4K footage giving me issues, upgrade to Nvidia 1060/1070?

[dyingbirdproductions]

I have an older video card, a 1.2GB Nvidia GTX 570. I also have a sandy bridge 2600k with 16gb of RAM. I know my computer is getting old at this point and that I could stand to upgrade all of it, but I cannot afford that right now. I've been noticing issues, particularly with 4K footage. Sometimes the source window will go black and I'll have to reboot. Sometimes rendering is horrifically slow, other times not. Seems like it's booting me into software rendering. Other times it outright crashes. 

It's always with 4K footage, never 1080p, so I feel like it's an issue with my video card not being capable, like perhaps the memory is insufficent for 4K If I upgraded to a GTX1060 or 1070, would that least alleviate my crashing problems? I know the card is going to be bottlenecked by the rest of my computer, but right now I'd be happy to just it not crash and run consistently (albeit slow) with 4K stuff.

Does that seem sensible? Black friday sales are approaching, so I think I can at least get the 1060 for cheap.

[JFPhoton]

The GPU is only ONE part of your system, and it takes a balanced system to perform well. You have provided not enough details on the rest of your system to pinpoint the cause of your problem...however, in general, 4K needs at least 4GB of DDR5 video memory on the GPU to handle the larger " frame buffering".

So, purchasing a 1060 with 6GB of video memory SHOULD provide a healthy boost in performance with 4K. That's assuming that the REST of your system is OK.. You should make sure :

1. That your "K" version CPU is being overclocked to significantly boost performance. Your CPU is regularly overclocked on air by users to 5Ghz and higher. With the overclock, your CPU will perform close to today's 6700K . You also can use a free utility program like MSI Afterburner to overclock your new 1060 by increasing the " memory clock" only to gain performance.

2. Your system memory needs to be at least 32GB as current versions of PPro utilize more system memory, especially with 4K, If you have 16 GB , it may be borderline and definitely not as good as having at least 32GB.

3. The speed of your storage drives is critical to good editing performance. This area is the most common source of bottlenecks and stuttering reported by users. Also, it helps to make sure that your power supply is plenty adequate, that no components are overheating, and that all windows power settings are for maximum performance, ( so that you are not inadvertently choking your system ).

A.  A quality SSD should be your boot drive. Cheap SATA !!! SSDS that have TLC memory , like the Samsung Evo, have issues with slow write speeds that can affect overall performance. It is BEST to have a quality Samsung 850 Pro MLC memory SSD as your boot drive because its read and write speeds are over 550MB/sec. If that is too expensive, the Crucial MX300 series is quality MLC for cheaper. In either case, a minimum of 256GB SSD is required....the smaller 128GB drives have less write performance.

B. You should have at least a second quality SSD for your " project drive" which will serve up your video files at a decent speed while editing....this is CRUCIAL. A single , spinning hard drive,or, slow external drive cannot keep up with the demand caused by 4K or mulitple tracks of 1080p OR 4K.. Two SSDs in a motherboard RAID 0 will double the speed and capacity of your storage volume for less money than the new ,large samsung 960Pro NVMe PCI SSD which is BLAZING FAST and will maybe become a "one drive solution" where just EVERYTHING goes on it.

C. Indexing should be turned off on all drives, no SSD should be filled past 90%, and any spinning, mechanical drives in your system should not be used for editing, but, should serve as backup drives ,or, archive drives. That is, of course, assuming that you don't have an expensive Areca add - in card with a huge array of disks on it....that scenario is different.

[dyingbirdproductions]

Excellent, thanks for the detailed reply!

I am currently running a 256GB SSD as my boot drive.  3 7200rpm drives as well. One for media, one for cache files, one for previews/exports. I did plan on getting an SSD for media once there were 1TB ones at a decent price.

I think the plan to overclock the 2600k is a good one. Seems solid coolers aren't that expensive, and that'll be much cheaper than a new CPU/mobo at this point.

I definitely need more ram as well. Sounds like the plan for a new video card is a good one though, I'll see what black friday has in store for me.

[JFPhoton]

...one option for fast storage would be the current Samsung 950 Pro PCI SSD.....available at 512 MB capacity for ~ 350 bucks.

You would make that your "active " project drive, using it for editing of active projects only...you would put all files on it except what is on boot drive, (  ONLY OS, programs and Windows page file should go on boot drive), and take advantage of the tremendous speed.

All your spinning drives can be used to archive finished projects, store media, backing up, etc.

Your current drive setup IS a bottleneck and WILL hinder performance !! A single 7200rpm feeding media is TOO SLOW !!...especially with multiple video tracks or 4K footage.  For example, your current " media drive" may be half full or more and its read speed may be down to 50-75 MB a second transfer speed, PLUS, it may be "fragmented " causing even MORE " latency".  A single SSD may go 550MB / sec...almpst TEN TIMES FASTER......SEE ??   An NVMe 950 Pro will do over 2.5 GB/ sec read and 1.5 GB / sec  write.....FIFTY TIMES FASTER !!! You definitely need to fix your drive situation.

[dyingbirdproductions]

Hmmmm..... yeah, that does seem sensible. I had 1TB in my head because at any given moment, it's not all that uncommon to have over 512GB of media and projects on the go, but that size is much, much easier to afford right now. So I could just be careful to only have whatever projects are imminently due on there and temporarily store the others on slower drives.

Thanks.