Spec me a Video Editing build

[sfmk2.]

Hi All,

I used to build my own PC's but we're talking 10-15 years ago; For the last 10 years I've had laptops.

I've recently taken to video editing (4k but always use proxy) and my Dell laptop is totally useless.

Although I love the concept of a laptop I feel that I'd probably get more power out of a desktop.

Please could you lovely bunch give me some advice on what sort of hardware I need (and why)? A LOT has changed since I last had a desktop.

I don't play games (other than oldschool stuff like RTCW and Cossacks).
I watch youtube, edit documents, open 20 tabs on chrome at a time and edit and watch video.

I don't want to spend thousands - I'd say £800 as a ballpark.

I want:
- plenty of processing speed and RAM.
- a speedy graphics card (4k ideal).
- a decent amount of storage (currently got 1tb). Am I better off getting a BIG SSD and storing everything on it, or a small SSD for my OS and a big HDD for storage?
- if possible - a small PC would be great - Micro ATX/cube, but if specs mean I need a tower I'll go for it.

Thanks!

 

[sfmk2.]

Hi,

For that budget and requirement I would recommend a Ryzen 3600 6 core/12 thread processor at minimum, then see what else you can fit, and what the total's looking like, before deciding to splurge a bit on Ryzen 3700X 8 core/16 thread, or not.

A suitable motherboard, decent but keeping costs down compared to X570 boards, would be a MSI B450. These have sturdier VRMs and VRM cooling than others in their category + they also have updated BIOS for Ryzen 3000 chips (and BIOS Flashback in case the Pro Carbon isn't as recent). B450 A-PRO MAX, B450 Tomahawk MAX or B450 Pro Carbon. B450M Mortar MAX if you decided on micro-ATX as you're toying with. Out of the four, because of video editing and how a good storage setup can benefit that, I'd go for the B450 Pro Carbon because it has two M.2 slots for fast NVME drives. You don't want two fast drives right away as it'll eat into the budget for other things. But it'll be handy in future when you can add more storage and use a drive as a scratch disk for the Cache etc of your program, for example.

16GB or 32GB RAM. Maybe better to start off with 16GB as you can easily add another 16GB in future, that way you can squeeze in more processing power and graphics power.

Storage: start off with a single 1TB NVME M.2 SSD, the price per GB is right. And just add more in future.

So something like:


My basket at overclockers uk:

• 1 x MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £119.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £175.00
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C7K)= £71.99
• 1 x Seasonic Focus GM-500 500W 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply= £71.99
• 1 x BitFenix Neos ATX Tower Black/Black Window= £26.99
• 1 x Gigabyte 1TB M.2 PCIe x4 NVMe SSD/Solid State Drive= £98.99
• 1 x Palit GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER StormX 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card *BLACK FRIDAY DEAL*= £199.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99

Total: £808.13 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​

That's in the ballpark. From there you can choose if you want to spend more on Ryzen 3700X and/or 32GB RAM:


My basket at overclockers uk:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £289.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS432G320C6K)= £119.99

​

Thank you VERY much for such a detailed reply!

I had 16gb RAM in mind and had spec'd the 1660 and Ryzen 5 3600 so your list makes me think I was headed in the right direction.

Still not decided whether I want another laptop to be honest, I keep changing my mind! I'd have to up-spec to 16gb RAM if I do go that route and would drop from the 6gb graphics to 4gb.
I don't know what to do!

Thanks again!!

 

[sfmk2.]

@sfmk2. I'm not familiar with that software/software process 'video editing (4k but always use proxy)' but if it's cpu heavy/if it uses a lot of cpu resources/if it makes use of all available cpu threads?, then you'd probably be happier with the 3700x, already mentioned in the post just above, since it'll get stuff done more quickly

Essentially the editing software gives you the option to create a lower quality version of your 4k footage (say 720p or 1080p) which it will then use to edit with (meaning it is much more stable and uses less juice to do so) - when you come to render the final result it'll use the original 4k files to do so.
It's been an absolute MUST on my current laptop, but now the power supply port is faulty everything is running in 'limp' mode and I'm pushing my luck even opening 10 tabs in Chrome!

Thanks for the recommendation of the 3700x!