- If you're buying a PC for video editing,
then there's a few key things you need to keep in mind
to really maximize your video editing performance.
In this video, we'll step through the key features,
the specs, and components to consider
if you wanna maximize the performance
of your next video editing PC.
(electronic music)
Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video,
where we help entrepreneurs and business owners
amplify their business and brand with video.
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and all the links to everything we mention in this video,
you can find the link in the description box below.
Let's jump into it.
Now there's a lot of options out there
when it comes to PC parts and components,
and a massive range of features to chose from.
If you're building or buying a PC for video editing,
then there's some key decisions
that can make a big difference
to your overall editing performance and workflow.
Recently, it was time for us to upgrade
our main video editing PC.
So we thought it would be a great time run through
the key things anyone else in the same boat
should consider when deciding what to get.
Now fortunately for us,
right as we were looking at upgrading,
one of my favorite PC and component manufacturer,
MSI, reached out to us
and offered to send us a pretty awesome new system.
Now, I actually used to work in a computer shop,
building gaming PCs,
and they were always one of my go-to manufacturers
for solid quality and always having
a big focus on performance.
So I was pretty pumped when they reached out.
So here is what they sent us.
And we'll be using this as a guide
to step you through the key decisions
when deciding what systems and parts you should use
when you're buying your own system.
So before we jump in,
I do wanna be completely clear
that this PC and all of its components
were provided by MSI at no cost to us.
So, technically, this is a sponsored video.
As always though, before we agreed to accepting it,
we provided them with our standard terms.
It sounds great, but we'll only ever present
our full, unfiltered, unbiased opinions,
both good and bad.
So not only did they agree,
they insisted we go all out
with our thoughts on the good, the bad,
the awesome, and the ugly,
and we'd have it no other way.
I will give you a full rundown on this system
and how it performs in another video,
which will be out really soon,
but now onto the good stuff.
When it comes to computers,
video editing is actually a fairly unique workflow.
Not only is editing incredibly intensive
on most aspects of a computer,
the software that you use
and the combination of parts that you choose
can make a big difference to your end performance
and the efficiency of your workflow.
So there's five key things to consider.
The first one is RAM.
Now RAM plays a huge role
in the overall power and the performance of your system.
It is definitely a case of the more the merrier
when it comes to RAM.
So having extra RAM in your system
won't just help with the render times and export times
of your video projects,
it will also help with how smooth
and how seamless everything plays back
while you're actually editing.
Having extra RAM in your system
will also help you keep that performance
if you've got multiple applications
running at the same time.
So an example would be you might be editing
in Adobe Premiere,
but you also might wanna open up Adobe After Effects
to fix up some animations or to edit titles,
effects, or motion graphics.
Or maybe you've got Adobe Photoshop open as well
so you can fix up some of your graphics.
Having these applications open at the same time
takes up a heap of system resources,
and chews through your RAMs.
So having additional RAM is gonna make that process
much more seamless,
and give you the power to be able to actually do it,
and do it well.
Now, it's important to note that is not just about
the amount of RAM that you've got.
RAM actually comes in different speeds.
It's also important to look at the
speed of the RAM that you're buying,
and to try and get the fastest RAM possible as well.
So my MacBook Pro is currently maxed out at 16 gig,
and this new system here currently has 32 gig
of DDR4 RAM in it.
Now I might even upgrade this to 64 gig some time soon
to get a bit more performance,
again, with multiple application running.
One cool thing about the RAM and the motherboard
that MSI sent us
is that this system supports DDR4 Boost Technology.
So what that does is it helps you get
the maximum performance out of your RAM
while it's talking to your CPU without any interference
from any of the other components on your motherboard,
but it also helps with the stability of the RAM
and the overall system as well.
So what I'd recommend when it comes to RAM
if you're on a budget
is to still try and get at least
16 gig of RAM in your system,
and to try and get the fastest RAM
that you can on your budget.
If you've got a bigger budget,
then I'd definitely recommend to get at least
32 gig of RAM in your system,
and again, the fastest RAM that you can afford as well.
Number two is storage.
Now when it comes to storage and setting everything up
for your video editing systems,
there's a heap of different options out there.
You've got things like SSDs, hard drives,
you've got RAID setups,
you've got external drives as well.
So there's a heap of different options,
but what I would recommend
is that you setup a multi drive system.
