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My Dad's after a new PC for converting and editing all his old videos. I'm a bit out of touch on this, but have suggested he tracks down something with 16GB RAM, an SSD, and a Core i7 processor, but that a dedicated graphics card probably won't make much difference. Am I thinking along the right lines?
Not got a huge amount to spend, ideally would prefer second hand for about £500. Anyone done this recently? I'm half tempted to suggest that a decent laptop is probably just as good as a desktop providing he uses a USB3 external drive to store the raw and finished video.
All advice appreciated!
but that a dedicated graphics card probably won't make much difference
That depends, de-shaking video and applying filters uses the DirectX/OpenGL stuff on your GFX card so if you do a lot of that a faster card helps.
The initial issue is what format are the original videos. Are they on an old format that needs scanned, coverted and injested into the pc first? If so then that process will have more effect on quality than any pc and spending on a device to capture video may be worth it.
As above regarding gfx cards... nowadays they do accurate certain aspects quite considerably.
It depends on what you are doing.. If using Premiere then a GFX Card with CUDA cores will make a big difference as you can render in real time.
You are also going to need another HD as a minimum. Don't get any Eco crap, WD Red drives are what you will need. Personally I don't use USB Drives unless backing up, unsure if USB 3 uses processor time anymore.
A laptop will be slower once it gets heatsoak, which won't take long which will start slowing the CPU down to cool it down.
£500 😯
Are you doing 4K or 1080p - that will make a big difference to what you need.
Thats a bit harsh. the reality of how usable it is will depend on the footage being edited. If it's old home movie stuff then standard definition will easily be editable on a £500 machine. Even 1080p would be doable. Let's be honest... its not a block buster production so a few minutes liner to render will hardly be a show stopper.
Just bear in mind if you're buying for performance that (some?) laptop i7 chips are nowhere near a desktop i7. You can see their PassMark scores here:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
If you add them to the compare thing it will show their single and multi thread scores side by side.
I'm considering buying an old Mac Pro for video editing, might be worth considering as they are beefy bits of kit and easily up-gradable.
Cheers, Rich