If you missed why I decided to build a computer you can check it out here
So It’s been a few weeks since I built my computer and I’ve had a chance to put it through some benchmarks, tests of my own and just general use. Before we get into that I want to quickly recap the actual build process. I also recorded it and you can watch to see how it all went down.
The build was super fun, it took an entire day including getting windows onto the computer. If you are migrating from mac to windows like I was you cannot use your mac to set up a bootable USB; you need access to a windows computer. The actual build itself isn’t so hard as just you have to be careful and there is a lot to do. Essentially every piece of hardware only fits one way and with a snap or click you can tell if it’s in. With that said I did mess up some stuff up. I put my fan in upside down, really dumb on my part, the top poked out over the ram slots. I also struggled screwing the fan in I tried to get each screw to catch a little and then I was hoping to slowly screw it in. A better method is to do a “star” so top right, bottom left, top left, bottom right. You’ll also notice that I tested my setup before in installing in the case; this isn’t necessary. It makes recording a video easier but I also just didn’t fully trust myself and didn’t want to have the entire thing inside the case and then have to trouble shoot something. If you do test like I did, it’s probably smarter to remove the GPU when installing the motherboard into the case unlike what I did.
Now that I had my computer built I ran into the real difference between mac and windows; it took me over a week to fully have my computer set up. You must go into the bios (operating system built into the motherboard) and turn on specific settings that will allow higher speeds of ram to be utilized. If you want overclock your computer it requires other programs to be downloaded.
The only way I found any of this out was by running a benchmark and looking at what it listed for my specs. As annoying as this is, it is what I signed up for.
I can confidently say that my machine is running at the top end of it’s output, I’m just over 100 points lower than Puget systems gets with their test rig and my GPU. That rig is over 20 cores higher, and nearly 100gb more of ram! I think the price to get there isn’t worth it given the scores I get. If you look at the breakdown of the scores every single test at 4k resolution has a fps over 24 and that’s exactly what I set out to get.
Editing with it is super enjoyable, I am able to have edit sessions for longer amounts of time. I can really get momentum while I edit now, multiple times I’ve look over to my phone and realized It’s been close to four hours straight of work. It feels good too! Stabilizing doesn’t lose me 3+ minutes now, It’s not even enough time to reach for my phone. I edited my computer build video on this and it took about two days worth of time all said and done, faster than I was expecting.
I’ve also done editing for my thesis film shot in braw and the timeline for my hook into title graphic has multiple LUTs, a stabilization node and even noise reduction on some clips and it’s smooth sailing. Overall it’s been a positive switch thus far to windows; the big test now is longevity, will this system be a viable long-term solution?
yes to the St.Pauli top mate!