By Mike McCarthy

I have always been a fan of top-end computer systems. Truth be told, the reason I originally got involved with digital video production back in high school was because it was the coolest thing you could do with computers. Multi-processor systems have fascinated me since I ordered a dual-socket Pentium III motherboard from the Tiger Direct catalog in 2000.

Over the past two decades, I’ve had the opportunity to use some of the fastest systems commercially available while working on projects that pushed the envelope of what was currently possible in video and post. For many years, I would never have considered using anything less than a dual-socket workstation with the most powerful processor available. But that is no longer the case, and not because I am no longer using cutting-edge workflows, but because of changes in terms of how computers are designed and marketed.

A big part of this shift is the result of a fundamental change in computer architecture design. The first computer I built from scratch had two CPU slots for Pentium II or III processors, the same CPUs in everyone else’s consumer computers. Later, I bought one of the first octo-core workstations with dual quad-core Xeon processors. The Xeon’s were unique in that they enabled multi-socket processing and ECC memory, but on the inside, they had the same processor as the Core2 Quad. And I paid about $3,000 for that system, which was basically the fastest computer commercially available in the world. A little over 10 years later, I am still using some of the fastest computers in the world, but they cost $20,000 (far more than I could afford to spend on my own personal system), and they are completely different from the hardware inside consumer computers. And there is a whole tier of systems above these that are even more expensive.

New Classes of CPUs and Platforms
There has been a very deliberate campaign to introduce more product differentiation in the CPU architecture market. Most people don’t understand that this has happened, and I didn’t fully appreciate it until recently. The higher class of processors have more than superficial differences, like ECC support. Even though they run the same software, they are fundamentally different inside. My first hint of this was when consumer systems jumped back to dual-channel memory when the Sandy Bridge generation of CPUs was released in 2011, where it has remained ever since.

Why was Intel’s top consumer chip “less capable” than the generation before it, which had supported triple-channel memory? Product differentiation is why. Gamers and other consumers didn’t really need quad-channel memory bandwidth so much as lower latency, but professionals did need that bandwidth, so that functionality was reserved for high-end desktop (HEDT) systems and workstations.

Manufacturers then started limiting PCIe lanes on the newer processors as they integrated northbridge functionality into the CPU. This results in consumer systems with only one or two full-sized PCIe slots for GPUs, and everything else integrated into the system board. Where do you plug in your RAID cards, NICs and I/O devices? Consumers don’t have those, so professionals have to go to a whole different class of system for that level of functionality. This doesn’t hinder the performance of the consumer CPUs in gaming, so manufacturers can still offer competitive price/performance ratios for consumer systems without eating into the sales of their professional products. And since those features aren’t produced for the mass market, or competing there, the increased price for professional hardware reflects that. Similarly, multi-core CPUs have dramatically decreased the share of users who actually need multi-socket systems.

The GPU Market
Interestingly, this product differentiation has not happened in the GPU market, although it has been attempted. The root piece of silicon in the GeForce 3090 is the same as the one in the A6000 and very similar to the ones in GPU supercomputers. The only thing GPU makers have been able to remove from the consumer products are the twin precision computation units, which aren’t needed to compete for the gaming performance crown. They used to limit 10-bit color to professional GPU drivers but added it to consumer drives a while back to allow support for HDR. So the same GPU for top-end consumer gaming performance is also fully capable of 3D content creation, VR, etc. This leads to professionals being able to save a lot of money by using hardware marketed for gaming.

But CPUs and their accompanying system architectures have developed into separate classes, and while those tiers continue to solidify, there are still some gray areas. Top-end gaming systems can still edit video really well, but they start running into issues with larger frame sizes, which require more system bandwidth, and larger projects, which require more storage connectivity and collaboration — and that requires more networking bandwidth.

Consumer Gaming Platforms and Laptops
Currently, with the announcement of Intel’s Alder Lake line of products, the basic consumer system platform architecture tops out at 16 CPU cores, 128GB dual-channel DDR memory and 20 lanes of PCIe x16 bandwidth (with 16 lanes intended for the GPU and four lanes for NVMe storage). This is where Intel’s Core i3/5/7/9 systems and AMDs Ryzen line of products live. CPUs scale down from there all the way to two or four cores, but they fit in the same sockets, and the rest of the parts are interchangeable.

Laptops have their own series of tiers based on power usage, but they all live within this space as well and are a derivation of this class of computing products. Most desktop gaming users opt for eight cores and 32GB RAM, but the underlying platforms can be expanded beyond that to a point. Those limits increase over time but are becoming more consistent between Intel and AMD. Exceeding any of those limits — more cores, RAM or PCIe expansion — requires stepping up to a whole different class of system.

High-End Desktop Systems
The next step beyond consumer gaming-oriented platforms would be jumping into the HEDT space occupied by Core X or mid-level (2000 series) Xeon W CPUs. This offers Intel users quad-channel memory (up to 512GB of it), 28 to 48 PCIe lanes and up to 18 cores.

