Spec for Video Editing

[wizzer]

Hi relatively new to the world of video editing but it's clear that I need a more powerful pc than my current laptop. I will be using Sony Vegas Pro 10.0 64 bit

The spec below is £900 inc VAT. Does this look capable of handling most normal video editing & rendering etc?

If I wanted to save a bit of money, what would you recommend changing if anything?

Thanks


Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600S Quad Core (2.8GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-M LE/USB3 (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB SATA-II 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

2nd Hard Disk
80GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 90MB/sW)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)

Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

 

[Phoenix]

Yes it'll handle it just fine, if you wanted to save some money you could remove the SSD (if you want to keep it move it to the first storage slot so that PCSpecialist install Windows 7 onto it) because while it's nice you don't really need it and you could also drop down to the GTX550Ti but it would be a good idea to get a better hard drive (either a Seagate Barracuda or Caviar Black) and pickup the silver warranty.

 

[mantadog]

For a nice video editing PC under £900 i would get this....

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics the 's' variant is low power, for video editing you want the most performance possible so get the standard i7 2600
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-M LE/USB3 (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) Should be enough, easy to add more later
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready Plenty for just watching video, windows aero possible cosider even a gt 520 fi you don;t plan any gaming at all.
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) On a budget this drive is a winner, very quick and large capacity.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19) Slightly better cooling, video editing will heat up your CPU so best to get this upgrade.
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £782.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-home-office-pc/

The main saving comes from the SSD, if you are going to go with a SSD i would get a 120GB kingsont drive for £50 more. That gives you a much faster drive with much larger capacity. Really though i would stick with the caviar black, i have on in my machine and it's really so much faster than my old desktop drive. Even on an old installation of windows with multiple applications running on startup i get from power button to a desktop i can use in about a minute. If your coming from a laptop with a 5,400rpm drive then you will be blown away by the caviar black.

 

[Music Guy123]

This is a very similar spec to the above but with an SSD and a lower gpu. Have a look:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 520 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s HDD, 32MB Cache (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £915.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-sandy-bridge-pc/

 

[wizzer]

For a nice video editing PC under £900 i would get this....

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics the 's' variant is low power, for video editing you want the most performance possible so get the standard i7 2600
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-M LE/USB3 (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) Should be enough, easy to add more later
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready Plenty for just watching video, windows aero possible cosider even a gt 520 fi you don;t plan any gaming at all.
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) On a budget this drive is a winner, very quick and large capacity.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19) Slightly better cooling, video editing will heat up your CPU so best to get this upgrade.
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £782.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-home-office-pc/

The main saving comes from the SSD, if you are going to go with a SSD i would get a 120GB kingsont drive for £50 more. That gives you a much faster drive with much larger capacity. Really though i would stick with the caviar black, i have on in my machine and it's really so much faster than my old desktop drive. Even on an old installation of windows with multiple applications running on startup i get from power button to a desktop i can use in about a minute. If your coming from a laptop with a 5,400rpm drive then you will be blown away by the caviar black.

Thanks for your help with this. I bought a HD video camera for our family holiday to Florida last summer and I need a machine man enough to start editing and rendering the video into a single file!

 

[wizzer]

Presumably if I'm recording HD then I really need a Blu Ray Writer to record and play HD video to its best quality?

Thanks

 

[Corfate]

You'll only need the Blu Ray writer to play Blu Ray Movies and create them onto the Blu Ray disk. If you don't have a HD monitor, you probably won't notice the difference. You also can't play Blu Ray disks in normal DVD players, so if you're creating disks to give to people, it may not work in their player.

 

[wizzer]

You'll only need the Blu Ray writer to play Blu Ray Movies and create them onto the Blu Ray disk. If you don't have a HD monitor, you probably won't notice the difference. You also can't play Blu Ray disks in normal DVD players, so if you're creating disks to give to people, it may not work in their player.

Thanks - but presumably if I go for this:

12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£69)

Then I can write/read both Blu Ray and DVD's?

I don't have a HD monitor although have a PS3/Blu Ray at home.

Presumably if I get the Blu Ray it gives me a bit of future proofing as more people move to this format?

Thanks

 

[Corfate]

Yeah, i believe thats what it means

Yeah, you can think like that, but buying Blu Ray DVD's are more expensive, and other people may be reluctant to change their DVD collection for Blu-Ray's

 

[mantadog]

Well if you plan record to BluRay at any stage you will need the upgrade and it would be worth it if you plan to use the HD content.

One thing to remember though, BluRay is the format in use at the moment and isn't going to die overnight. However with 4 times HD coming out sometime this year or next it will soon be overtaken by the next big thing.

 

[wizzer]

Yeah, i believe thats what it means

Yeah, you can think like that, but buying Blu Ray DVD's are more expensive, and other people may be reluctant to change their DVD collection for Blu-Ray's

Thanks - can you explain 4 x HD? I've googled but it seems to come up with mobile phone technology!

Thanks

 

[mantadog]

google 4k resolution, that will give you a wiki link as the first result. That gives you a rough idea of what it is. This will be followed by 8k resolution 5-7 years later no doubt.

Right now most people wont have heard of it, but you can bet that by the end of next year it will be the new thing to have, just like 3D is at the moment. We are just about starting to see consumer level tech that supports 4k resolution. The latest graphics cards will support it, the price of the displays will start to fall, new storage media will start to appear and everyone will migrate towards the new standard. Just like today almost everyone has joined the HD flat screen market, so it's about time the big boys gave everyone something else to spend their money on.

