive CPU rendering is higher quality anyway, or replace the GPU with a 5060 Ti 16 GB, which is enough VRAM for most consumer level projects.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yes, that was my initial thought that he should start there to begin with, as that is not overly expensive. Any good RAM suggestions? I'd say 64GB should be more than fine for him. If you use partpicker, "proshop" is the most reliable shop here in Norway.




That sounded WAAAY too professional and "industrial" compared to what he will be doing. It's not like he is running a graphics company or anything such. He's just doing some simple 4k rendering and editing of his recordings, no mumbo jumbo heavy editing and such.

An affordable 12-core CPU like a 7900X on clearance sale, or even the 9900X are being discounted quite a lot now. Definitely worth it for halving the time it takes to do the final encode in Premiere/Vegas etc. Compared to a 7600X, 10 minutes of waiting becomes 5 mins, 2 hours becomes 1 hour etc.

64GB RAM is likely plenty, 32GB in a pinch if he's on a budget and only dealing with 4K resolution at most. He'll know if he's being hampered by 16GB because jobs will just fail outright, or they'll get partway through the final encode and then the estimated time remaining will go from minutes to hours. It might finish, it might not...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Any 40 or 50-series Nvidia GPU in budget if he's going to be rushing video encodes through using NVENC rather than software encoding to x264/x265. For working with AV1 codecs, I think a GPU with a hardware AV1 encoder is pretty much mandatory. AMD's Integrated graphics on the CPU are likely fine if he's not interested in using NVENC hardware encoding.

The best upgrade for video editing (scrubbing, clipping, previewing) rather than encoding is big fat nVME SSD. 2TB, 4TB, whatever he can afford. Ideally Gen4 with TLC NAND that can sustain decent write speeds over a large amount of writing. QLC drives are okay as long as you're only working with short clips that fit within the SLC cache of the drive, but for basically the same price a good quality TLC drive like the WD SN7100 will be far better for video editing work.

 

[Steevo]

9700/X + a 2x16 or 2x32 GB memory kit, if 2x32 get a 5600 MT kit.

Sell the 7600X and the 1x16 kit in there, kits should be matched.

As others have said more storage is probably a good idea.

It's Prime Day so 9950X also an option.

The AMD GPU is essentially irrelevant for video editing, barely any software supports it and if it does, it's slow/buggy. I would honestly sell it to fund CPU upgrade and use iGPU for display, since it's 2D outputs. Exclusive CPU rendering is higher quality anyway, or replace the GPU with a 5060 Ti 16 GB, which is enough VRAM for most consumer level projects.

I'm an AMD guy and can confirm, however I will say Handbrake with new AMD GPU's will do upscaling as well or almost as well as some of the "AI" software but does require experimenting with settings.


I took a 1080/24 video and managed to scale it increasing sharpness, frame rate increase using vector, and color correction without noticeable artifacting to 4K/60 and it did it at essentially real time processing speed, so input 24FPS output 60FPS from the video file using my GPU and CPU.

 

[eyenix]

9700/X + a 2x16 or 2x32 GB memory kit, if 2x32 get a 5600 MT kit.

Sell the 7600X and the 1x16 kit in there, kits should be matched.

As others have said more storage is probably a good idea.

It's Prime Day so 9950X also an option.

The AMD GPU is essentially irrelevant for video editing, barely any software supports it and if it does, it's slow/buggy. I would honestly sell it to fund CPU upgrade and use iGPU for display, since it's 2D outputs. Exclusive CPU rendering is higher quality anyway, or replace the GPU with a 5060 Ti 16 GB, which is enough VRAM for most consumer level projects.

Where did you read that AMD GPUs are not good for video editing? I use them every day in DaVinci Resolve with effects and color grading. I rendered this video in 4K AV1 in less than 10 seconds

https://imgur.com/a/vJR7trW

My GPU is a awesome for video editing, local AI and gaming, it's a really powerful card and I think I couldn't be happier as an AMD customer.

Edit: Laugh all you want, it's often the behavior of the ignorant. I also appreciate NVIDIA hardware because I'm a PC enthusiast. While you talk badly about AMD hardware because you're an NVIDIA fan. That's the difference.
I've kept both NVIDIA and AMD and I assure you that AMD is doing an exceptional job, with fantastic performance. Let's not say things that are not true

 

[winterwonderland]

9700/X + a 2x16 or 2x32 GB memory kit, if 2x32 get a 5600 MT kit.

Sell the 7600X and the 1x16 kit in there, kits should be matched.

As others have said more storage is probably a good idea.

It's Prime Day so 9950X also an option.

The AMD GPU is essentially irrelevant for video editing, barely any software supports it and if it does, it's slow/buggy. I would honestly sell it to fund CPU upgrade and use iGPU for display, since it's 2D outputs. Exclusive CPU rendering is higher quality anyway, or replace the GPU with a 5060 Ti 16 GB, which is enough VRAM for most consumer level projects.

