1. Need
If you want to edit in Adobe Premiere and After Effects and you’re on a tight budget in 2024/2025 – this article is for you. The idea of this build is to collect a list of used parts that, when combined together, will produce a budget-friendly and powerful 4K editing workstation.
2. Products to consider
Motherboard: B550 Aorus Elite AX V2 – link
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X – link (better find it used)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin – link
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit – link
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V 64GB – link
Storage: Samsung 980 PRO – link
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB – link
Audio interface: Arturia MiniFuse 1 – link
Headphones: Sony MDR-7506 – link
Headphones: Audio-Technica ATH-M50X – link
PSU: Seasonic FOCUS 650 – link
Monitor: ASUS ProArt 27 – link
Monitor: ASUS ProArt 24 – link
Case: Phanteks XT PRO – link
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For this budget build we discarded the new DDR5 platforms, since they cost considerably more than we can afford for this particular project.
AMD Zen 2 platform was chosen because it’s currently very cheap and is still relatively fresh, providing amazing performance and power consumption per dollar.
3. CPU
We chose a 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X – https://amzn.to/3wVaDhe – which cost $220. Why not the 16-core 3950X? Having four extra cores is nice, but a used 3950X costs anywhere from 20% to 30% more, and the uplift in editing performance particularly in Premiere is only about 4% for timeline editing.
3950X gives 13% better H264 render export time, but video export isn’t really what is needed since our goal is mainly editing, and exporting the video in the very end. So if the export is a couple of minutes longer, that is totally fine. For the sole purpose of editing, the 25% difference in price is not justified for our particular tight budget use case.
Architecturally 3900X and 3950X are the same, the only difference is the number of cores. If your use case is different and you do a lot of 3D modelling and rendering where your computer does these tasks for hours or even days and you have to wait, in that case yes, 4 extra cores of the 3950X may be worth it, moreover a Threadripper may be worth it, but that’s a discussion for a different day.
We could have saved even more money by going one tier lower with the 3800X which has 8 instead of 12 cores, and for the video editing that would have totally worked. We would have saved an additional 30% of the processor price by losing 8% in performance for editing and 20% for video export. But having even fewer cores poses a slight risk for tasks where Adobe After Effects integration is needed, and you want to mess with both Premiere and AE together at the same time.
You can totally get away with 3800X, but if you can afford an extra $50-$80, having 12 instead of 8 cores seems worth it, after all it’s a 50% increase in core count. At the same time we wouldn’t recommend going lower than 8 cores for the editing workstation with something like 3600X / 5600X a 6 core processor, which may become a bottleneck even just for basic Premiere 4K editing.
The same goes for the Zen 3 (5900X and 5950X) because they are newer, they may cost anywhere from 20% and up to even 40% more (5950X sells for around $350 currently). Zen 3 is very similar to Zen 2 and provides a relatively marginal performance boost of about 2% to 5% depending on the editing task. They share the same amount of cores, the only difference is slightly optimized cache architecture and better boost clocks. For our specific task definitely not worth the extra dollar.
4. CPU Cooler
Since this is a budget build, for those of you who want to buy a cooler, we’d recommend a Thermalright Phantom Spirit – https://amzn.to/3KkqGs0, or if you can’t find it, a Thermalright Peerless Assassin – https://amzn.to/450LGNM, these units provide cooling performance on par with the venerable NH-D15 and cost only a fraction of it. AMD’s proprietary Wraith Prism will get the job done as well, if you can get it at no charge with the processor included. We were promised a Wraith cooler with our 3900X when we ordered it used, but unfortunately it turned out to be a much less potent Wraith Stealth model with no heat pipes and a 65W instead of 105W TDP. It was actually designed for the Ryzen 6 core processors. But we tested it anyway, and as it turned out, the cooler was enough to install Windows and even to use the system for web browsing. Rendering tasks quite quickly topped the temp graph and throttled the CPU at 95C. Wraith Stealth isn’t recommended as a permanent solution, but as a temporary one it totally works.
