Building a Monster Workstation PC for Post Production (and the Unexpected Hiccups!)
At The Picture House, we decided to build an absolute beast of a PC workstation to power our video production and post-production workflows. The idea? To craft a machine that rips through software like DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, and Photoshop, making our daily grind faster and more efficient. But, as with any ambitious project, things didn’t go quite as planned. Let’s dive into the journey - from picking parts to unexpected roadblocks and final performance insights.
Why Build Our Own PC?
As a video production company, you might wonder why we’re even tackling a DIY PC build. Since the early days of our business we’ve been building our own workstations. It’s not just about saving money; it’s about understanding what’s under the hood, so we can maximize performance, troubleshoot issues, and upgrade or repair with minimal downtime.
Plus, it lets us pick the exact components that suit our software stack, which includes:
DaVinci Resolve for editing and colour grading
Adobe After Effects for motion graphics
Premiere Pro occasionally for editing
Capture One and Photoshop for image processing and retouching
The Dream Build: Components Breakdown
We carefully handpicked each component to ensure maximum performance:
Motherboard: Asus ProArt X870E - top-tier chipset for AMD, loaded with PCIe 5 slots, tons of high-speed USB-C ports, built-in 10Gb Ethernet, and four M.2 NVMe slots (two at PCIe 5 speeds).
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - a 16-core, 32-thread powerhouse delivering stellar single and multi-threaded performance for everything from video editing to rendering.
Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 (2nd Gen) - a reliable, quiet air cooler that beats liquid coolers in reliability (and a bit less drama if something leaks!).
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo (DDR5 6000) - 64GB of AMD EXPO-tuned memory, though we’d have liked 96 or 128GB if stock had allowed.
Storage: Lexar NM790 - two 4TB NVMe SSDs, one for OS and apps, the other as a scratch disk.
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080 - the latest generation of Nvidia’s flagship cards (at least, at the time of filming). We’d aimed for the 5090, but couldn’t get our hands on one.
Case: Fractal Design North XL - a classy, minimalist design with great airflow and a touch of Scandinavian style.
Hitting a Wall: The RTX 5080 Woes
Here’s where things got messy. Despite the killer spec, our workstation didn’t perform as expected in DaVinci Resolve, which is our main editing tool. The RTX 5080, despite being a cutting-edge card, threw up compatibility issues. DaVinci kept asking us to “optimize the neural engines” every time we opened it, which should only happen once.
We tried switching to Nvidia’s Game-Ready driver instead of the Studio driver, based on advice from Reddit and Facebook forums, but still couldn’t get smooth sailing. Ultimately, we had to swap the GPU to a 4090 just to get reliable DaVinci performance - though ironically, the 5080 did outperform the 4090 in Premiere Pro benchmarks by a small margin.
Benchmark Results: A Tale of Two GPUs
Using PugetBench in Premiere Pro (v25.1.0), the RTX 5080 scored 15,948 compared to the RTX 4090’s 14,678. While that’s a decent bump, it’s not game-changing, especially when our core workflow needs DaVinci Resolve to hum along without a hitch.
In the end, stability beat benchmark scores. We stuck with the 4090 because it just worked. And that’s what matters most in a professional editing suite.
Final Thoughts: One Hell of a Workhorse
Despite the GPU hiccup, this build is still an incredible workstation:
Ryzen 9950X on an Asus ProArt X870E motherboard
RTX 4090 (for now!)
Blisteringly fast NVMe storage
64GB of DDR5 RAM
It’s a machine that should handle anything we throw at it, from massive 8K files to heavy VFX renders.
Takeaways
If you’re thinking about building your own workstation, especially for demanding software like DaVinci Resolve, do your homework on compatibility. New GPUs might be powerful, but software support can lag behind. Sometimes, the safe bet is the better bet, even if it’s not the shiniest piece of tech.
But hey, that’s all part of the fun of building your own rig. You learn, you troubleshoot, and when it finally works, it’s that much more satisfying.