Would a 2x32 GB like this be what you meant, or: https://www.proshop.no/RAM/Kingston...hannel-2-pcs-AMD-EXPO-Intel-XMP-Svart/3136894

Thanks for the suggestion.

Prime Day means nothing here in Norway.

 

[dgianstefani]

Would a 2x32 GB like this be what you meant, or: https://www.proshop.no/RAM/Kingston...hannel-2-pcs-AMD-EXPO-Intel-XMP-Svart/3136894

Thanks for the suggestion.

Prime Day means nothing here in Norway.

That's fine

 

[Dr. Dro]

Where did you read that AMD GPUs are not good for video editing? I use them every day in DaVinci Resolve with effects and color grading. I rendered this video in 4K AV1 in less than 10 seconds

https://imgur.com/a/vJR7trW

My GPU is a awesome for video editing, local AI and gaming, it's a really powerful card and I think I couldn't be happier as an AMD customer.

Edit: Laugh all you want, it's often the behavior of the ignorant. I also appreciate NVIDIA hardware because I'm a PC enthusiast. While you talk badly about AMD hardware because you're an NVIDIA fan. That's the difference.
I've kept both NVIDIA and AMD and I assure you that AMD is doing an exceptional job, with fantastic performance. Let's not say things that are not true

Haha AMD ROCm pfp dude calling others Nvidia fans You're overdefensive because you're... very well aware that while your card can do these things, it's not as rosy as you're painting it.

DaVinci Resolve, at least for its basic functionality, runs OK on AMD. I'll give you that much. Mostly thanks to Apple adopting AMD as their GPU vendor for some previous generation Macs, something that the Windows version benefits from to this day (though don't expect that to hold in the future, Apple has finally phased out Intel Macs, Tahoe is the last version of macOS that supports x86 and is supported only on 3 Mac models, so interest in developing for AMD GPUs takes a dire hit here). But once you're out of that environment, it's pretty much a no man's land. Any plugin or software that requires CUDA and you're toast. 7900 XTX lacks the much improved encoder of 9070 XT (which finally more or less brings it up to par with Ada's NVENC), and 9070 XT lacks pretty much everything else. Plus a similarly performing RTX 3090 should be cheaper. So there's that to weigh around.

idk how serious of video editing work OP is going to do, but the advice to place emphasis on CPU performance is valid as far as I'm concerned. NVIDIA GPU heavily preferred, and sometimes, necessary, on compatibility merits. Studio drivers are also a boon that AMD does not provide. If doing exclusively CPU accelerated work, a low end professional GPU (such as a cheap RTX A2000) would be a better choice, as they support all types of color spaces (such as 30-bit color SDR) that gaming cards from both brands can't provide. Error correcting memory may also be of interest.

 

[anonuser57]

Take back your AMD PC and and give your friend the Intel PC with the NVidia GPU from the previous thread. Other than that the only cheap upgrades available to you are more RAM and more storage.

 

[eyenix]

Haha AMD ROCm pfp dude calling others Nvidia fans You're overdefensive because you're... very well aware that while your card can do these things, it's not as rosy as you're painting it.

DaVinci Resolve, at least for its basic functionality, runs OK on AMD. I'll give you that much. Mostly thanks to Apple adopting AMD as their GPU vendor for some previous generation Macs, something that the Windows version benefits from to this day (though don't expect that to hold in the future, Apple has finally phased out Intel Macs, Tahoe is the last version of macOS that supports x86 and is supported only on 3 Mac models, so interest in developing for AMD GPUs takes a dire hit here). But once you're out of that environment, it's pretty much a no man's land. Any plugin or software that requires CUDA and you're toast. 7900 XTX lacks the much improved encoder of 9070 XT (which finally more or less brings it up to par with Ada's NVENC), and 9070 XT lacks pretty much everything else. Plus a similarly performing RTX 3090 should be cheaper. So there's that to weigh around.

idk how serious of video editing work OP is going to do, but the advice to place emphasis on CPU performance is valid as far as I'm concerned. NVIDIA GPU heavily preferred, and sometimes, necessary, on compatibility merits. Studio drivers are also a boon that AMD does not provide. If doing exclusively CPU accelerated work, a low end professional GPU (such as a cheap RTX A2000) would be a better choice, as they support all types of color spaces (such as 30-bit color SDR) that gaming cards from both brands can't provide. Error correcting memory may also be of interest.

Defensive about what? I have had both nVidia and AMD and I have no problem telling things as they are. Nobody pays me to speak or defend, I only say what I see and do and I can assure you that AMD does not envy anyone for video productivity. Both in Resolve and in Premiere.
I wonder why you think this and yet I would be able to demonstrate it to you in real time if you want. I can show you a 4K 10Bit h265 or AV1 rendering without any problem.

Does the fact that I have an AMD image in my profile mean a lot to you? Does it make what I say less relevant? Yet I demonstrated by posting a video that what I say is true.
Someone here denies the evidence of the video. This is bad and is often the behavior of a fanboy.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Any good RAM suggestions?

check the motherboard CVL list. must say EXPO not (just) XMP