We obtained a Thermalright Macho for $27. It wasn’t a particular choice, but it was being sold by the same guy who sold us a motherboard, so it was much easier and cheaper to buy and ship from the same source. The cooler itself is quite good also.
5. RAM
We recommend at least two sticks by 32GB each, preferably 3600 rated with CAS latency in the range of 16 or 18. But if the price is steep, a latency of 20-22 will work just fine. Corsair, G.Skill, Teamgroup, Micron, any brand will work. G.Skill Ripjaws V 64GB – https://amzn.to/3x1tC9Y can be recommended based on price/performance/warranty criteria. If you can find 3600 Ballistix sticks used – get those, usually they have better timings when it comes to 32GB modules.
In our case we’ll be installing 4 by 16GB Ballistix MAX modules, because we already own them, otherwise this is not a very sensible option. This RAM is expensive, and since it’s 4 sticks by 16 we populate all four of the slots. Taking two modules by 32 each, gives you room for future extension to 128GB, which may be needed for particularly big projects.
A detailed review and DDR4 OC guide for these Ballistix MAX Mircon Rev B chips and G.Skill Samsung B-die chip-based RAM is coming soon, that’s why we already own this RAM – it was purchased for the review purposes.
6. Storage
The NVMe architecture is preferable, we could get away with SATA, but the performance hit we take and the price difference aren’t worth it considering how cheap the NVMes have gotten. If you need extra storage for archiving and backups, SATA works just fine, but for editing, the NVMe is better. It is a budget build, but we still want it to perform as close to a high end workstation as possible.
Premiere and AE are kinda peculiar when it comes to storage. These applications pervasively cache assets. This means they constantly overwrite big volumes of data. The general best practice is:
1 SSD for your operating system and all of the installs.
1 SSD specifically designated just for the Adobe cache.
1 SSD for the video footage.
And it means you need to buy 3 drives, which is expensive.
Moreover, drives tend to have a TBW rating, so buying a used drive is not really an option, since you have a very good chance of buying a depleted drive. Unless, you buy it from a friend and you know for sure it hasn’t been used intensely. Especially considering we know that people mine crypto with their drives. So, it’s preferable to get a new drive. After all, imagine what you risk if it fails.
Storage amount highly depends on your specific needs.
Generally 500GBs is enough for a system drive, at least now in 2024. Another 500GB is enough for Adobe cache. And the footage drive will depend on the amount of your actual footage and assets. In our case 1TB does the job, we shoot mostly HEVC, very rarely ProRes, and the projects are medium-sized for up to two hours in length. But your personal video size requirements may be very different, so it depends, you may need 2, 4 or even 8TB if you shoot raw.
Furthermore, we decided to have two drives instead of three. Instead of having 500 + 500 + 1000, we decided to have 1000 + 1000. So we replaced two 500GB drives with one 1TB drive. It means this drive will be utilized both for the operating system and for the Adobe cache. It is an acceptable compromise. It is not as good as having a dedicated drive for cache, but considering that two 500GB drives cost $60 each, and one 1TB drive costs $90, we save $30, AND we need our motherboard to support two M.2 slots instead of three, which broadens the selection of budget motherboards.
We do lose a few percent in performance because system files and cache files will be on the same physical NVMe stick sharing the same controller, but the loss is very marginal. It was pretty serious back in the day when we used HDDs, but now it’s just history and newer NVMe drives have fully fixed this gap. Contemporary controllers are fully capable to handle both system files and Adobe cache on the same drive. Given we have a decent drive with a decent controller of course.
There is also an added benefit of having one big drive instead of two small in case we want to increase the cache above 500GB, or maybe we want more system files and we are fine with less cache. So by having one combined drive we may dedicate 700GB to cache and 300GB to sys files.
