Building a PC for After Effects
In this article, I want to talk about the most important points, And frequently asked questions when it comes to building a PC with the use of After Effects in mind from the perspective of a Professional After Effects user and Computer nerd.
Table of Content
The current Situation
When it comes to hardware, we are currently living in a turning point.
For the Last 30 years, the Question was which AMD or Intel Chip is the best, that is currently changing.
Because Chips on the ARM Architecture are outperforming Chips from Intel and AMD which are based on the X86 architecture.
And since Apple is the Company which started first in this regard, The currently best performing Computer for After Effects is the MacBook Pro with the M3 Max CPU according to the Puget Systems Benchmark.
Especially since a MacBook already comes with an excellent Screen, The best in a Laptop for Grading the price to performance Ratio especially in the higher end is unbeatable.
Benefits of a Mac
- You can take a MacBook with you
- A MacBook and iMac comes already with a highly color accurate Screen.
- It is small
- It is Silent
- Always has a Thunderbolt Connector
Benefits of a Desktop PC
- Upgradability
- Almost every Software is available for Windows
- Better repairability
- Possibility to have an insane amount of Storage internaly if needed
Recommendations
$ 500 PC Build
Graphics card (GPU)
RTX 3050 | Buy on Amazon
RAM
32GB DDR5 |Buy on Amazon
Processor (CPU)
Intel i3 1400F is enough | Buy on Amazon
Mainboard
Cheap Main board with Intel 1700 socket and DDR5 Connector | Buy on Amazon
Powersupply (PSU)
Cheap Power supply with 500+ Watt from a reliable Brand. | Buy on Amazon
Storage (SSD)
Cheap 500GB M.2 SSD | Buy on Amazon
Case
Cheap ATX Case. At this Budget, there is just no room for aesthetics. | Buy on Amazon
CPU Cooler
Cheap Intel 1700 Compatible Cooler. At this Budget, there is just no room for aesthetics. | Buy on Amazon
$ 1000 PC Build
Graphics card (GPU)
Nvidia RTX 4060 | Buy on Amazon
RAM
64GB DDR5 | Buy on Amazon
Processor (CPU)
Intel i3 1400F The CPU shouldn’t be the bottleneck in this case, and Intel has the better single-core speed at that price point. | Buy on Amazon
Mainboard
Affordable Intel 1700 and DDR5 compatible main board with a Thunderbolt 4 connector | Buy on Amazon
Powersupply (PSU)
Cheap power supply with 500+ Watts from a reliable brand. | Buy on Amazon
Storage (SSD)
Samsung 990 Pro 2TB. | Buy on Amazon
Case
BeQuiet Pure Base 600. Aesthetics are subjective, but everyone wants a silent PC, so buying a case that comes with relatively silent fans makes sense. | Buy on Amazon
CPU Cooler
Cheap Intel 1700 Compatible Cooler. At this Budget, there is just no room for aesthetics. | Buy on Amazon
$ 2000 PC Build
Graphics card (GPU)
Nvidia RTX 4070 Super | Buy on Amazon
RAM
96 GB of DDR5 is enough for everything. | Buy on Amazon
Processor (CPU)
Intel i3 1400F The CPU shouldn’t be the bottleneck in this case, and Intel has the better single-core speed at that price point. | Buy on Amazon
Mainboard
Affordable Intel 1700 and DDR5 compatible main board with a Thunderbolt 4 connector | Buy on Amazon
Powersupply (PSU)
Cheap power supply with 750+ Watts from a reliable brand. | Buy on Amazon
Storage (SSD)
2* Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB. | Buy on Amazon
Case
Fractal Design North. | Buy on Amazon
CPU Cooler
Cheap Intel 1700 Compatible Cooler. At this Budget, there is just no room for aesthetics. | Buy on Amazon
How much RAM do I need in my PC TO work well with After Effects?
RAM is extremely important in After Effects.
The current Version of After Effects requires at least 16GB of RAM to work, which is a Lot compared to other programs.
It is one of the few Tools which can profit of >128GB of RAM on the day-to-day bases. Even for relatively simple projects.
I would recommend getting at least 32GB of RAM. If you have the Money, get 128GB
Do I need a dedicated GPU to use After Effects?
To see anything on the screen, you need to have a GPU in you PC. Most Intel CPUs come with an integrated GPU. But does it make sense to buy a dedicated GPU separately? The Answer is clearly no.
Which GPU makes sense?
Over the last years, the GPU became more and more important, when it comes to Performance in After Effects.
