Decent cheap PC for video editing?

[Rekreant]

Their bloatware is a problem. I immediately format the HD/SSD and install plain Windows. Very easy to do.

As far as expandability goes I've rarely upgraded PCs. I buy what I want, use it for 5+ years and then move onto something new. Even PC builders I know pretty much start from scratch when they build their next computer. Not much in PCs is worth a shit after a few years.

Above I mentioned HD and SSDs. These days I wouldn't get a PC without an SSD or I'd immediately upgrade it. SSDs add a lot of speed and most people don't realize that.

Yeah SSDs are a world of difference better than an old style HDD. I have one in my Amazon pc parts list that is 1tb for only 179$!!! Heres the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077SF8KM...olid=1TFBDG9X8TOVR&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

dangit, it went up 10 dollars since I added it.

 

[Jim85IROC]

that base newegg model you listed would be fine if you added at least another 8gb of ram and a good graphics card. Also bare in mind that uses Optane memory, which is the most expensive memory on the market right now.


Also Dell is trash, you WILL regret it if you buy one.

It looks like it's got 8GB of normal DDR4 plus 16 of that Optane stuff. That Optane is supposed to kind of similate an SSD if I understand correctly. Between that and the 8400 i5, it seems like a decent PC.

I'm not trying to produce a movie or 3D render the space shuttle, I'm just trying to find sometging cheap that's a solid upgrade from my almost decade old laptop.

 

[Rekreant]

It looks like it's got 8GB of normal DDR4 plus 16 of that Optane stuff. That Optane is supposed to kind of similate an SSD if I understand correctly. Between that and the 8400 i5, it seems like a decent PC.

I'm not trying to produce a movie or 3D render the space shuttle, I'm just trying to find sometging cheap that's a solid upgrade from my almost decade old laptop.

Ive watched some vids on the optane stuff and if you have that +normal memory you should be ok. You can save up and get a better graphics card later down the line. heres the thing. Ive seen some of your videos from a long time ago, have you upped the production levels at all? Like are you adding pre renders, audio clips, overlays and the like? If you arent than you would definitely be ok with the setup you listed. If you want to do more of that stuff and want fast scrubbing you will want to add a 1060-1070 range nvidia at least.

 

[STANG KILLA SS]

If you are editing video I disagree on the ram part. Right now my windows 10 install uses 5gb of ram just to run windows. If you are editing an hr long 1080p video, you will easily be able to go up towards the 9-12 range. If I play a triple A game, say Fallout 4, I hit 9gb.

ahh there our difference. ALL my machines run windows 7 on purpose. much less ram intensive and none of the win 10 BS updates that F everything up.

Jim grab one of those $500 ibuypower or cyber power machines, read the suggestions, and you will be super happy with performance.

remember computer builders, will always push you to the better stuff. but that stuff costs money. ie my current gaming PC was $1500 in parts.
you dont need that. you just want something that doesnt crash. and faster than what ya go. they key to computers is knowing where to draw the line.

i sim raced on the machine above for 18" months, and still use the computer today for video editing for over 3 years. never had a performance or reliability issue.
i did have the power supply go out in it. but i leave it on 24 hours a day for 3 years. so it lived its duty cycle. picke up a twin on ebay super cheap and plug and play back in business

 

[tuanies]

ahh there our difference. ALL my machines run windows 7 on purpose. much less ram intensive and none of the win 10 BS updates that F everything up.

Windows 10 is the same if not better at RAM usage than Windows 7. Neither are RAM intensive and run fine on older hardware. As for updates screwing everything up? I've been running this desktop since 2015 on Windows 10 without any issues with updates or a single format. Same goes for my Dell XPS 13 laptop.

 

[Jim85IROC]

Ive watched some vids on the optane stuff and if you have that +normal memory you should be ok. You can save up and get a better graphics card later down the line. heres the thing. Ive seen some of your videos from a long time ago, have you upped the production levels at all? Like are you adding pre renders, audio clips, overlays and the like? If you arent than you would definitely be ok with the setup you listed. If you want to do more of that stuff and want fast scrubbing you will want to add a 1060-1070 range nvidia at least.

