Computer for video editing

[beginner99]

What do you need for that?
assuming it's for simple home-use stuff.

CPU or GPU power or both?
Or is something like a radeon 5750 enough?

Does it depend on the editing software?

meaning some only support NV (=cuda).
Which parts are actually gpu accelerated?
Amount of RAM?
I video editing software multi-threaded?

Is a phenom II X6 plus radeon 5750 a good idea?

 

[Blain]

What do you need for that?
assuming it's for simple home-use stuff.

* 64-bit OS prefered
* Plenty of memory
* Quad core processor
* Nice fast HD's
* GPU isn't as important, unless your specific program can take advantage of the GPU to carry some of the editing work

 

[tweakboy]

Agreed, nice one Blain. 🙂 so this guy is fixed up now. wow A+

 

[tweakboy]

pick u your shirts yesterday you gotta be there 6am lol

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

What NLE (non linear editor) will you be using?
Will you be trans-coding the files before you add them to a sequence?

 

[beginner99]

What NLE (non linear editor) will you be using?
Will you be trans-coding the files before you add them to a sequence?

It's for my dad. Only for editing typical home movies.

Editor will also need to be bought, but it sure will be a consumer one and not premiere pro, eg 100-200 $ range.

About the transcoding. Do you mean if he will edit in raw format or something like h.264?
I would say transcode first but I'm not sure.

I'm looking for some kind of sweet spot. Won't be the main use of the pc but it should at least perfom decently.

Would you say it benefits from an pII x6 compared to like a i5 750?
(they are priced identically at the place where i would buy)
Or go with the intel one (faster single-threaded and less energy).

 

[Blain]

I'm looking for some kind of sweet spot. Won't be the main use of the pc but it should at least perfom decently.

Would you say it benefits from an pII x6 compared to like a i5 750?
(they are priced identically at the place where i would buy)
Or go with the intel one (faster single-threaded and less energy).

I like to check TechReport to get an idea of how CPU's, GPU's and HD's stack up against one another. It gives you a good frame of reference.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

With those two options I'm not totally sure what would be faster but I do know as a general rule of thumb, the more cores the better.

Transcode - for example: CS4 Premiere Pro will edit MTS files natively so there doesn't need to be any trans-coding before I edit the files in a time-line.

I/O is a big factor in performance as well. (hard drive setups)
Example of scratch disk setup A model for scratch disk setup

Funny, I was about to upgrade to CS5 and sell off my CS4 for ~ 300$. Windows Movie Maker is a nice little app to start off with and it's free. That's what brought me to Adobe Premiere Pro. I would just suggest to him to try that first. It has alot of neet tools and the learning curve isn't so "bad".

 

[beginner99]

I like to check TechReport to get an idea of how CPU's, GPU's and HD's stack up against one another. It gives you a good frame of reference.

I also had a look at the anandtech review of the phenom x6. Basically they prefrom pretty much the same with a slight advantge for the x6 in certain heavy thread apps. But conserding you have 2 cores more, the advantage is not realy impressing at all.

Since the pc will more often be used for standard browsing and office tasks, i strongly tend to an i5 (better single threaded ad less power).
Overall system cost will be the same. No real platform advantage for intel or amd.

And if I'm honest an i3 530 would be probaly enough too. (save 100$ on the cpu + another 60$ because no cheap gpu needed or take 8 gb of ram instead of 4).


About i/o:
So you would suggest to use 2 smaller drives in raid 0 over 1 big drive?
( 2x 1TB instead on 1x 2TB)
Is the typical mainboard-raid suitable for this? never used it myself.

I'm also trying to convince him to use an ssd as os drive, but he is very conservative in this aspect. 😉

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I suggest you try 1 drive at first then if it's too slow, get another and run them in RAID-0. The Samsung F3 1TB drives are on sale today (last day) for 69$ at New Egg. They are normally 89$ They are really fast drives. If that is too much, go with the 1/2 TB drives for 54$ both come as Free Shipping. Link