There are few things more frustrating than trying to complete a task on a computer that barely has the necessary system requirements. If your organization has to perform any type of video editing, image analysis and modification, audio processing, or other content creation-focused tasks, you almost certainly know the difficulties that this can cause.
These types of activities require a powerful system in order to operate without constant caching, heavy usage of virtual memory, and other common problems. Even if your team is using a modern computer, they are almost certainly going to be wasting a lot of time waiting for their systems to catch up with the needed processing.
While you can purchase top-tier systems that use the most advanced servers for this type of work, it will be extremely expensive and will often include a variety of specs and features that you don’t actually need. Finding a content creation server that is designed with this type of work in mind will help to ensure you are getting the performance you need without wasting money on unnecessary features.
Important Specs for Content Creation Servers
Whenever shopping for a new server, or even a new PC, you will need to look over what type of hardware specs each option offers. Depending on what the system will be used for, you will want to focus on upgrading different system specs to different levels.
The easiest example of this is when shopping for a PC that will be used for gaming. In this situation, you will want to make sure you are getting a premium graphics card, and plenty of RAM. Upgrading those components will give you a great return on your investment. You do not, however, need to worry about upgrading to the latest and most powerful CPU since games generally don’t put a lot of stress on that component.
If you are building a content creation server, you will want to have a good understanding of each of the following hardware specs and know where to spend the extra money on an upgrade:
- CPU – Unlike gaming systems, content creation servers will need advanced CPUs to complete complex processing tasks. The minimum CPU requirements for a program like Adobe Premier Pro, for example, are going to be close to the top end of what a PC can offer. In addition, optimizing your CPU with additional cores will really help to eliminate delays even on the most complex jobs.
- RAM – When looking at RAM, you will want to make sure that the speed of the RAM is optimized more than just the total amount. Of course, if you are going to be editing large videos files, you do want to make sure the amount of RAM available can handle it.
- Storage – This is another area where speed is going to be more important than total amount available. As long as your storage drive can hold all the files needed during editing, the capacity will be sufficient. At a minimum, however, you need to make sure you are using enterprise grade solid state drives to get the results you are looking for.
- GPU – Whether you are editing images, audio, or full videos, you will need the dedicated processing power that is only possible with a high-end GPU. This is not only important for burning through massive computation requirements, but will also give you the best experience possible when viewing the end results of your work.
- Power Supply – The fact that your system will have advanced CPUs and GPUs means that it will draw a lot of power. In addition, it will have frequent and sudden heavy draws. This means you need to make sure that you have at least a gold or platinum rated power supply to keep up with this demand.
Content Creation Server Features
In addition to the core hardware specs, you also want to make sure that you have other features on your server. For example, whenever working on image or video processing, you will likely want to have multiple monitors. If you will be working directly off of the server, you will need to make sure you have enough video ports available.
It is more common to use the server to handle the processing and just access it from advanced PCs that are used by the team. If this is the case, you will want to make sure that the server has the right network ports and data transfer capacity to meet the needs. It takes a lot of bandwidth to transfer large video files, so making sure your server features the right network cards will be important.
Consider a Prebuilt Content Creation Server
Building your own content creation server is an effective way to make sure that you are getting the performance you need without paying more than is needed. For many companies, however, purchasing a prebuilt server is going to be a great option as long as it has the required specs and features. Going this route allows you to work with a trusted brand, such as Supermicro, to get a powerful server that is ready to go as soon as it arrives at your facility. This option also gives your organization the benefit of a full warranty so you can be confident that your content creation server will run smoothly long into the future.
Meeting Your Content Creation Needs
Investing in the right hardware to handle your content creation processing will help to give you the results you need. Whether your business performs this type of advanced content editing and modification work as a service, or you need it performed only for internal tasks, having the right system in place will help to maximize productivity and effectiveness. In addition, purchasing a system that is designed for this type of work will ensure that is able to continue to run effectively for years to come.
