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PC for Video Editing
I am going to build a PC for a friend that wants it STRICTLY for video editing only. I am not exactly sure what he will need though, so I am in need of some opinions.
Will the onboard video be enough?
i5 2500 or i7 2600?
Should he get an SSD?
Would he also need a large storage hard drive?
Is 4 gigs of RAM enough?
Any other tips would be appreciated.
Comments
If im not mistaken, a video editing rig should be build like a good gameing rig. Also, as a i7 owner.. i wouldent go with any other proc
Also a SSD isa small upgrade from a good HD, so its not realy worth grabbing one IMO, atleast not yet
editing this post again, keep forgetin things lol. Video editing will take up alot of space, expecialy if your friend is dealing with feature films. Id so go with a solid 1Tb hd.
A good video card is also probably ideal, you can pick up a 260gtx for about $150 nowadays so its not that bad. Better to get one.
so my suggestion
-1tb hardrive
- x58 MB
- i7 proc
- 4 gigs of ram should be fine, but i would suggest atleast 6, (x58 boards run off ddr3, belive me your friend would thank you if you went that far)
- nvidia 9800 gtx or better, or ati equivalent
cant realy suggest much else, my knowledge of video editing issent exactly vast hope this helps
I don't edit videos but my friend does on a mac. I think the most important thing is RAM and GPU, and of course massive HDD space. The above poster is correct, it should be similar to a gaming rig. I would go with 8GB RAM, but 4 should be fine. If your friend plans to do a lot of editing, definitely get a fast and large harddrive. I don't think SSD is necessary. I also read that everytime you delete on SSD it shortens the life of the drive (not sure if this is true).
I have a few questions, my original suggestions still stand, but is there a budget? is your friend doing this as a hobby? semi-pro? pro?
Does he have a preference to anything?
Does he want a set up that he can upgrade later on?
does he have a good case or other items needed? like a good disk writer, does he plan on editing and burning for blu ray?
any info on what he realy is planning on doing or how much he can spend would help with a suggestion on how it should be built
A lot depends on what he wants to do, and what program(s) he uses. If the video editing program is able to offload computations to the video card, then he'll want a powerful video card that is able to work with the program. If the program he uses really only takes advantage of the processor, then a powerful video card may not matter, though you might want to avoid Intel graphics just to make sure that the edited video will play back properly.
If the video editing program that he uses is able to scale well to many cores, then a Core i7 2600 will be much faster than a Core i5 2500, because of hyperthreading. If it doesn't scale well to many cores, then there won't be much of a difference. Intuitively, I'd expect video editing computations to be highly parallelizable, so a good program should scale well to many cores. But one should never underestimate the ability of software developers to create horribly coded programs--and then market those programs well enough for them to be widely used. See Adobe Flash, for example, or Microsoft's Internet Exploder.
It's likely that heavy-duty video editing would require huge amounts of system memory. But it's not automatic that light video editing would take that much. Find out what he uses, and how much memory he needs.
Presumably your friend has already done some video editing and knows what programs he uses. You could ask him to check how much system memory the program uses, and how well it scales to use many cores. Both of those can be checked in Task Manager.
Get a Mac.
They are designed pretty much for video editing, almost every single professional company in the world who does any sort of video editing, uses a Mac. The first time I saw someone edit a video on a MacBook Slim (or whatever it's called) my mouth literally dropped at the speed they were able to things. It took them minutes to do, what would literally take me hours to do on my machine. Which is quite a bit more powerful than what you listed.
Video Editing, Completely Computer Illiterate, and Hipsters: Mac
Everything else: PC
That highly depends on what software you want to use.
Final Cut? Sure...MAC.
AE, Avid, etc? What Quizzical said.
As far as hardware goes, a Mac is just a PC that costs more and doesn't offer as many options.
But again, it depends on what video editing software the friend uses. If it's something that is Mac-only, then sure, get a Mac. If it's something that is PC-only, then getting a Mac doesn't make sense.
Its quite simple... Fastest CPU you can find whit as many cores as possible , crank up the mem 8gb 16 32 gb.. 64bit software.
NO ssd.. (read write load is huge so you kill your ssd fast) use a old fashion 15k harddrive. he needs 2 drives minimal.. one work drive, one -backup!-
videocard does not realy mather..a mid range is fine. higher cant hurt ofc and there are some programs that can use the GPU but this realy raises the cost prize..
Adobe Premier, used on both the PC and the Mac.
Mac is designed with video editing in mind. The Motorola processor was designed for video editing and I'm not sure exactly why they would switch to Intel architecture, but they must have had some good reasons and wouldn't have switched if it would have jeopardized their market hold on professional video editing.
In any case, I'm not entirely sure why it's faster because I really don't care all that much, but it is much faster and I've seen it first hand. I'm sure the information is out there, though.
Edit:
It also renders faster as well. Not sure why in that case either, but it does and is used in that business as well. I forgot about that. I haven't seen that first hand, but I do know a 3D artist or two, who use Macs in their business. I've been told it can render something in hours that would take a more expensive computer days.