A downside is that this drive will wear down quicker. The operating system itself uses a lot of temp files, plus the Adobe cache constantly harasses it. But if we monitor the TBW rating and regularly check the health status – we’ll be fine for years.
And this brings us to the vendor chosen, in our case it’s Samsung. Its proprietary Magician software is very nifty at monitoring drives. 980 PRO – https://amzn.to/3yANUaC turned out to be only $10 more expensive than the 970 Evo Plus, so we chose it, but the Evo Plus would totally work just fine.
Other brands will work as well: Crucial P5 Plus or T500, WD Black SN850X, SK Hynix Gold P31. Any will work as long as they use TLC chip architecture, at least for the operating system and cache drive. The video footage drive can get away with QLC design, which is not as durable, but costs two thirds the price.
Just don’t pay too much attention to sequential read/write numbers, those rarely make any sense for day to day usage. As well as PCIe generation. Gen 3 is perfectly fine for our low budget workstation. Even for a high budget Gen 3 is still fine. Going for Gen 4 or Gen 5 with this type of a budget build is pointless, it only makes sense if you don’t pay too much extra for it.
7. Motherboard
B550 has been chosen for a few reasons: It’s cheaper than X570, it has no fan (which means no noise) unlike the X570, and it still supports most of the features that X570 does, except it has fewer PCIe lanes. This means we can’t use as many PCIe devices and the bandwidth gets split, but for our purposes this will work just fine.
The Aorus B550 Master board we got is complete overkill for this build. The reason we got it was that we found a used one locally for $160, which is a very good price.
B550 Master is arguably the best board produced for this chipset along with MSI MEG Unify, but we don’t recommend it since it’s a budget build. Motherboard selection will greatly depend on your specific needs for connectivity and ports. But generally, choose something that has two M.2 slots, preferably from Aorus, MSI MEG, or Asus ROG lineups. These lineups are premium, but they are much better built, use better components and are designed for sustained loads. You may get away with a cheap Gigabyte Ultra Durable, Asus Prime or MSI Pro, but those use lower layer count PCBs that quite often overheat and are notorious for not being stable with high clocks. It’s not like you’re going to overclock, but try not to cut corners when selecting a motherboard.
It’s very tempting to get something super cheap like B450 that costs $60, and it may even work, but the risks of encountering problems further along the road are higher.
B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 – https://amzn.to/3QYGtQH currently seems to be reasonably priced and can be found on various sales. It’s not as cool as the B550 Master of course, but it still checks most of the boxes and also is considerably cheaper even when bought new.
In our case, the Aorus B550 Master has three M.2 ports in PCIe x4 mode, but two of those share bandwidth with the main GPU slot, which is bad if you were building a gaming PC and intended to use multiple M.2 drives. However, for our editing workstation it’s irrelevant since our GPU will never saturate the PCIe bandwidth anyway, you need something like an RTX 4090 to notice any difference, and even then, it would be during gaming, not editing.
8. GPU
Adobe has added a GPU-based acceleration, which can reduce export times by up to 5x. Live playback is also now capable of leveraging your GPU. However it doesn’t mean you need a top-end GPU.
We’ll be using a GeForce GTX 970 since we already own this card, but it is outdated and has only 4GB of vRAM. Additionally, it does not support HEVC encoding, which is extremely bad.
It is advisable to get a relatively modern card with at least 6GB of vRAM (preferably 12GB or even more). GTX 1060 TI can be considered a bare minimum, but it’s better and more future-proof to go with something like an RTX 3060 or 4060 – https://amzn.to/3KqOuKx. There is no point in chasing flagships like the 3090 or 4090, they are marginally better for Adobe products and they cost a fortune.
AMD GPUs aren’t recommended, Adobe and DaVinci Resolve work better with nVidia cards, it’s just a fact, unfortunately.
9. Audio
B550 Master motherboard turned out to have decent sound which is relatively OK for monitoring. We will skip buying an audio interface this time, but if you aren’t satisfied with your sound, you may obtain the Arturia MiniFuse – https://amzn.to/4bYvi3i which is relatively cheap and provides a studio-like sound, a very strong competitor to the venerable Focusrite. This step isn’t necessary and can be skipped.
