Blackmagic Forum

Thanks to Carsten's response (below), this matter, information-wise is RESOLVED and all original questions are now REDUCED to just two, printed here and answered -- as well as Carsten's informative answers to niw-deleted questions -- all are retained in this short thread, to aid other Newbies planning on upgrading or purchasing a host PC for Resolve 14.

Questions: I've a never-used, now-aging home built PC (ASUS P8Z-68-V PRO motherboard-based 3.4GHz Intel i7 2600K proc, 8GB EVGA nVidia GTX 1070Ti graphics card, Windows 10 Pro, 16GB DDR3 workstation (was actually intended as a Hackintosh build but never got around to it).

1) Which PCI x16 slot should I put the short-length Decklink Studio 4K for card in and

2) Which slot should I place the nVidia GTX 1070Ti graphics card in?
The system is intended for Resolve 14.3.

Answer to both: This motherboard's PCIe slots are Generation 2 and not PCIe Gen. 3 and are therefore too slow to realize the potential of the GTX 1070Ti.

Therefore, I should consider investing in a system upgrade involving an Intel motherbiard supporting Thunderbolt 3/ USB-C/PCIe Gen 3 (at least).

Thanks in advance for any solutions and ideas others might recommend especially for upgrading motherboard, CPU and RAM for use with Resolve 4K projects.

Cheers!
Peter

Notebook Host for Resolve Studio v14.3.0.014 | MiniMonitor | DTV 10.9.7: Win8.1 x64 Home, ASUS ROG G751JL, 2.8GHz Intel i7HQ, 24GB, 1TB HDD, 500GB EVO 850 SSD, 2GB GTX965M | Mackie MCU Pro | Softube Console 1 Mkii | Cintour Designs Shuttle Pro 2

Hi.

I will try to answer your four last questens.

4) The 8 core Treadripper System is already below the recommendation in the DaVinci Resolve 15 Configuration Guide. And I don't know what plan BMD have for Resolve version 16. Will it require even faster CPU and GPU's?

5) Thunderbolt was developed by Intel in cooperating with Apple. Chris Walker from Intel wrote a year ago that they plan to Release the Thunderbolt Protocol Specification to the Industry. So you can always hope it will come to motherboards with AMD CPU's.

https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/e ... verywhere/

But so far the only atempt I know of was done by GigaByte with its Designare EX.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11847/gi ... signare-ex

At the bottom of the page you can read:

'Additional News 9/20
After speaking with GIGABYTE, it seems that Thunderbolt 3 support will perhaps still be in limbo:

Thunderbolt 3 certification requires a few things from the CPU side like graphical output which we haven't been able to do.
We expect this will be developed upon through Raven Ridge and possibly get more groundwork down to activate TB3 on the X399 Designare EX.

The header will remain, though TB3 use / full TB3 enablement will be at a later date.'

To be honorst I don't like this answer. I think they try to hide some thing. I don't know what.

But don't expect on that Thunderbolt will come to Threadripper, before you read that the problems is solved. I don't know if they are technically or political.

6) Asus makes good motherboards to. But if you want Thunderbolt, there may be only be one choice. The one with Thunderbolt.

7) AMD Cpu's like fast RAM. Faster Ram will increase the performance. Buy the RAM with a speed, just before the price go crazy.

Hope this can help you.

Regards Carsten.

Carsten Sellberg wrote:Hi.

...The 8 core Treadripper System is already below the recommendation in the DaVinci Resolve 15 Configuration Guide...

...Thunderbolt was developed by Intel in cooperating with Apple. Chris Walker from Intel wrote a year ago that they plan to Release the Thunderbolt Protocol Specification to the Industry. So you can always hope it will come to motherboards with AMD CPU's.

https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/e ... verywhere/

But so far the only atempt I know of was done by GigaByte with its Designare EX.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11847/gi ... signare-ex

At the bottom of the page you can read:

'Additional News 9/20
After speaking with GIGABYTE, it seems that Thunderbolt 3 support will perhaps still be in limbo:
... don't expect on that Thunderbolt will come to Threadripper, before you read that the problems is solved. I don't know if they are technically or political.

6) Asus makes good motherboards to. But if you want Thunderbolt, there may be only be one choice [Intel processor based motherboards].

7) AMD Cpu's like fast RAM. Faster Ram will increase the performance. Buy the RAM with a speed, just before the price go crazy.

Hope this can help you.

Regards Carsten.

+100
Carsten both you, and Peter Chamberlain* are a Godsend. Thank you so much for your valuable insights and ideas.

I believe you saved me from making purchases that were not best bang for buck.
I think I might hold off a bit on upgrading, and if I do, I will likely go with Intelin light of your helpful warnings about AMD's inability to provide full Thunderbolt 3 support on their side of the motherboard equation. Thank you so very much.

*Peter C having posted some weeks ago, the DaVinci Resolve 14 Updated Configuration Guide, thusly:

For those investing in new hardware for v14, or looking to upgrade, there is an update to the Resolve configuration guide on our support web site...

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/suppor ... and-fusion