Oh yeah i almost forgot my whole point for starting this in the first place, again. I ment to add to my first post that their are various 'super' BluRays in development that can hold in the area of 500GB, which will fight it out for a couple of years and one will win as happend with BluRay and HD DVD.

So if your looking to future proof your system with the addition of a simple BluRay drive then it wont happen, but like i said if you plan to use it then go for it, but getting one for the sake of it isn't futureproofing it would be a waste of cash.

 

[wizzer]

For a nice video editing PC under £900 i would get this....

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics the 's' variant is low power, for video editing you want the most performance possible so get the standard i7 2600
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-M LE/USB3 (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) Should be enough, easy to add more later
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready Plenty for just watching video, windows aero possible cosider even a gt 520 fi you don;t plan any gaming at all.
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) On a budget this drive is a winner, very quick and large capacity.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19) Slightly better cooling, video editing will heat up your CPU so best to get this upgrade.
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £782.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-home-office-pc/

The main saving comes from the SSD, if you are going to go with a SSD i would get a 120GB kingsont drive for £50 more. That gives you a much faster drive with much larger capacity. Really though i would stick with the caviar black, i have on in my machine and it's really so much faster than my old desktop drive. Even on an old installation of windows with multiple applications running on startup i get from power button to a desktop i can use in about a minute. If your coming from a laptop with a 5,400rpm drive then you will be blown away by the caviar black.

The more I read the forums the more confused I get!

I suppose my main concern is rendering time. I will be using Sony Vegas Pro 10 to render AVCHD videos probably 20-30 mins each or blocks of that size/length. I am worried about some of the render times that seem to be reported. I have seen comments about the process being slowed where this process reads from and writes to the same hard drive. Would it be better to have an SSD & HD from this perspective if I can afford?

Thanks

 

[mantadog]

What kind of times are your worried about?

Just as a test i fired up all my avchd videos i have from last years F1 at silverstone. Total run time of about 30 minutes, editied them together into a whole move (in windows movie maker as i don't have anything else) The total time on an i5 2500 was 30 minutes. an i7 would be faster, probably taking it to 24-25 minutes overall.

But to get anything faster than that you would have to spend silly money really.

 

[wizzer]

What kind of times are your worried about?

Just as a test i fired up all my avchd videos i have from last years F1 at silverstone. Total run time of about 30 minutes, editied them together into a whole move (in windows movie maker as i don't have anything else) The total time on an i5 2500 was 30 minutes. an i7 would be faster, probably taking it to 24-25 minutes overall.

But to get anything faster than that you would have to spend silly money really.

Thanks - that seems a lot reasonable, i.e. render time equivalent to real time. I presume if you go for fancy fx's then this will slow it all down a lot more (not that I want to be too fancy!).

 

[mantadog]

As i said, thats with an i5, with an i7 you would be getting slightly faster processing times. If i am ever doing anything like that i tend to just set it running and walk the dog or get something to eat. Getting an AMD eightcore would give you roughly the same speeds as an i7, probably a bit faster for video editing, and it costs a bit less too.

At the end of the day, with your spec as it stand at the moment you have about the best you can get without throwing heaps more money at the CPU.

 

[wizzer]

For a nice video editing PC under £900 i would get this....

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics the 's' variant is low power, for video editing you want the most performance possible so get the standard i7 2600
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-M LE/USB3 (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) Should be enough, easy to add more later
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready Plenty for just watching video, windows aero possible cosider even a gt 520 fi you don;t plan any gaming at all.
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) On a budget this drive is a winner, very quick and large capacity.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19) Slightly better cooling, video editing will heat up your CPU so best to get this upgrade.
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £782.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-home-office-pc/

The main saving comes from the SSD, if you are going to go with a SSD i would get a 120GB kingsont drive for £50 more. That gives you a much faster drive with much larger capacity. Really though i would stick with the caviar black, i have on in my machine and it's really so much faster than my old desktop drive. Even on an old installation of windows with multiple applications running on startup i get from power button to a desktop i can use in about a minute. If your coming from a laptop with a 5,400rpm drive then you will be blown away by the caviar black.

Still can't make my mind up!! What would be the benefit (in terms of video editing etc) of building a system around an i7 6 core 3930/3960?

Thanks

 

[mantadog]

Still can't make my mind up!! What would be the benefit (in terms of video editing etc) of building a system around an i7 6 core 3930/3960?

Thanks

In short, it would be significantly faster. The 6 core setups obviously has the 2 extra physical cores to take on extra work over the i7 2600, that gives you a 50% speed boost. Obviously the down side to that is the upfront cost, only you can decide if you want to spend the extra cash to get the faster tech.

Is it worth it? The answer depends on how much you can afford, and how fast you really need your videos to render etc. One thing is for sure, the 3930k is the one you should go for (if you decide to), the 3960x is really not worth the extra cash

 

[wizzer]

In short, it would be significantly faster. The 6 core setups obviously has the 2 extra physical cores to take on extra work over the i7 2600, that gives you a 50% speed boost. Obviously the down side to that is the upfront cost, only you can decide if you want to spend the extra cash to get the faster tech.

Is it worth it? The answer depends on how much you can afford, and how fast you really need your videos to render etc. One thing is for sure, the 3930k is the one you should go for (if you decide to), the 3960x is really not worth the extra cash

Thanks Mantadog.
Would this work well with the rest of the spec indicated or would other components need upgrading alongside?

Wizzer