That way your computer is gonna have at least
two drives in it.
One of them will be a high-speed drive,
and the other one would be a much larger drive
to hold all of your video files.
And we recently did a video covering of
on all the different hard drive options for video editing
and what we recommend and what we use,
and I will link that up in the cards now.
But essentially, the high-speed drives, the SSDs,
will be a lot more expensive,
but they won't have the capacity, the storage capacity,
that the larger, cheaper hard drives have.
So what I would recommend is to get
at least one SSD drive in your system,
something that you're gonna install
your operating system on, your applications on,
so that all of that load fast
and that your system is gonna run fast.
And then you can get at least on regular hard drive
to save all of your video files on.
Now if you've got the budget,
you can also consider adding a second SSD drive
for added performance.
So you can use that second drive
as your working drive.
So all the files and everything that you're using
on your current project,
you could copy over to that drive and work from that,
and the speed and the performance you'll have
working from that drive will be much, much faster
than working off a spinning disk or a regular hard drive.
Number three is the CPU.
Now this is essentially the brain of your computer,
and it plays a huge role
in the performance on your video editing system.
But before you look at the CPUs,
you also should look at your video editing software
to see what the software will actually utilize
inside of the different CPUs.
Because when you're looking at the CPUs,
you've got things like cores.
There'll be different cores.
You can get a four-core, six-core,
eight-core, 12-core CPUs.
And you've also got a clock speed
or the actual speed that, that processor will run at.
And the impact of those two things on your video editing
will really be determined by
what video editing software you're using.
So whether the software that you're using
will support having multiple cores,
having eight core processor,
whether it's gonna use that,
or whether it's only gonna be based off
the clock speed of the processor itself.
Now there's two main manufacturers of CPUs.
You've got AMD and you've got Intel.
Now without jumping in to all the nitty-gritty there,
AMD has just released an new Ryzen CPU,
which offers incredible performance for gaming.
But when it comes to video editing,
there's really been mixed reviews out there.
As far as I'm concerned,
Intel has the edge for video editing, at least right now,
but I definitely wouldn't discount what AMD is up to.
So your CPU is definitely
a critical piece of the puzzle here.
And what I suggest is that you spend
a decent chunk of your budget in this area.
I'd also recommend targeting a higher clock speed,
so a faster processor over a processor with more cores.
And as you spend more money on your processor,
you'll actually increase both.
If you're on a low budget,
then something like the Intel Core i3 range of CPUs
or Core i5 range would be the place to start.
Or if you've got the budget,
then definitely check out the Intel Core i7 range.
We're currently using the Intel Core i7-8700k,
which is a six-core CPU clocked at 3.7 gigahertz.
Number four is your video card.
Now this plays a massive part in video editing.
But surprisingly, a lot of people disregard it,
and will focus more on CPU.
Now the CPU and your GPU or your video card
definitely go hand in hand,
but they actually do different things
and solve different problems when it comes to
high-end video editing.
So what you'll find in a lot of the video editing
application around these days
is that if you're using a compatible GPU
that a lot of the processor intensive tasks,
like rendering effects and color corrections and things
are all off loaded.
Instead of sending them to the CPE,
they're off loaded to your GPU.
So it's a much faster way of processing those effects
and rendering those out,
which in turn speeds up your whole editing process.
But it definitely comes down to
which video editing software you're using
as to how much is off loaded from your CPU to your GPU
to speed everything up.
In some cases, like Adobe Premiere,
everything is CPU until you use a GPU-enabled effect.
In other cases, almost everything
can be off loaded to your GPU,
speeding up things massively.
Not just the same as with the CPUs,
we've got two main manufacturers of GPUs as well.
You've got the choice of an NVIDIA GPU
or an AMD GPU.
Now there are some pros and cons of each.
And some video editing software
is more optimize, once again, for one brand over the other.
So it's definitely worth once again
looking at your video editing software
and checking out what the recommended hardware is
to get the most out of that piece of software.
So either AMD and OpenCL
or NVIDIA and CUDA.
Now you definitely don't need to run out
and get the best top of the line GPU out right now.
What I recommend is getting at least a mid-range video card
that's going to give you still a big performance boost,
and you can invest the rest of your budget
on maxing out your CPU or RAM.
The other thing to be aware of
when you're purchasing a GPU
is that they also come in different sizes,
so the amount of video RAM that is included
with your video card.
