PC Specs for Fusion

Pointers please? I'm looking for recommended specs to build a Windows PC, for use with Fusion on Resolve Lite. I'm doing effects for an indie feature shot on 4k raw, mastering to 2k.

I've been reading the specs on page 36 of Resolve 15 Configuration Guide
https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/ConfigGuides/DaVinci_Resolve_15_Mac_Configuration_Guide.pdf
but I'm coming up against a lot of unfamiliar terms!

Maybe go for one of the workstations on page 37? My budget: £1,900.

Thanks.

Hi John. I'm a Mac guy, but I think the way Resolve and Fusion use hardware on Mac or PC is similar. I've used two macs. One with 16 gigs of memory and a GPU with 2GB of onboard memory. Then a newer macbook with 64 GB of memory with a GPU with 8GB of onboard RAM.

If you're just doing editing and color in Resolve, you can get away comfortably with 16 GB of RAM and a regular GPU with 2GB of memory.

Fusion is a bit hungry, especially when your node structures get more complex and you start using shaders, particles or things like depth of field. If you're just doing a basic composite you can get away with 16GB of memory and a slower GPU. If you're going to get complex, I'd try for at least 32 GB of memory, faster CPU and the fastest GPU with the most RAM you can get for that budget.

I use SSD disks (solid state, not spinning) on both computers, and I think I'd be kinda nervous to use spinning disks. So at the very least try to get the operating system on an SSD drive, or preferably full SSD for the entire disk.

Best of luck!!

Mark.

Thanks so much Mark! Very useful. Cheers John

OS on an SSD is convenient for program and system launch but won't affect Fusion or Resolve's performance. Cache drive should certainly be an SSD, and the faster your media access is the better, but that may be limited by network infrastructure. If your media is going to live on the PC, then an SSD is the way to go for speed, but the tradeoff is less capacity. Best possible speed is probably going to be something like an eSATA RAID 0 backed up to a second RAID 5 or 6 (RAID 0 is very fast, but also dangerous, as a single drive failure in the array destroys all the data. RAID 5 can lose a drive without destroying data, but you'll still want a second, and maybe third, backup solution—online and/or tape.)

On the GPU side, if you have a choice between a faster clock speed and more VRAM, get the VRAM. The bottleneck there is likely going to be transfer in and out of the GPU's memory, not the processing speed of the card.

Same with CPU vs RAM. More and faster memory is usually going to benefit you more than a faster clock. I usually buy the best processor underneath the sudden price jump—you'll usually find that CPU prices increase in $20 - $40 steps to a certain point, then jump in price by a couple hundred dollars.

At your budget, I wouldn't go the dual Xeon route. A good single proc is probably a better value, with more money devoted to RAM and storage solutions. I haven't tried 2x GPUs on Resolve 16, so I don't know how much of a difference that makes. I barely noticed a difference dropping from 2 down to 1 Titan X in Fusion 9, but v16 makes much more use of the GPU than 9 does.

Ditto on avoiding the sudden CPU price jump that Bryan mentioned. That's definitely a thing. We buy rack mountable servers and it's been that way for years. There's definitely a sweet spot.

Thanks a lot Bryan! Super helpful.
J