The onboard audio of your motherboard can be used, but very often with cheap motherboards, when paired with any basic monitoring headphones like Sony MDR-7506 – link or Audio-Technica ATH-M50X – link – the onboard audio DAC of a cheap motherboard sounds very flat. It gets the job done, but the lack of proper fidelity in audio processing may be a hindrance to some audio centric creators. This is an optional step and definitely not a must-have for this budget build, but having a good audio interface is nice, plus you may use some pro grade microphones with it, like Shure SM7B – link for example.
As for the headphones, the aforementioned Sony or Audio-Technica models will be the perfect match for any editing machine, and you can’t skip this step, audio is crucial for the final edit. Emotion comes through the ears. You do need a good pair of neutral-sounding monitoring headphones. Monitoring speakers will cost much more than headphones, so paying $90 for a pair of headphones is a good investment.
10. PC Case
We’ll be using a Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus, because we already own it. It was purchased more than 10 years ago and is still perfectly fine. Any mid tower ATX box will suffice, just make sure it has a decent intake fan, and a decent exhaust. Cooling isn’t something very important for this build since our GPU and CPU are relatively cool, but having two main fans is essential for any PC system. Phanteks XT PRO – https://amzn.to/44YUHHi can be considered as a decent entry level option.
11. Power Supply (PSU)
The system we’re building won’t be power hungry. A decent 650W Gold rated PSU will suffice. We’ll be using a Seasonic Prime Titanium 750W, because we already have one, and it has been a terrific piece of equipment, but we have to admit it is a pretty expensive thing. Good alternatives would be a Seasonic Focus or EVGA SuperNOVA series. Don’t go too cheap with a PSU, like a motherboard, it is responsible for the overall stability and reliability of your system. You may buy Seasonics used, those have an amazing 10 year warranty. Seasonic FOCUS 650 – https://amzn.to/4bw9sUm is a decent cheaper alternative.
PSU Watt requirements are directly correlated with a graphics card you choose. A good practice is to go at least 100W higher than the recommended power.
12. Monitor
1080p IPS LG 24EA53, a very old thing we already own, which can currently be bought for as low as $50. It has 87.7% sRGB coverage which is bad, but not as bad as comparably priced TN or VA panels. When looking for a monitor try to buy something that has close to 95-100% of sRGB coverage.
You don’t have to go as cheap as we did, you may get something bigger, with a better resolution, but make sure it’s an IPS panel, and make sure the color accuracy is relatively good. 60Hz is fine, you don’t need a high refresh monitor for an editing workstation. Suggestions: ASUS ProArt 27 – https://amzn.to/4byejED or ASUS ProArt 24 – https://amzn.to/4e1yqfS. You may go 4K and 32 inch, but that takes us way out of our budget friendly territory.
13. Conclusions
This build isn’t optimal for everyone, take it as a guideline. You may consider Intel platform as well, but specifically for multi-threaded editing tasks – AMD proved to be more optimal for us – price/performance/heat_output wise.
Connecting all the lines together, we have the following approximate price list: (at the moment of publishing since prices fluctuate daily)
CPU – $220
CPU Cooler – $35
Motherboard – $140
RAM – $128
Storage – $100 x2
GPU – $300
Headphones – $100
PSU – $100
PC case – $70
Monitor depending on your choice may be as cheap as $50, or if you buy something better like Asus ProArt 24 inch – $180, 27 inch – $300.
Everything combined makes it around ~$1500.
It’s not the cheapest build possible, but this is what it takes to have a decent editing machine for 4K. You can save here and there and lower the bar to a bare minimum of approx. ~$1000, but you will have to do significant compromises like having a lower core count mid-level CPU, half as powerful GPU, unreliable motherboard, sketchy PSU, and so on.