Do I need a new PC? Or Am I just "doing it wrong"?

thomaswood807

New member
Hi all,
I'm new here and really just need some help, as I'm a video editor at a national company who is currently editing on a Lenovo Thinkpad E480. Spec is as follows:
  • Intel Core i7-8550u @ 1.80GHz​
  • 16GB RAM (unknown what speed - if there's an easy way to check the RAM speed please let me know :)
  • Radeon RX 550 with (I think ) 2GB GDDR5​
I'm honestly a bit of a newbie with PCs, as I have come from purely using Macs in my previous job (but now we're in a strictly no-Mac office). The E480 runs very hot, and as a quick example, took 25 minutes to export a 2-minute 4K video (footage shot on an iPhone X) today, and frankly the machine won't let me do much else while this is happening. Premiere and After Effects (my most used apps) lag terribly in general day-to-day work, even when working with lower-res proxies to try and reduce the overhead on the hardware.

I've sent my IT department an ideal spec of a desktop machine with a top end i7, big graphics card and fast RAM to help my days be more productive, but the E480 I'm using is only a year old and I think they're loathe to buy me another computer so soon. I am just looking for a bit of advice as to what you all lovely people - who are infinitely more knowledgable than me - think could be the problem, and maybe what an ideal spec would be for a good video editing workstation that won't give the IT budget, or myself, headaches going forward.

Many thanks for any help in advance!
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
As the forums belong to PC Specialist, who build and sell custom PCs and laptops, we can't advise in detail on competitors' specs.

But in general terms, a -U series CPU is a low power chip designed to go into thin and very portable laptops - not so much for multitasking while rendering 4k video. If someone went to buy a PCS Lafite or Fusion which sport a -U series CPU and a weak GPU for 4k video editing, I'd definitely question how sell suited a purchase that was!

Also be careful of what a "top spec i7" means. Because actually it doesn't mean anything. It could mean an i7 on the X299 platform, which while technically still Intel's top end consumer/prosumer platform is actually kind of trash now thanks to more modern alternatives from both Intel and AMD. Or it could mean something else, which still isn't your best option. Note that for video editing desktops, AMD's new Ryzen 3000 CPUs are very seriously worth consideration.

Also RAM frequency may not always matter much for video editing. Single/dual channel can matter, as can quantity. I'm sure frequency can help too, but it's not the only thing to look at.

If you state your budget and what you need within that budget (laptop or desktop? just the tower? a monitor too? Windows licence?), we can suggest some options from PC Specialist. You can weigh these up against anything else you might be considering.
 
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