E5-2643 v2 or i7 6900K. What processor would be better for video editing?

[Jamiesea]

I have the ASUS Z9PA-DA motherboard and was going to update my processors (dual xeons, 12 cores) to the E5-2643 v2 (used for $599 each) or build a new system using the X99 MB and the i7 6900K which I could OC it to like 4.3.

I also produce music full time so I need speed for VSTi that can suck the juice out of just 1 core while all my other cores are at 20%.

Here's an article I've been reading as well.

Premiere Pro 2017 Intel Core i7 7700K & i5 7600K Performance

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Premiere-Pro-2017-Intel-Core-i7-7700K-i5-7600K-Performanc...

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Bill_Gehrke]

Of course one core at 4.3 GHz would beat one core at 3.8 GHz.  And with the newer motherboard you get one super speed M.2 SSD slot

[Jamiesea]

Of course!  Speed is what I need and I can OC the i7 6900K.  The 6900K runs off the X99 boards.  I wonder if there are any with 2 X M.2 slots?

Perhaps running my OS (Win 7 64) from a SSD 960 PRO NVMe M.2 512GM might be great, but will it help in terms of video editing if my processor is 4.3 and my GTX 1070 is running off a Samsung EVO 850?  I know the M.2 is 2X plus faster they say, but once everything is loaded into memory (RAM) then I don't see how the M.2 would make editing video (4K) and other applications run better, maybe a bit faster though.

[Bill_Gehrke]

You do not need two M.2 connectors.  Here is my playpen computer with 4 each M.2's all running at rated speed in my ASUS x99-E WS.

[Jamiesea]

Looks Great Bill!  How do you connect the 4 - M.2's?

[RoninEdits]

upgrading to the xeon's has the benefit of keeping your existing ddr3 ram, OS, and easier hardware installation. however the newer hardware with ddr4 will be slightly better for 4k+ video editing and a single cpu system won't have to deal with a slower dual cpu interconnect. microsoft has decided to play dirty in order to force people into buying win10 and won't offer updates to win7 on newer cpu's. if you don't care about having the latest win7 updates, you might be ok with running win7 on new hardware.

if you can wait a couple of months, there are rumors intel is releasing x299 soon. rumors of a 12 core i9 (i9 replacing i7 for the very top end cpu's), and possibly a price drop for the rest of the lineup. so the new 8 core might be slightly cheaper. the i7-6900k is broadwell-e and doesn't overclock past 4ghz very well, but the new cpu's coming will be skylake-x and should overclock a bit better. x299 will have higher base memory speed support, as well as higher pcie lane count and pcie 3.0 support on the chipset, so a nice bonus all around.

you are right about pcie/nvme m.2 drives not being very beneficial for the OS drive. sometimes they can help with very high bitrate media and sometimes with cache situations. there are pcie x4 m.2 card adapters that allow an m.2 ssd to plug into a pcie slot on the motherboard, so you won't need a motherboard with multiple m.2 slots. its possible that you could run an m.2 on your existing motherboard with a pcie adapter card too. the rumored x299 motherboards are likely to have 2+ m.2 slots on them, and there was even one with 3 slots.

also just a heads up, amd is also rumored to release a platform to compete against intel's x99/x299. those cpu's are rumored to have 10-16 cores, and will likely be more affordable. the downside is the current amd cpu's don't overclock well past 3.9ghz, and may not be as responsive for ultra low latency audio daw work. if you are curious about the amd cpu's you could research for DAW reviews/feedback with the current 8 core ryzen cpu's, like the ryzen 1800x.

[Jamiesea]

So Intel is finally moving ahead eh?  Very Cool!  I know the AMD Ryzen is on their heals so... maybe now is the time to wait a bit.

And yes, I can wait a few months or perhaps till the end of the year.  I'm not in huge hurry, but I will need a new PC for both Audio and Video.  VSTi need core speed (4.4 or so) where Video need cores.  So I want to build a system that will last me years to come if needed.