So you can get a video card with two gig, four gig,
eight gig of video RAM on the actually video card itself.
Now in regards to video editing and performance,
you don't need to have the latest and greatest,
and you definitely don't need to have
eight gig of RAM.
Two gig will probably be fine
because it doesn't actually make a huge difference
in all of our tests.
Now for us, MSI sent us out an NVIDIA GTX1080 video card.
This thing has eight gig of video RAM built in.
And it absolutely chews through our renders
in Adobe Premiere Pro.
But one thing to note is that
even with this beast of a video card in there,
we're only hitting at around 60 to 70% GPU usage,
so now where near 100% usage
on our exports.
So that just shows you that
while the video card plays a big role,
you could definitely get away
with a lower spec video card
at least for Adobe Premier
because that's just how it works,
and you can spend your leftover money
on increasing your CPU power
or maxing out your RAM.
But I gotta tell you, I definitely get excited
when I hit the render button on this system
because it is that quick.
And number five is your motherboard.
And this is another critical element
of your video editing system
that most people overlook.
It's essentially the glue
that holds your entire system together.
Now a lot of the cool features that we've been mentioning
all rely on the motherboard.
To be able to have fast hard drives to plug those in,
you need to have a decent motherboard
with those high-speed connections.
To be able to have 32 or 64 gig of RAM,
you need to have a decent motherboard
that will support all of that.
So when you're selecting your motherboard,
there's a couple of things that you wanna consider.
The first of them is the upgradability.
So, does this have a clear upgrade path
or can you easily upgrade the processor?
Can you easily upgrade the RAM
to add more down the track
when you're Looking at upgrading?
And the other is flexibility.
Does this board give you everything you need,
like enough USB ports, enough high-speed ports,
like USB-C or Thunderbolt,
to be able to satisfy your needs now,
but also into the future as well?
Because the slowest part of any video editing system
or any system in general
is wherever the bottleneck is.
So by having a fast hard drive,
by having a lot of RAM,
by having a decent video card,
you're removing bottlenecks,
but you need to remove bottlenecks
on your motherboard as well
to make sure you've got enough ports to plug things in,
or to have enough high-speed ports
so that you're not limiting the performance on your devices
because they're plugged into a port
that isn't fast enough to run them.
So look at the flexibility of your motherboard as well
when you're purchasing
to make sure that it does everything you're after now,
but also potentially into the future as well.
Obviously, technology is changing fast,
but do the best you can.
So with all of that sorted,
there's two extra things that I'd also suggest
you pay close attention to
that can add a lot of value over time.
The first one is your case.
So, think about where you're actually gonna be
storing your computer
and make sure that you've got ports
that are easily accessible.
So a lot of cases these days
will give you the ability to have USB ports on the front,
or headphone jack plug on the front.
If all of that is gonna help with your workflow,
then consider those while you're making your case selection.
Also look at the size of the case
and make sure that there's enough room inside
to fit everything that you currently want in there,
but also potentially adding additional things in,
like extra hard drives, down the track.
And I also suggest that you find something
that matches the volume level
that you're looking for as well.
Some of these cases are crazy loud
with the amount of fans and everything in them.
The one that we've got is almost silent.
So it's amazing.
But if volume and noise is a thing,
obviously I'm filming in this room,
the computer is sitting right here,
we don't wanna be able to hear it.
So that's a big part
that a lot of people dismiss as well.
So make sure that the volume level of the case
and how quiet or noisy it is,
is going to fit what you're after,
and it's also a good idea
to find out how easy it is
to make changes to things inside your case
once the system is built,
because some cases will have everything locked down
and you may need to remove a heap of components
to be able to add something simple
like an additional hard drive into the case.
So it could be a heap of work
versus some of the other cases
where it would just be sliding the thing in
and it's good to go.
So, definitely another thing worth considering.
So keep all this in mind when you're deciding
what to buy for your next video editing PC build,
or if you're planning on purchasing a prebuilt machine.
And for those of you interested
in exactly what we're running in this PC,
I'll put a link on the screen to a separate video
with a review of the system
as soon as we finished it,
including all the benchmarks and results
in different editing software as well.
For now, I've included a breakdown
of all of the components in the description below,
but that video will take a look at everything in more depth.
I'll see you soon.