AMD’s Threadripper line sits right above that. It has the same memory capabilities, but with 64 PCIe lanes and up to 64 cores. Intel is lagging behind in this segment both due to the Threadripper’s strength and because Intel’s X299 platform hasn’t been updated since 2017. Its lack of PCIe 4.0 support alone could be reason for content creators in this space to favor AMD for the time being. But that doesn’t mean that AMD owns the whole top-level market at the moment.

Top-End, Single-Socket Workstations
Intel’s top-end, single-socket Xeon W 3000 series has no consumer Core equivalent and surpasses the Threadripper CPUs in a number of ways. The previous generation 3200 CPUs were used in the Mac Pro workstations, offering six channels of memory, 64 PCIe lanes and up to 28 cores. The newest-generation 3300 CPUs that were just recently released offer eight channels of memory, 64 lanes of PCIe 4.0 expansion and up to 38 cores. These compete against AMD’s Threadripper Pro chips, which offer similar memory, 128 PCIe lanes and up to 64 cores.

I have tested both top-end, single-socket workstations, and less than 1% of top-end content creators should ever need to look beyond this class of system to the dual-socket workstations. Interestingly, with the exception of Lenovo’s P620 workstation using Threadripper Pro and Apple’s Mac Pro using the previous-generation Xeon W 3200 series CPUs, none of the larger players in the workstation space (Dell, HP, Lenovo) have released any products based on these high-performance platforms. My only idea as to why that would be is that they don’t want to eat into sales of their more expensive dual-socket systems. Or maybe they are waiting for something very specific that has yet to be released.

Multi-Socket Systems
Intel offers multi-socket systems based on its Xeon scalable performance processors, and AMD has the Epyc line of processors, but these are becoming more and more server-focused via further product differentiation. Servers are usually processing tasks for many different users independently of each other. This lends itself to spreading out across more parallel architectures, while workstation users usually want to focus all of their computing power on finishing the task at hand as quickly as possible. Interestingly, Intel released its next-generation Ice Lake line of Xeons in April, but none of the major workstation vendors (Dell, HP, Lenovo) have updated their product lines to offer these products. Smaller vendors are marketing workstations based on these products, so the technology is there.

My only potential explanation is that multi-core processors have eaten heavily into the market for multi-socket computers. Personally, even though five of the six desktops I have personally purchased in my lifetime were dual-socket systems, I will probably never again need to set up another dual-socket workstation. My personal needs can probably be met currently by a top-end consumer platform system. Editing workstations that I set up for my clients will usually fall in the Xeon W and Threadripper class of systems, as they need more PCIe lanes for peripherals and storage than a consumer system offers. But few users in the media and entertainment space will need more capability than a top-end, single-socket workstation can expand to.

Mobile Workstations
While there have been very few developments in the desktop workstation market from major players in the past four years, there have been countless new variations of mobile workstations, or high-end laptops. These all reside in that first performance tier, similar to consumer systems, but for people who don’t need more than eight cores and 64GB of RAM, they are very viable options. From my perspective, the work-from-home trend has had an interesting effect on this dynamic. While some would see this increasing the demand for laptops, I think that, barring outside interference, working from home should lend itself more to fixed desktop systems, as you are no longer bouncing between home and the office. You are also probably traveling less. You aren’t even going down the hall into a conference room. You are doing everything while seated at your desk at home, so a laptop is of less benefit than it would be in a more traditional work environment. And adding some extra, larger displays should be helpful for placing meeting participants on one screen while still using your desktop apps on another.

That said, there are still lots of cases where a portable system is of value, and they are becoming much more capable, which puts further pressure on the lower end of the desktop workstation market. As long as you can connect displays and other needed peripherals to it, mobile workstations can probably meet the needs of a slim majority of the market of media and entertainment users. What about the rest of us? Well, we need a higher-performance system, so the question becomes, how high up the scale should we be looking?

Finding the Right System
Determining the best system for your needs is not as simple as it used to be since there is a much greater variety of options. It used to be as simple as the rule for GPUs is today: “Buy the fastest one you can reasonably afford.” But now you need to consider what reasons you might have for needing to exceed the capabilities of a consumer system. And if you have relatively simple processing tasks, a consumer system will outperform a workstation that is 10 times the price due to higher system frequency and lack of wasted parallel processing capability.

If you don’t need more than 32GB RAM, adding 2TB isn’t going to get your work done any faster. If you don’t need other PCIe cards, having a bunch of extra slots is of no use to you. (Although everyone could probably always use more storage. Clutter will grow to the size of the area available.) So tailoring your system to your specific computing needs can save you a lot of money at very little cost in real-world performance.

Basically, assume you need a Core i7 or Ryzen system unless you need more cores, more memory or more PCIe slots. How much more will determine how far up the scale you need to go. But the scale goes a lot higher than it used to, and going up the scale beyond what you need can be a big waste. So do a little research before you just order the fastest system you can afford because it is not that simple anymore.

Mike McCarthy is a technology consultant with extensive experience in the film post production. He started posting technology info and analysis at HD4PC in 2007. He broadened his focus with TechWithMikeFirst 10 years later.