My video production has gotten slightly more advanced than the early videos, but not much. Everything is pretty much just 1 video channel and 2 audio channels, though sometimes I'll add a 2nd video channel and audio channel pair so that I can work in b-roll footage. Down the road I may get more advanced, but it's not real likely. I don't really enjoy the editing phase, and generally want it done as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the info guys. I'll look into cyberpower and ibuypower and see how they compare to that Acer I linked to above.

Here's one more question: What's going to be better for my video production & 3D cad, the newest hottest i5 or an older i7? A lot of the similarly priced PCs I'm seeing seem to run older i7s, but I don't know how those compare to the new i5 like the 8400.

 

[tuanies]

Here's one more question: What's going to be better for my video production & 3D cad, the newest hottest i5 or an older i7? A lot of the similarly priced PCs I'm seeing seem to run older i7s, but I don't know how those compare to the new i5 like the 8400.

It's like a 5% performance difference generation-to-generation. What's the price difference? Also, check out AMD Ryzen-based systems - its a great bang-for-the-**** in terms of processing power.

 

[STANG KILLA SS]

yeah youll never see a differnce in the two. go with whats cheaper.

i would not recommend the Acer with its onboard graphics.

 

[Rekreant]

ahh there our difference. ALL my machines run windows 7 on purpose. much less ram intensive and none of the win 10 BS updates that F everything up.

Jim grab one of those $500 ibuypower or cyber power machines, read the suggestions, and you will be super happy with performance.

remember computer builders, will always push you to the better stuff. but that stuff costs money. ie my current gaming PC was $1500 in parts.
you dont need that. you just want something that doesnt crash. and faster than what ya go. they key to computers is knowing where to draw the line.

i sim raced on the machine above for 18" months, and still use the computer today for video editing for over 3 years. never had a performance or reliability issue.
i did have the power supply go out in it. but i leave it on 24 hours a day for 3 years. so it lived its duty cycle. picke up a twin on ebay super cheap and plug and play back in business

I would prefer to run windows 7, but they incorporated FORCED windows update to 10 on me after I had the service shut down and blocked, and I stupidly didnt keep a 7 iso on the ready.

 

[Rekreant]

I run an i7 3930k at 5ghz. thats 30ghz total, 6 cores, and really unless you are editing high end 4k stuff you wont notice it in anything else. Im an enthusiast, just like people that buy VS-10s I buy stupid expensive pc parts lol.

 

[HumboldtEF]

I just wanted to add that usually pre built systems are a bit frowned upon but with crypto mining driving up the price of graphics cards (which is going down finally) some of the pre built systems offer great value just for inclusion of the graphics card alone.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

I just wanted to add that usually pre built systems are a bit frowned upon but with crypto mining driving up the price of graphics cards (which is going down finally) some of the pre built systems offer great value just for inclusion of the graphics card alone.

Now that people are starting to finally realize crypto currency isn't going mainstream graphics cards are in stock again.

I use Windows 7 Pro at work. It's fine and pretty stable. Explorer crashes more than on Windows 10 in my experience though. At home I had Windows 8. I upgraded my home PC to Windows 10 and I don't regret it at all. I love Windows 10 once I learned to schedule automatic updates for early in the morning when I wouldn't be using it. The built in screen shot and video capture is great for recording games. Other than that it's fast, fluid, stable, and makes great use of the memory available. Speaking of RAM you can never have too much IMO. As Windows and other programs mature they get updates that consume more RAM as the time rolls along.

 

[HumboldtEF]

Now that people are starting to finally realize crypto currency isn't going mainstream graphics cards are in stock again.

I had this weird thought yesterday when I saw a 1080 in stock and on sale (still too high though) and I thought to myself 'maybe I should grab that' even though I really dont need it and had no plans to upgrade until the next gen cards are out.

