PC for video editing - bewildered by spec
Discussion
The family desktop is dying, and has been mostly superceded by a laptop anyway but that struggles with video editing. A quick read around suggests a minimum 16gb RAM and six core processor is needed for video editing. Ideally we want 1TB memory too.
I'd normally just use the Dell outlet but there's nothing particularly suitable (assuming my spec research^^^ is right) at the moment. And then I found this: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pc...
Which seems like the right spec and also decent value, which makes me think I'm missing something.
Grateful for any advice really!
I'm also wondering whether building something might be better, but I've only ever pulled out a harddrive that was knackered to retrieve the data.
I'd normally just use the Dell outlet but there's nothing particularly suitable (assuming my spec research^^^ is right) at the moment. And then I found this: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pc...
Which seems like the right spec and also decent value, which makes me think I'm missing something.
Grateful for any advice really!
I'm also wondering whether building something might be better, but I've only ever pulled out a harddrive that was knackered to retrieve the data.
It's a mid to low end GPU with integrated graphics and very little cooling potential - not really a video editing workhouse by any stretch of the imagination.
I don't know how serious the level of video editing you're aiming for, but you'll still probably get more for your money from the Dell/HP outlets that you will from CPCW.
But if you add a discrete GPU and faster processor you'll probably be looking at £900-1000.
I don't know how serious the level of video editing you're aiming for, but you'll still probably get more for your money from the Dell/HP outlets that you will from CPCW.
But if you add a discrete GPU and faster processor you'll probably be looking at £900-1000.
Bikerjon said:
Mac mini?
I'm a Mac fan, but even I won't buy into the new silicon until the initial batch/version has been properly beta tested by thousands of testers (read customers).Have a read about the issues they're starting to see on SSD TBW rates - seems some are finding their SSD life is 30% down after only 3 months (mainly those with the smallest/cheapest config, but not heavy users).
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-m1-mac-write-iss...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/23/questio...
Edited by mmm-five on Tuesday 2nd March 15:04
Bill said:
It's an Intel® Core™ i7-7500U (2 Core, 4MB Cache, up to 3.5 GHz,15W) and 16mb RAM, plus AMD Radeon R7 video card.
It's my wife that uses it so no idea if software but I suspect it's just the photos app it came with.
The machine you linked will beat it like a red headed step child then - you'll be going from 2 x 2.7-3.5GHz cores to 6 x 2.9-4.3GHz CPUs plus better cooling so you're more likely to get more of the clock speed actually available.It's my wife that uses it so no idea if software but I suspect it's just the photos app it came with.
What I have no idea of though is how well the built in Windows 10 video editing app will scale across across those extra CPU cores.
It might be helpful to know what video editing package you will be using. Some 'prefer' multi threads, others RAM.
There are Facebook/Forums dedicated to specific software and they can give specific advice.
I use Cyberlink, and I've found the Facebook page, Power Director Users, to be extremely helpful and, more to the point, dependable.
There are Facebook/Forums dedicated to specific software and they can give specific advice.
I use Cyberlink, and I've found the Facebook page, Power Director Users, to be extremely helpful and, more to the point, dependable.
Thanks Derek, I'm struggling to find any groups. It may be so basic there's not much scope for messing with it, or it's just not well known.
I've had more of a look for PCs and I'm struggling unless (as someone said) I'm looking at about £1k, and even then there's plenty with small hard drives or no video card.
I also looked at laptops in the Dell Outlet and found this
ETA it does seem a lot of cash for knocking up some holiday videos!
I've had more of a look for PCs and I'm struggling unless (as someone said) I'm looking at about £1k, and even then there's plenty with small hard drives or no video card.
I also looked at laptops in the Dell Outlet and found this
ETA it does seem a lot of cash for knocking up some holiday videos!
Although I built my own desktop, I'm not one to answer with regards spec. I merely went for the best I could afford. Basic spec that the software companies suggest are generally basic minimum and only just. They don't want to put off purchasers.
A computer aimed, even if rather generally, at gaming will probably be useable with high-demand software such as video editing, and pretty sharp with photo-editing. Vector graphics can test your setup, but there are always work-arounds.
I used a free video package, just to try, and despite my computer singing along with Cyberlink Power Director, it struggled with the free Resolve. The probelm was the Power Director put high demand on the processor, but Resolve is GPU hungry. I was going to upgrade my GPU this year, but not with current prices.
If you're doing a fair bit of video, then 1TB will struggle. I'd suggest an external HDD. I've got two 6TB externals as I do a lot of video, images and, since lockdown, 3D modelling (it's immersive, and tremendous fun).
