Video editing suggestions

[soul_man]

I built a high end gaming system about 10-12 years ago and it is due to get replaced

I don't have time to play games very often, but would like to have a system capable of gaming with good graphics.

My main reason to update the system now (likely start buying parts in next week or two) is that I can not render HD video footage (Sony Vegas for family videos and helmet-cam stuff). No huge projects, but I don't want to take hours to render a 10 min video.

Price is not a HUGE issue, in fact I am pleasantly surprised at pricing from my research so far. I recall when I did my last built the good video cards were $6-800, and now it seems you can get really good ones for $2-300. So paying $300 for a video card seems like a relative bargin for me and I wouldn't mind paying a little extra to get more performance and something that won't be outdated as quickly.

It is quite confusing trying to keep up with all the models of motherboards, video cards and processors.

PROCESSOR: I appreciate the sticky indicating no real gaming gains with i7 over i5, but would an i7 be better for video rendering. Would 6/8 cores be significantly faster. I looked at these two i5/i7: ARK | Compare Intel® Products and it seems the main differnce is 8 threads for i7 v. 4 for i5. If that would make a large difference in rendering speed, it may be worth the extra $80 or so
Just looking up "i5" on newegg gives sooooo many options it makes my head spin

Video card (GPU): I looked at these EVGA cards Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more - Newegg.com! and it seems the " GTX 760 with 4GB and 256bit" at $260 is a price I could easily live with, and seems like a good card.
I think I want to stick with NVIDIA as I understand most video software is geared around it.

Motherboard: these really confuse me and I'm open to suggestions as I'm not 100% sure what to look for.

The rest I think I can figure out: good power supply (lean towards Corsair as that has been recommended a lot in here), a SSD plus larger storage drive, I have a good tower with lots of fans/venilation that I will use from my old computer.

 

[PP Mguire]

A serious thank you for actually taking the time to read my sticky. Seriously, I really appreciate it.

As expressed in that sticky, the reason an i7 doesn't make a difference in gaming is because it has HT. Hyper-Threading is simply 4 virtual threads. One virtual thread to each physical core. HT does make a difference in video editing, as it is software designed to take advantage of such a thing. A GPU in this case of Vegas only gets used for hardware accelerated effects. It does not help with render times sadly.

Your best bet honestly is to get a GTX 970 rather than the 760. It's almost 100 dollars more, but seriously way better. It also runs cooler and uses less juice.

What is your overall budget? I can cater a rig to your budget but since you'll likely post when I'm at work I'll just leave this here for you.

Intel Core i7-4790K Haswell Refresh Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor BX80646I74790K - Newegg.com - Newegg.com
ASRock Z97 Extreme6 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
Patriot Viper 3 Low Profile Blue 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PVL38G160C9KB - Newegg.com
ZOTAC ZT-90101-10P GeForce GTX 970 4GB 256-Bit DDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card - Newegg.com
SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com
Corsair Carbide Series 200R Black Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com
Plextor M6e PX-G128M6e M.2 2280 128GB PCI-Express 2.0 x2 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Internal SSDs - Newegg.com
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com

Substituting the Zotac 970 in for a general price. When the eVGA 970 for $329 comes back in stock use that one instead. I also left out an OS in case you might have your own.

 

[soul_man]

When I started reading this forum, I was amazed at how helpful your answers are and that you give very detailed answers to EVERYONE's questions. Thank you very much.

When I built my last system, it cost about $5,000 (that may have included a monitor). I was prepared to spend $3-4000. I'll price your system, but it seems that good systems can be built for a lot less than 10 years ago. ( ETA: sounds like now a days I can get a pretty smoking system for $2,000, so I don't need to ramp my system up to $3-4K if $2K will give me good performance)

For RAM: I know your posts always say games can't use more than 4GB (I think that's the #), but for video rendering would I be better going to 16GB, or do you think the 8GB you recommend is plenty? The RAM you linked is only $72, so doubling that wouldn't hurt me. I'm not doing super complicated videos, but if $72 would shorten my rendering time significantly I'd be happy with that.

I was going to ask about an OS, but figured I'd have to post in the software section. My old system has XP. My work computers use Windows 7. Would 7 be the best all around? I have no experience with 8, and understand 10 is coming out.

My orginal build used Vista as that was just released and I wanted "the best/newest". Turns out that none of my peripherals and lots of my software wasn't compatible so I had to ditch it and install XP. I don't want to make that mistake again (so unless 10 or 8 looks to be super-duper I'll probably get 7)

 

[PP Mguire]

Yea I try to help people who want to listen and be helped.

Most games won't use more than 4GB but that is a game. If you can easily afford the 16GB for video editing then by all means. I'll link a 16GB kit when I'm off of work. It won't really shorten render times as that's CPU, but it will reduce the amount of paging to the HDD which will make it so things don't slow down.

If you want to spend a little more we can make it a 6 core system which that will greatly reduce render times. Just let me know and I'll piece a new system together.

As to prices, yea there is some beastly hardware around now. That i7:will last you a while.

Sent from my Z740 using TechForums

 

[soul_man]

If you think 6 core would speed things up a lot, I would be interested. They system you put together above comes out to about $1250 which is much less than I had thought I'd have to spend.

Would a larger SSD be good? I was about to post some 240+ drives that were not much more than the one you linked, but looks like they would be laptop drives rather than for a tower.... The PCI type ones seem to be much more expensive than the laptop drives :-(

ETA: I would plan on using the SSD just for my programs, and the storage drive for my photos, video files, music collection etc.

 

[Joe C]

You can get a 240gb SSD drive for $20. more. The case that PP McGuire recommended already has 2.5 drive bays so you can just slide it in
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147248&ignorebbr=1
The M.2 drive is the newest and greatest, it's also faster than the sata ports, but because it's kinda new ....the price is at a premimum

 

[iParanormalx]

What software will you be using to do your editing?

 

[carnageX]

What software will you be using to do your editing?

OP said Sony Vegas .

 

[PP Mguire]

If you think 6 core would speed things up a lot, I would be interested. They system you put together above comes out to about $1250 which is much less than I had thought I'd have to spend.

Would a larger SSD be good? I was about to post some 240+ drives that were not much more than the one you linked, but looks like they would be laptop drives rather than for a tower.... The PCI type ones seem to be much more expensive than the laptop drives :-(

ETA: I would plan on using the SSD just for my programs, and the storage drive for my photos, video files, music collection etc.

The 6 core can and will. Rendering is one thing where more fast cores get things dome quickly to put it simple. When I get home I'll piece something together for you then.

Like Joe said M.2 is the latest and greatest. Not much reason to go higher unless you want SSD space to edit with. Otherwise 128GB is fine for OS, programs, and some games. M.2 is PCI-E but that particular one I linked is 2x. Quicker than SATA 3 though.

You can get a 240gb SSD drive for $20. more. The case that PP McGuire recommended already has 2.5 drive bays so you can just slide it in
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147248&ignorebbr=1
The M.2 drive is the newest and greatest, it's also faster than the sata ports, but because it's kinda new ....the price is at a premimum

Can't open the link but dont think the Plextor 240 is only 20 more.

Sent from my Z740 using TechForums

 

[carnageX]

Can't open the link but dont think the Plextor 240 is only 20 more.

Sent from my Z740 using TechForums

Link is for a 250gig 840 EVO.