Can I run pro tools smoothly on this PC configuration?

[luka1304]

Hello,
Can someone please help me with my PC components.. I configured a PC that I would like to get but I heard from a few people that Pro Tools doesn't run properly on every system.. Since this is a pretty big buy for me I wouldn't really like to purchase it and then find out that it doesn't work. I got a Pro Tools HDX card and will be working with it. I want to go with windows 10 as my operating system as I'm familiar with it. I have two spec options.. The first one is my configuration and the second is a configuration that I got from some people in the industry that work with Pro Tools. Can someone please tell me if Pro Tools could work on my config as I'm sure that it is a bit more powerful.

SPECS:
1st config:
Intel Core i7 6900 K Processor – 3.20GHz, FCLGA2011 V3, 20 MB Cache)

Asus ROG Strix GTX1070 O8G Gaming NVIDIA Graphics Card (8GB GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort)

OR

Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX1080 A8G Gaming Graphics Card (PCI Express 3.0, 8GB GDDR5X Memory, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort)

Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB SATAIII

Samsung SSD 950 PRO NVMe 512GB M.2

Asus X99 A II Motherboard Core Socket 2011 CR-V3/8x ATX, Intel X99, DDR4 Memory, 3.1, M.2 USB Interface)

Corsair Vengeance LED 64GB (4x 16GB) DDR4 3200MHz

2x Western Digital Black 2TB

Corsair AX860i 860W 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply Unit

Corsair Hydro Series H115i 280 mm Extreme Performance All-In-One Liquid CPU Cooler

be quiet! BGW11 Dark Base 900 Aluminium Case


2nd config:
Intel Xeon E5-2670 V3

ASUS X99-A II, 90MB0Q80-M0EAY0

DDR4 64GB (4x16GB) Corsair Vengeance LED,
3000MHz, CL15

Gigabyte GTX970 WF3 OC 4GB

Samsung 500GB SSD 850 EVO

WD 2TB WD2003FZEX 64MB SATA3

Corsair 860W AX860i

Corsair Cooling Hydro H110i Extreme

Corsair Carbide Air 540 midi case


I plan on getting a Dell UltraSharp U3415W monitor with the PC.

Thanks!

[albee1952]

I'm not the last word on this, but your first configuration should be fine with the X99 motherboard. AFAIK, i7 beats XEON. BUT, consider a few changes;

1-Samsung 850 EVO for system drive(the WD drives are great for samples and recording) Its less $ than the 950 and works great. Assuming you are choosing between the 2 SSD's listed.

2-both the graphics cards you show seem like big overkill to me. A $50 nVidia 610 covers a lot of ground(unless you need to do hi-res video)

Is the Dell a super-wide screen(just curious). Personally, 2 screens beat 1 for Pro Tools(running 3 here).

[luka1304]

Hi
Thanks for replaying
I plan on using both ssd's. The 950pro for windows and Pro Tools and the 850 for plugins.. What do you think about that?
I know that the gpu is a bit of an overkill but I definitely will be doing some high res. video editing as well as some gaming so I wanted to secure myself for another 5 years or so haha.
The dell is an ultra-wide screen. I went with it because it eliminates bezels that you get with a dual monitor setup and it has a decent size to it. Do you mind the bezels when using the 3 monitors? Also don't know whether the curve of the monitor will be a problem, probably not but still want to be on safe side haha. Another option I looked at was the Acer 32" 4k monitor. I personally think that 4k isn't needed for Pro Tools. Do you agree? And the vidio editing I'll be doing shouldn't go as high as 4k. But then again it is priced almost the same as the dell..

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by luka1304

Hi
Thanks for replaying
I plan on using both ssd's. The 950pro for windows and Pro Tools and the 850 for plugins.. What do you think about that?

Plug-ins belong on the system drive within Pro Tools. Unless your speaking of sample storage only.

[luka1304]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

Plug-ins belong on the system drive within Pro Tools. Unless your speaking of sample storage only.

Yes, I'm talking about sample storage. I'm still not sure how to move the samples onto the other ssd. They need to be connected to the Pro Tools folder right? Sorry if I'm getting this wrong.. I haven't yet installed Pro Tools and have never used it before so I'm kind of new here.. Does it really matter if the samples are on an ssd? Does it effect the speed of loading them significantly?

[albee1952]

Samples will stream faster from an SSD, but, consider; 1-512 is not a lot of space for sample libraries(I run 3TB and my partner runs 4TB worth of samples). 2-for the most part, 7200 rpm spinners will do fine if you can't afford to buy bigger SSD drives for samples.

Most(but not all) plugins that use samples, allow for the plugin to be installed on the C: drive(as TOM says) and place libraries on a separate drive, and you can usually move and re-link libraries. As an example, I had my Kontact libraries on drive Smy samples drive). My partner had his on drive F: of his rig, so every time a session went from his machine to mine, Kontact would "look" for the F: drive, not find it, and require me to manually relink/relocate the libraries. The solution: I added another drive, called it drive F: and moved my Kontact libraries to that drive. Then opened Kontact and relinked all to the new location and they all work now

BTW, if you are not hip to drive imaging, you NEED to be. And, not only should you image your system drive, you should also image your samples drive(s). I keep a pair of large USB drives that hold nothing but images

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by albee1952

BTW, if you are not hip to drive imaging, you NEED to be. And, not only should you image your system drive, you should also image your samples drive(s). I keep a pair of large USB drives that hold nothing but images

^^^^ And this is probably the best single piece of advice that can be offered on this forum.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

^^^^ And this is probably the best single piece of advice that can be offered on this forum.

Here's the drill:
Image 1-do it after installing, updating and tweaking Windows
Image 2-do it after installing Pro tools, drivers and nothing else
Image 3-do it after installing the rest of your software and the system tests out good.

Doing this allows you to recover easily from any disaster, be it a drive crash, a bad update(yes, it happens) or a virus/malware attack(which can happen, even if you don't connect to the internet, ever. But most of us do these days).

Future images-save an image BEFORE installing any new software or update, and every few months as long as your system is humming along nicely(after you amass several images, you can start deleting older ones. I recommend full images and NOT incremental as those make recovery slower and more complicated(IOW, this totally failed on me recently, so its full images from now on)

[luka1304]

Thank you very much for the advice. I will do that for sure. I'm not exactly sure how to do it yet though.. I'm going to look it up on the internet.. How much memory does it roughly take up when you combine the 3 images?

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by luka1304

Thank you very much for the advice. I will do that for sure. I'm not exactly sure how to do it yet though.. I'm going to look it up on the internet.. How much memory does it roughly take up when you combine the 3 images?

Well, its not "memory". It hard drive space. Images are generally compressed so they don't take up as much room as the drive they are made from(and they only image the USED space). My 2TB image drive has a few dozen images. The 3 programs to look at are:
Acronis True Image(paid)
paragon backup & recovery(?)
aomei backupper professional(free with a paid "pro" version)
I used Acronis for a long time but as of late, I have grown to like it less and less. Currently using Backupper free version and it has worked well. In the middle of buying the PRO version but the purchase has gone south and I still don't have the PRO features yet, with no reply to my support request done 6 hours ago(but again, the free version works fine for most things. I just want the PRO feature for cloning my system drive so I have a backup ready to go)