The Dell seems fine to me. Renders might be slow, depending, but with my recently replaced AMD3 computer, I used to leave it overnight. It'd chug away happily.
As always, if it's the best you can afford, it's the best one for you. Computers are like sports cars. You get something that's more powerful than you are used to but after a year or so, you start looking at tuning gear. Neither cars nor computers are ever powerful enough.
Best of luck. When I started video editing, it all seemed a bit of an effort. After a while, it begins to take over your life, and hours go by fiddling with an intro, or split screen effect. I'm certain my kids groan when I send then USB sticks with video of their kids. Tough on them.
A computer aimed, even if rather generally, at gaming will probably be useable with high-demand software such as video editing, and pretty sharp with photo-editing. Vector graphics can test your setup, but there are always work-arounds.
I used a free video package, just to try, and despite my computer singing along with Cyberlink Power Director, it struggled with the free Resolve. The probelm was the Power Director put high demand on the processor, but Resolve is GPU hungry. I was going to upgrade my GPU this year, but not with current prices.
If you're doing a fair bit of video, then 1TB will struggle. I'd suggest an external HDD. I've got two 6TB externals as I do a lot of video, images and, since lockdown, 3D modelling (it's immersive, and tremendous fun).
The Dell seems fine to me. Renders might be slow, depending, but with my recently replaced AMD3 computer, I used to leave it overnight. It'd chug away happily.
As always, if it's the best you can afford, it's the best one for you. Computers are like sports cars. You get something that's more powerful than you are used to but after a year or so, you start looking at tuning gear. Neither cars nor computers are ever powerful enough.
Best of luck. When I started video editing, it all seemed a bit of an effort. After a while, it begins to take over your life, and hours go by fiddling with an intro, or split screen effect. I'm certain my kids groan when I send then USB sticks with video of their kids. Tough on them.
As mentioned by Derek which software package you use could determine the bottlenecks of any PC spec. So if you are unsure a good all rounder would be best. First thing is to set a budget - though for something that will be a pleasure to use will be in the £1k range (and at the moment with the GPU shortage you will be looking at pre-builds).
So I would aim for a pre-build with a half decent GPU (RTX2060 or above - whilst I am loath to recommend nVidia after some of their behaviour NVENC is a useful feature - if the software you have can use it). The easiest things to add to a desktop PC are extra Harddrives followed by memory so I wouldn't get too hung up of getting the largest and fastest drives included with the pre-build.
What I would aim for is a fairly new 6 core 12 thread CPU (or above), 32 GB of fairly fast RAM (2933 or above) - though this could be added later, an nVidia 2060 or above, an NVMe SSD for the OS (at least 128GB), a second NVMe SSD as your "scratch drive" (at least 1TB) for work in progress (this can be mounted on a PCIe card so not essential to have a second NVMe slot on the motherboard), a normal SSD (1TB or larger) for recent mainly completed works and a large 4-6TB HDD for completed work - then comes the fun of backups
There were a couple of XPS machines that fit the above on Dell outlet (though they are uglier than my XPS of 2012) at around the £1k mark and should be nice enough to use - of course the next issue will be your monitor.
You could scrap all that and get a laptop - if so aim for one with an AMD 4500 CPU (or above) and nVidia GPU for best performance.
So I would aim for a pre-build with a half decent GPU (RTX2060 or above - whilst I am loath to recommend nVidia after some of their behaviour NVENC is a useful feature - if the software you have can use it). The easiest things to add to a desktop PC are extra Harddrives followed by memory so I wouldn't get too hung up of getting the largest and fastest drives included with the pre-build.
What I would aim for is a fairly new 6 core 12 thread CPU (or above), 32 GB of fairly fast RAM (2933 or above) - though this could be added later, an nVidia 2060 or above, an NVMe SSD for the OS (at least 128GB), a second NVMe SSD as your "scratch drive" (at least 1TB) for work in progress (this can be mounted on a PCIe card so not essential to have a second NVMe slot on the motherboard), a normal SSD (1TB or larger) for recent mainly completed works and a large 4-6TB HDD for completed work - then comes the fun of backups
There were a couple of XPS machines that fit the above on Dell outlet (though they are uglier than my XPS of 2012) at around the £1k mark and should be nice enough to use - of course the next issue will be your monitor.
You could scrap all that and get a laptop - if so aim for one with an AMD 4500 CPU (or above) and nVidia GPU for best performance.