Videocard only doesn't matter IF he isn't planning in any kind of motion design or 3d design.
windows pc = gaming
mac = graphic design, video editing and all design related stuff
linux = all that remains
=D
Again, Mac hardware is just PC hardware. PowerPC is no longer relevant, as Macs don't use that architecture anymore. Apple has switched to x86, and could just as easily use AMD hardware as Intel. They use exactly the same Penryn, Nehalem, and Westmere architecture processors by Intel as older PCs. Literally the same processor: they come off Intel's production lines, Intel bins them as, say, Core i7-860, picks some from that bin at random, and sells them to Apple. The rest of that bin go to into PCs. And yes "older" PCs is relevant: Apple doesn't use Sandy Bridge processors like PCs do, and that's Intel's latest and greatest.
Apple switched to x86 because, with the launch of Conroe, PowerPC performance (and performance per watt, which Apple cares about tremendously) had fallen so far behind as to be embarrassing. If you're going to charge a premium price, it's good to deliver a premium product (which Apple doesn't), or at least a decent one (which Apple does). Apple wouldn't have even been able to do the latter if they had stuck with PowerPC.
It's not just processors, either. You can buy a Mac from Apple, wipe the hard drive, and install Windows on it. Windows will recognize it as a PC, because it's all PC hardware, and run just fine. That's not a terribly sensible thing to do, of course, as if you don't want Mac OS X, you can get the same (or better) hardware cheaper from other sources, with perhaps the exception of the iMac's peculiar (and in my view, thoroughly insensible) form factor.
If you have two different machines with identical hardware and run the same software on both, they should give you the same performance. An Apple logo on one of them won't magically make it run faster. Of course, it might not be the same software on both. But again, it depends on what video editing software is being used.
I'm just amazed that people still believe that MACs are superior machines...i guess propaganda really does work.
they are not superior, but windows is far behind from being superior too, windows propaganda is worst (i use windows and i accept reality)
We're not talking operating systems, we're talking about hardware.
As the years have gone by, I have done several computer support jobs. I spent a few years at my last job, biggest computer repair store in my state, servicing every problem you could think of. To be honest, Mac's would only come in for hardware related issues. So, as much as I hate mac, the OS is sound. You guys seems to forget that a mac is more than hardware, its the operating system that is unique. A mac is a pretty box with an awesome software inside.
ya my wife does a lot of video editing for trailers and ad spots. She also teaches others how to create videos and video editing. I know a lot of people are saying that a mac is just a pc with a mac os. Fact is though, until you've seen how inferior PC video editing software is in both interface and the speed at which it compiles you will think differenty. Ive seen her lose her mind with people shes training on their PC and just give up and compile the same video on her mac in quarter of the time.
as far as saying it depends on what software you use? Theres a lot more available on a mac and I promise you the worst software mac has for video editing is much better than the best software for video editing you can get on a pc. In other words, go with a PC and just be careful of what software you intend to use and prepared for hours of staring at your monitor as it compiles when your not fighting with its crappy interface.
On paper it looks like a PC should be able to handle large video edits easily, but if you're using windows and something like adobe premier (or any adobe product) which runs like crap on a PC vs. a mac you'll begin to understand why it is actually inferior to a mac in that respect. Its definitely do-able, but a mac will work circles around a PC.
at any rate, what people are saying is pretty much spot on. If you're designing a PC for nothing but video editing, focus on ram, processor and hard drive speed. You really dont need much of a GPU do dont go all out on the top of the line GPU. Just make sure it has an HDMI output and you're set.
however, if the main task for this new computer is to edit videos.. you should really buy a mac. *edit* because the other thing a mac can do that a PC cant ..is run windows and mac's OS.
Doesn't the new 2500 and 2600s have some sort of built in hardware video encoding Quick Sync or something?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4113/lucid-enables-quick-sync-with-discrete-graphics-on-sandy-bridge
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
I'm a graphic designer and I use a PC. I wouldn't mind a mac at all, but why waste the money? Mac is not superior to PC. The only advantage to Mac is the colors on screen are supposed to be closer to what they would be if printed (without calibration or minor calibration). If you are not going to be in the printing business I don't think it matters much.
For video editing I think it depends what software you plan to use. Premiere for Windows or Final Cut for Mac. According to my friend who has been editing for years, both have pros and cons. Though, Premiere is availavle for Mac, too.
That comes with Apple monitors often being IPS displays, but if that's really your main priority, then an IPS monitor can be had for quite little money these days. In fact, I can think of two right off hand that cost less than $300:
http://www.amazon.com/NEC-EA231WMi-BK-23-Inch-MultiSync-Widescreen/dp/B002LARVYK/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1295797956&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-VP2365WB-23-Inch-IPS-Monitor/dp/B002R0JJYO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1295797956&sr=1-1
Reviews tend to complain about limited brightness on the Viewsonic model (not bad, just not notably vibrant), but hey, these are sub-$300 1080P IPS displays, with a decent size, no less.
Sorry, but this is flat out nonsense. As someone who works in the film industry, I will tell you that most serious film projects edit on Avid which began as PC/Windows software (can install some versions on Mac now). All the big boys use Avid. Having worked with both Final Cut Pro (largely Mac software) and Avid, I've had far more problems with FCP than Avid, not to mention Avid UI is more intuitive and cleaner. On top of that, Avid interfaces nicely with the industry standard sound editing software Pro Tools.