Building PC vs. off the shelf solution

Hi everyone,

I've been researching and considering building my own PC, mainly for editing and Resolve work. I'm coming from using an ancient Mac Pro 1,1 tower that has gotten me far but has, sadly, begun to run out off steam.

So many options and opinions about building.
A friend pulled together this list of components for a build.
Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor
MSI X99A Raider ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard
G.Skill Aegis 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
4 x 2TB internal SATA drives (for RAID array)
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card

With case, CPU cooler and power supply it comes to about $2700 CDN

I've also been considering one of the Lenovo P Series ThinkStations.

The base model of the P910 is about $2500 CDN. It also comes with a three year warranty, unlike the build-it-yourself PC.

Thoughts?

When it comes to maximizing your performance per dollar, a custom built machine is the only way to go.

This is the machine i just built, it's similar to what your friend specked.
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/bv7Hhq


If you can swing it, I'd recommend you step up to the 5930K (40 PCIe lanes instead of 28), or the 6850K (the 5930K's replacement).

If you are going to use two hard rives in a raid, instead of the ssd for source storage and working files, you can probably step down to the 256GB for the OS and save some money.

No off-the-shelf solution beats a DIY when it comes to performance per $$ ratios.
But you really have to know what you are doing.

You should have a warranty on the components you buy, so that point would be a no brainer.

Most components should come with a manufacturers warranty, usually 2-3 years. Make sure when buying a CPU that you buy the retail version and not the OEM. Intel OEM has 1 year retail should have 3 years.

Another tip would be to only choose components that show up on the mother boards supported/compatible devises list. You can use just about anything 98% of the time, but that other 2% can be a down right nightmare to deal with.

the cool thing about HP is the engineer showing up with in a few hours, and with a truck full of parts, and not leaveing untill the machine is up and running

this should be far more cost effective if your room is billing out at say $500/hr, and have clients with real world deadlines, but less so if your room is billing out @ $25/hr, and you have no clients or hard deadlines

i own nothing but HP, but i do have client attended sessions all week, and they have real world deadlines to meet, and my meeting them is key to keeping long and healthy relationships

but a far cry from running out to the local shop for a part when your two year old machine stops, and the bad part is two years old, and is no longer stocked so you now have to search fleabay and get a used part shipped...

My client base would not put up with this, they could not..

oh and i have two complete and working front line machines, so i can fall back to another working tool if either one gives me any trouble

but for home use, a home built machine is a good fit.. no stress situations, and save cash

as i mentioned on LGG, 32gig ram is suspect, i see Resolve using up to 55gig at times, esp when deleteing unused caches, but even ideling with a complete feature film on the timeline is see 30+ gig used, i have 96 and 128 in my two front line machines

from David Anderson's test is seems a single RX480 would easly exceed a 980Ti at a fraction of the cost

That would depend on what support contract you have with HP. We supply HP systems and even with the 3 year on-site warranty it was unusual if they turned up the same day, it was usually the next day, when they would come out and look at it then have to order parts. Never in the 15 years of selling HP systems have we had HP come out with the parts, they've always had to come look at it then order parts in.

i've have had them show up with parts in hand in under two hours, maybe Vancouver has a tighter service department? There's alot of CGI and VFX houses here that use HP, so maybe they are on top of the game here?

They knew what the issue was suspected to be, in once case it was thought that a proc was overheating on an 8600, they brought out not only a pair of mathcing proc's so they could replace both so they stayed a matching pair, but also a repacement mb, and they changed all three major parts, basicly a new but identical machine that was at that point nearly three years old and that gen of proc's were not avb anymore. i put the service call in early morning, had a repaired machine before close of the working day

Another case i had a the power button fail on a DreamColor, on the very last day of the three year contract, within two hours i had a brand new screen delivered, powered up and checked for linearity, then imedatly replaced with a second screen that was better, he carried two screens in his truck for this call

Well worth the expence of getting the coverage if you need to trust the machine in my books.. getting a replacement proc for the overheating one in the 2.5 year old 8600 would have been challengeing at best, geting a matching pair plus a new mb in two hours? Just not possiable without an HP service contract, and and every bit as impossiable with a homemade machine that's 2.5 years old

prolly does not hurt that my suit is downtown in a upscale, super touristy area that folks like to visit with great shops and a market on offer to grab some cool things before heading home, as a palce to go to a service cal in Vancouver, Granville Island is one of the better one's

I subscribe to this discussion. I go on holiday but would face a few weeks to renew my PC. I keep myself informed. Thank you in advance.

i've have had them show up with parts in hand in under two hours, maybe Vancouver has a tighter service department?

Your location is probably why, you are in what is sometimes called "Hollywood North"!

When it comes to maximizing your performance per dollar, a custom built machine is the only way to go.

This is the machine i just built, it's similar to what your friend specked.
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/bv7Hhq


If you can swing it, I'd recommend you step up to the 5930K (40 PCIe lanes instead of 28), or the 6850K (the 5930K's replacement).

If you are going to use two hard rives in a raid, instead of the ssd for source storage and working files, you can probably step down to the 256GB for the OS and save some money.

Thanks for the machine build list. I'm going to be building a new computer soon for use with 4k and Resolve.

Incidentally, I upgraded my GPU recently. Would anyone here be interested in a Quadro K4000 GPU? Let me know.