Jinx said:
As mentioned by Derek which software package you use could determine the bottlenecks of any PC spec. So if you are unsure a good all rounder would be best. First thing is to set a budget - though for something that will be a pleasure to use will be in the £1k range (and at the moment with the GPU shortage you will be looking at pre-builds).
So I would aim for a pre-build with a half decent GPU (RTX2060 or above - whilst I am loath to recommend nVidia after some of their behaviour NVENC is a useful feature - if the software you have can use it). The easiest things to add to a desktop PC are extra Harddrives followed by memory so I wouldn't get too hung up of getting the largest and fastest drives included with the pre-build.
What I would aim for is a fairly new 6 core 12 thread CPU (or above), 32 GB of fairly fast RAM (2933 or above) - though this could be added later, an nVidia 2060 or above, an NVMe SSD for the OS (at least 128GB), a second NVMe SSD as your "scratch drive" (at least 1TB) for work in progress (this can be mounted on a PCIe card so not essential to have a second NVMe slot on the motherboard), a normal SSD (1TB or larger) for recent mainly completed works and a large 4-6TB HDD for completed work - then comes the fun of backups
There were a couple of XPS machines that fit the above on Dell outlet (though they are uglier than my XPS of 2012) at around the £1k mark and should be nice enough to use - of course the next issue will be your monitor.
You could scrap all that and get a laptop - if so aim for one with an AMD 4500 CPU (or above) and nVidia GPU for best performance.
What he said. So I would aim for a pre-build with a half decent GPU (RTX2060 or above - whilst I am loath to recommend nVidia after some of their behaviour NVENC is a useful feature - if the software you have can use it). The easiest things to add to a desktop PC are extra Harddrives followed by memory so I wouldn't get too hung up of getting the largest and fastest drives included with the pre-build.
What I would aim for is a fairly new 6 core 12 thread CPU (or above), 32 GB of fairly fast RAM (2933 or above) - though this could be added later, an nVidia 2060 or above, an NVMe SSD for the OS (at least 128GB), a second NVMe SSD as your "scratch drive" (at least 1TB) for work in progress (this can be mounted on a PCIe card so not essential to have a second NVMe slot on the motherboard), a normal SSD (1TB or larger) for recent mainly completed works and a large 4-6TB HDD for completed work - then comes the fun of backups
There were a couple of XPS machines that fit the above on Dell outlet (though they are uglier than my XPS of 2012) at around the £1k mark and should be nice enough to use - of course the next issue will be your monitor.
You could scrap all that and get a laptop - if so aim for one with an AMD 4500 CPU (or above) and nVidia GPU for best performance.
Isn't NVENC not so hot on image quality vs bitrate? Yes it encodes fast. But it's not going to fix the viewport.
For fast editing you want RAM and SSD.
For example. Have a slow HDD to hold projects/backups. Then run active projects off the SSD (copy across from HDD, then copy back when finished)
For 4k footage I'd go with at least 16gb, but 32gb could be useful as it'll hold more raw data. Ie, the encoded files off the GoPro will be compressed, but they have to be decoded to be easily edited. Ie, you can't just load frame 1234, you have to load 1225 as a keyframe for example, and then 1226, then 1227, up to 1234. They are then stored as raw frames in memory. As you work all over the timeline they'll take up more and more space. Eventually they'll go on the SSD, or HDD, and it'll be slow. Having more ram means this will be a faster process. 4k footage is pretty heavy, even if the encoded video is quite small in size.
I'm not sure if a GPU is helpful except when doing CUDA rendering. Viewport work is still all ram and cpu and storage access speed isn't it?
Anyway, £1000 should be plenty, but you'll need to do the spend really right for specific purpose at that level so definitely figure out the software that is best for 4k gopro type work, and then set the hardware up around that.
For fast editing you want RAM and SSD.
For example. Have a slow HDD to hold projects/backups. Then run active projects off the SSD (copy across from HDD, then copy back when finished)
For 4k footage I'd go with at least 16gb, but 32gb could be useful as it'll hold more raw data. Ie, the encoded files off the GoPro will be compressed, but they have to be decoded to be easily edited. Ie, you can't just load frame 1234, you have to load 1225 as a keyframe for example, and then 1226, then 1227, up to 1234. They are then stored as raw frames in memory. As you work all over the timeline they'll take up more and more space. Eventually they'll go on the SSD, or HDD, and it'll be slow. Having more ram means this will be a faster process. 4k footage is pretty heavy, even if the encoded video is quite small in size.
