More important for video rendering? RAM or video card?

[Pwolf]

USB 3.0 is still limited by the hard drive in the enclosure, which if it's not an SSD (or RAID 0, but still) it will bottleneck. After Effects will benefit more from all that RAM though but only from a RAM Preview point of view (mostly, unless you have some really crazy comps). You'll be able to preview more frames (and larger frame sizes). This is only good for seeing how a small section of the video looks. While you are scrubbing the timeline, in Premiere and AE, the source is being pulled from the hard drive, not from RAM, so the bottle neck will be there.

Don't get me wrong, having all that extra RAM is handy when you want to render a preview in AE so it's not too much of a waste but I think from a performance point of view, you should've spent your money on a larger SSD.

[TheLuminaireShow]

Am I even capable of RAID.0? I was told I wasn't.

Well that's good, because I mainly looked into more RAM in the first place because of how long previews were taking. I don't regret spending money on the RAM, but I suppose more for the SSD would have indeed been better. I just thought that 90 would have been more than enough for what I wanted to put on it. I mean, the biggest I've seen them get is... 256 GB? That's not terribly big for storing HD media. Although, I suppose you could move the media you know you're going to use onto that drive temporarily, and when you're done with your project, put it back on a different storage drive. Worst comes to worst, I'll just buy a bigger one in a month and replace it because I have to install a different OS again anyway to fully utilize all my RAM.

The hardest part for a non techie like me is getting the facts straight. So thanks for putting up with a noob like me.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Am I even capable of RAID.0? I was told I wasn't.

Do you have a desktop with a couple of open drive bays and a motherboard that has open SATA ports (or an open PCI slot for a SATA add-on card)? If so, then yes, you can.

EDIT - You do also need to make sure you have the means to power the drives, either with SATA power cables directly from the power supply, or by using MOLEX -> SATA power adapters.


SSD is not yet at price parity with rotational hard drive media for large volumes needed to edit with. RAIDing normal hard drives together is the best you're going to do for getting over a disc related bottleneck, unless you want to spend stupid sums of money on enterprise level SSDs.

[TheLuminaireShow]

I think I'd have to either remove a stick of RAM or a USB 2.0 slot but I don't have enough power connections for that slot.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I think I'd have to either remove a stick of RAM or a USB 2.0 slot but I don't have enough power connections for that slot.

Wait.... What? That doesn't make any sense. What does RAM have to do with your PCI slots or free SATA ports? And you filled up your PCI slots up with USB cards? The hell? Most motherboards come with at least 2 or 3 PCI express slots and more on board USB than the average person knows what to do with.

[Mister Hatt]

This sounds like the OP was told a lot of things by people who don't know anything...

Programs run slightly faster on SSD but the whole lot will be faster if your content is on the SSD. RAM doesn't have to be the same size but it should be same size per channel. You can get a secondary PSU if you need more power, and nobody cares about USB2 slots because that's what hubs are for. Have you ever built a PC before and do you know anything about basic mainboard layout?

[TEKnician]

This sounds like the OP was told a lot of things by people who don't know anything...

Programs run slightly faster on SSD but the whole lot will be faster if your content is on the SSD. RAM doesn't have to be the same size but it should be same size per channel. You can get a secondary PSU if you need more power, and nobody cares about USB2 slots because that's what hubs are for. Have you ever built a PC before and do you know anything about basic mainboard layout?

Welcome back, dude!