Adobe introduces GPU acceleration to more and more effects.
If you want to see, which effects currently have GPU acceleration you can take a Look on the Effects list After Effects Effects List.
Especially if you rely on Complex GPU Accelerated Plugins like Trapcode a Good GPU makes a difference.
In contrast to buying an Expensive CPU here it makes actually sense, to spend more money, because you get more Performance up to an RTX 4090.
Popular Plugins that use GPU Acceleration
Which CPU makes sense?
Currently, the best CPU for After Effects is the AMD 7970X.
But since it costs roughly $2500 it is probably not an Option for most people.
What you can see, by looking at the Graph at the beginning is, that seemingly the CPU does not matter at all. But that’s not true.
What doesn’t seam to matter that much is the amount of CPU Cores.
Which is the reason an i3 CPU with a good GPU can outperform an i9 CPU with a worse GPU.
What matters is the Single Core speed and the CPUs with the best Single Core performance come from Apple (What makes the Situation even crazier is, that the CPU with the best Single Core Performance is the M4 currently only available in the iPad Pro. A Tablet outperforming an overclocked Desktop PC, imagine that.)
But behind Apple comes the current generation of Intel CPUs.
That means if you are building a Desktop PC, get a current generation Intel CPU. An i5 is probably enough. Since the performance gains after that are relatively small, and it makes more sense, to invest money in other Components. Like GPU or RAM.
Powersupply
The Powersupply is a Part of the Computer not a lot of people talk about but when it comes to rendering it can still make a big difference.
The most important thing is not to buy a no name Power supply.
Popular brands are BeQuiet, Corsair, Seasonic, Silverstone, Corsair, MSI, Phanteks, Antec, Sharkoon, Gigabyte…
You definitely should not save too much money at this part since it is related to safety. Especially if you live in a Country with a bad electricity network, since too high voltage can not only kill your PC, it can also kill you in the worst case.
The second most significant thing is, you need a Power supply which supports enough Wattage. Here is a calculator to find out, how much you require.
When it comes to rendering, efficiency can become essential since rendering means using a lot of power over a longer period of time.
To certify the efficiency of a Power supply there is the 80 PLUS certification, the higher the certification the higher the percentage of the energy the power supply pulls out the wall it will pass along to the computer components.
Which can be translated to the higher the 80 PLUS certification, the lower the energy bill will be.
If it makes sense for to buy a Power supply with a higher certification is something you can roughly calculate.
| 20% Power usage | 50% Power usage | 100% Power usage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 Plus | 82% efficiency | 85% efficiency | 82% efficiency |
| 80 Plus Bronze | 85% efficiency | 88% efficiency | 85% efficiency |
| 80 Plus Silver | 87% efficiency | 90% efficiency | 87% efficiency |
| 80 Plus Gold | 90% efficiency | 92% efficiency | 89% efficiency |
| 80 Plus Platin | 92% efficiency | 94% efficiency | 90% efficiency |
| 80 Plus Titan | 94% efficiency | 96% efficiency | 94% efficiency |
Storage
Blender itself doesn’t require a lot of storage. Unliked Video editing Software like Premiere or After Effects, it does not benefit from faster storage or even multiple drives.
But if you are rendering Videos in Blender like I describe it in this Article “Export animations in Blender the professional way” You will have relatively big Video files.
I would recommend getting at least an 1 TB SATA SSD. An M2 or PCIE SSD is great, but has not really an effect on performance.
Get a Second SSD!
Performance wise, After Effects can profit a Lot of a Second SSD.
Every time you are using the RAM Preview feature in After Effects, The renders Video is being saved on RAM.If the Video exceeded the RAM, it will be saved on your normal Hard drive as a Cache File.
If you have just one SSD, this brings two problems with it.
Firstly, you will have an enormous amount of Data somewhere on your system
and secondly, it will slow your system down, because your SSD also has other things to do. And After Effects Cache File are huge.
What questions do you have, when it comes to building a PC for Blender?
i just bought a used pc set for blender, switching from msi gf63. but whenever i try to use blender it just crashes. (not responding) worst than my previous laptop. idk what is wrong with it.
I don’t know, what’s wrong, either. There can be many reasons for that. Does your PC crash in general, while using more complex tasks?
Would there be anything else I would need to get with the 2000 build. Like any other required parts?
I forgot to add CPU Coolers. Good Brands for CPU Coolers are Be Quiet and Noctua for Example. But when it comes to CPU Coolers, usually the bigger, the better.Its just more mass to handover the heat.