I'm not sure if a GPU is helpful except when doing CUDA rendering. Viewport work is still all ram and cpu and storage access speed isn't it?
Anyway, £1000 should be plenty, but you'll need to do the spend really right for specific purpose at that level so definitely figure out the software that is best for 4k gopro type work, and then set the hardware up around that.
Mr Whippy said:
Isn't NVENC not so hot on image quality vs bitrate? Yes it encodes fast. But it's not going to fix the viewport.
For fast editing you want RAM and SSD.
For example. Have a slow HDD to hold projects/backups. Then run active projects off the SSD (copy across from HDD, then copy back when finished)
For 4k footage I'd go with at least 16gb, but 32gb could be useful as it'll hold more raw data. Ie, the encoded files off the GoPro will be compressed, but they have to be decoded to be easily edited. Ie, you can't just load frame 1234, you have to load 1225 as a keyframe for example, and then 1226, then 1227, up to 1234. They are then stored as raw frames in memory. As you work all over the timeline they'll take up more and more space. Eventually they'll go on the SSD, or HDD, and it'll be slow. Having more ram means this will be a faster process. 4k footage is pretty heavy, even if the encoded video is quite small in size.
I'm not sure if a GPU is helpful except when doing CUDA rendering. Viewport work is still all ram and cpu and storage access speed isn't it?
Anyway, £1000 should be plenty, but you'll need to do the spend really right for specific purpose at that level so definitely figure out the software that is best for 4k gopro type work, and then set the hardware up around that.
Use of NVENC is always a choice (time saved versus quality) but given the number of applications now supporting it (including Premier Pro) I tend to recommend getting a GPU that supports it. For fast editing you want RAM and SSD.
For example. Have a slow HDD to hold projects/backups. Then run active projects off the SSD (copy across from HDD, then copy back when finished)
For 4k footage I'd go with at least 16gb, but 32gb could be useful as it'll hold more raw data. Ie, the encoded files off the GoPro will be compressed, but they have to be decoded to be easily edited. Ie, you can't just load frame 1234, you have to load 1225 as a keyframe for example, and then 1226, then 1227, up to 1234. They are then stored as raw frames in memory. As you work all over the timeline they'll take up more and more space. Eventually they'll go on the SSD, or HDD, and it'll be slow. Having more ram means this will be a faster process. 4k footage is pretty heavy, even if the encoded video is quite small in size.
I'm not sure if a GPU is helpful except when doing CUDA rendering. Viewport work is still all ram and cpu and storage access speed isn't it?
Anyway, £1000 should be plenty, but you'll need to do the spend really right for specific purpose at that level so definitely figure out the software that is best for 4k gopro type work, and then set the hardware up around that.
Indeed.
But isn’t it also for final rendering?
Viewport might be gfx hardware accelerated but that’d be CUDA or similar.
I’m not sure if CUDA even accelerates video editing work like that, more for effects isn’t it?
GPU is guaranteed to give faster final rendering to a quality that might not be sufficient for needs.
At this budget it’s definitely key to focus really finely on need.
Ie. I’d go with more cpu over gpu because gpu is very specific benefits.
If you don’t need any of them you’ll get more value from a cpu.
But isn’t it also for final rendering?
Viewport might be gfx hardware accelerated but that’d be CUDA or similar.
I’m not sure if CUDA even accelerates video editing work like that, more for effects isn’t it?
GPU is guaranteed to give faster final rendering to a quality that might not be sufficient for needs.
At this budget it’s definitely key to focus really finely on need.
Ie. I’d go with more cpu over gpu because gpu is very specific benefits.
If you don’t need any of them you’ll get more value from a cpu.
Agreed.
But if you end up using the PC for more than just the one use-case a decent GPU will mean you can at least fire up Cyber Punk 2077 for a little down-time fun.
My home PC is mainly specc'd for database work (as many cores as I could afford at the time, plenty of memory, PCIe lanes, 2 NVME drives, 4 SSDs and 2 large HDDs) with a decent GPU (well was at the time) it also handles video encoding and gaming (get fairly decent rates on Microsoft Flight simulator 2020).
But if you end up using the PC for more than just the one use-case a decent GPU will mean you can at least fire up Cyber Punk 2077 for a little down-time fun.
My home PC is mainly specc'd for database work (as many cores as I could afford at the time, plenty of memory, PCIe lanes, 2 NVME drives, 4 SSDs and 2 large HDDs) with a decent GPU (well was at the time) it also handles video encoding and gaming (get fairly decent rates on Microsoft Flight simulator 2020).
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