 

[Rekreant]

You might be disappointed to hear that it looks like the "next gen" is just gonna be relabeled 1080s. They just got an order of 300k of them in that they had built in anticipation of miners needing them. As we all know that isnt panning out(pun intended) like they had hoped.

 

[Jim85IROC]

I was talking to my IT buddy last night, and what he recommended was that I put my money into more processor and an SSD drive, at the expense of RAM and other gizmos. The rationale here is that it's a lot cheaper to add RAM later than it is to upgrade the processor, and that in a cheap PC, the SSD is going to help my performance more than pretty much anything else. I think that's good advice.

What he suggested (even though it goes over my $500 budget) is this Dell:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S80S3044&Tpk=9siaa0s80s3044

It seems to tick all the right boxes, and if I find that it's struggling, I can throw more RAM at it later.

 

[tuanies]

I was talking to my IT buddy last night, and what he recommended was that I put my money into more processor and an SSD drive, at the expense of RAM and other gizmos. The rationale here is that it's a lot cheaper to add RAM later than it is to upgrade the processor, and that in a cheap PC, the SSD is going to help my performance more than pretty much anything else. I think that's good advice.

What he suggested (even though it goes over my $500 budget) is this Dell:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S80S3044&Tpk=9siaa0s80s3044

It seems to tick all the right boxes, and if I find that it's struggling, I can throw more RAM at it later.

RAM is really easy to upgrade so he has a point there, but 4GB is bare minimum nowadays. Order a 16GB kit and throw it in there. The integrated graphics are meh, get at least a GTX 1050 Ti or 1060 if you can in there.

This looks like a decent deal too - Dell Official Outlet Refurbished & Overstock Laptops, Desktops & Monitors

Check Slick Deals for Dell Outlet coupon codes too.

 

[tuanies]

You might be disappointed to hear that it looks like the "next gen" is just gonna be relabeled 1080s. They just got an order of 300k of them in that they had built in anticipation of miners needing them. As we all know that isnt panning out(pun intended) like they had hoped.

Even if they relabel Pascal, it'll most likely be on the mid-range side of things. Its not like AMD has put up much of a competition. However, the leaks so far show an NV-Link connector, which means its more likely Volta and not Pascal.

 

[Jim85IROC]

RAM is really easy to upgrade so he has a point there, but 4GB is bare minimum nowadays. Order a 16GB kit and throw it in there. The integrated graphics are meh, get at least a GTX 1050 Ti or 1060 if you can in there.

This looks like a decent deal too - Dell Official Outlet Refurbished & Overstock Laptops, Desktops & Monitors

Check Slick Deals for Dell Outlet coupon codes too.

If I had a grand to spend on the PC, I'd make other choices, but even $600 is well beyond what I wanted to spend. I need to start as cheap as I can with future expandability (if required) in mind. I'll see how it runs with 4GB for now. It's got to be way better than my old PC. If it still sucks, then I'll throw more RAM at it.

 

[tuanies]

If I had a grand to spend on the PC, I'd make other choices, but even $600 is well beyond what I wanted to spend. I need to start as cheap as I can with future expandability (if required) in mind. I'll see how it runs with 4GB for now. It's got to be way better than my old PC. If it still sucks, then I'll throw more RAM at it.

What are the specs of your current PC?

I'm still running a Core i7 5775c with 32GB of RAM and a 980 Ti and it seems fine editing video. Hell, I've used my laptop with a Core i5 5200U to edit quick 360 video clips in Premiere, in a pinch.

 

[Jim85IROC]

What are the specs of your current PC?

I'm still running a Core i7 5775c with 32GB of RAM and a 980 Ti and it seems fine editing video. Hell, I've used my laptop with a Core i5 5200U to edit quick 360 video clips in Premiere, in a pinch.

I don't know. It's been 7-8 years (maybe more?) since I bought it. It's an Asus laptop with what I believe is a 1st or 2nd gen i5, hybrid SSD/platter hard drive and maybe 8Gb of RAM?


Thanks to a bunch of coupon apps that my wife installed, it's also had AIDS for a few years, which slows the crap out of it.