THE CONCEPT
IT’S ABOUT TIME we put those rendering processors to work, huh? We certainly think so—16 cores and 32 threads are just too good an opportunity to pass up. And with a renewed push to produce more video content for our online platforms over the coming months, it makes sense to piece together a workstation for our reviews editor that’s a little more spec-driven than the Core i7-5820K and 32GB of DDR4 he has now.
At MaximumPC, our workstations are generally constructed out of parts we have on loan, they need to be flexible, and easy to take to pieces if certain components have to go back to their PRs. They also need to be versatile—from gaming, to standard office work, to photo editing, video rendering, and running through all manner of tutorials, our rigs have to be capable of doing it all.
This time around, our system is going to have a very large focus on video editing, so the monster component that is Threadripper is our processor of choice. Whether it’s the eight-, 12-, or 16-core parts, both the connectivity and quad-channel memory support, combined with Ryzen’s architectural prowess, make it the perfect match for our rendering aspirations, and anything else we want to throw at it.
So, what’s the plan? Grab the 1950X, an Asus Prime X399 motherboard, 128GB of DDR4, a plethora of PCIe solid-state storage for scratch disk and OS use, and 20TB or so of hard drives for backup. No biggy, right?