Hi there, I’m Josh, and today we are going to be talking about computers.
Specifically, what kind of home computer can run editing software like HitFilm Pro or Express
really, really well?
Let’s do this!
First of all, we’ve been in this game long enough to know that we do not want to start
a flame war…
(Hello, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC...) we’re not going to say that Macs are better than
PCs, or PCs are better than Macs.
The truth of the matter is, the Macs normally do punch above their weight spec for spec
with PCs, when it comes to editing.
But for the same money, you can get just a monster of a PC that will be incredibly fast.
We are going to be focusing on the specs of a home PC that would run HitFilm really well,
but HitFilm is a lot a lot of other video and graphics software, so a lot of what we
are saying here will relate to whether you are running Final Cut, Premiere, After Effects,
HitFilm, you name it, these are good system specs for a great editing machine.
Because we are going to be looking at the components inside the machine, this information
relates to both PCs and Macs.
When most people are buying a new computer, or upgrading an old one, they look at the
CPU or the GPU.
Whereas actually we are going to start with the storage, namely the hard drive.
This is actually the biggest upgrade you can make to a machine.
If you’ve got a slow hard drive, like you haven’t got an SSD, a solid state drive,
then this is the biggest upgrade you can make, and its a very cost-effective one.
The drive is constantly accessed by your computer, whether that’s your operating system, your
editing software which could be loading itself, it could be loading footage, and in the case
of HitFilm it could also be cacheing clips to the hard drive.
So you really want that to be extra fast.
So we definitely recommend a very large SSD, something like 1 terabyte, to store your operating
system, to store your software, and to store the projects that you are currently working
on.
This will give you a huge boost in performance.
In short, if you haven’t got an SSD, get one, and get a big one.
And if you’re getting a new computer, make sure it has an SSD, preferably a PCI-E SSD,
because these are the fastest out there.
The other storage inside your computer is the RAM, the memory where your programs are
actually running.
You’d be surprised how many machine we still hear only have 4GB of RAM, when 8GB is really
the bare minimum these days, in fact, we recommend 16 GB or more.
Luckily, like SSDs, this stuff is getting cheaper all the time.
So as much SSD space as you can get, and as much RAM as you can get.
But remember, you need a 64-bit operating system if you are going to access all that
memory.
So let’s talk about the CPU and the GPU.
Now while I’m sure all of you guys all know the difference, I’m just going to discuss
it here very quickly.
The CPU is the brain of the computer.
This is where its actually running the software, like the operating system, like HitFilm.
Whereas the GPU is a piece of hardware dedicated to processing graphics, so its the best part
of your machine for doing that, but it can’t be running software in the same way.
So what does this mean for HitFilm?
Its the CPU that is running the software.
So when you are dragging those sliders, when you’re opening and saving projects, or even
when you’re opening footage, the CPU is doing all the hard work.
Once you have loaded the footage, and the CPU has grabbed a frame, it chucks that across
to the GPU, which actually does all your filtering.
So whether you have added color balance or whether you are adding 3D models or lights
and shadows, that’s all done on the GPU.
Once the GPU has finished its work, it passes it back to the CPU, which then saves it back
to your drive.
When it comes to selecting a processor, there is really only three things to remember.
Make sure its an Intel, that its an i5 or an i7, and that it has 4 or more cores.
Its really that simple.
The i5 is a great chip, and if you are just doing gaming and casual editing and browsing,
then its absolutely all that you need.
But if you are going to do a lot of video editing, maybe do some 3D, lots of conversions
of media, things like that, then the extra power in the i7 is worth it.
It’s a fantastic chip.
Its really hard to recommend a specific GPU, because it quickly will go out of date.
What I do is look at tomshardware.co.uk where they do great, and really, really detailed
reviews of GPUs, but they also have the graphics card hierarchy chart, which I use all the
time.
Its a great resource for knowing what are the fastest cards out at the moment.
Now right now, in July 2016, if I was going to recommend a card, it would be… the NVIDIA
GTX 1070, or the 1080, if you can afford it.
The 1070 is an absolute killer card.
This is beating cards that were $1000 just a few months ago.
Its what I have.
If you want a great card, get one of these.
If you are trying to save money on your new PC, you may just choose to just build it yourself.
I’ve built 30 or 40 PCs, and it does save a bit of money, but it also means you get
cut knuckles, and the frustration of a part that your ordered not working, and then having
to wait several days for a new one to arrive.
So nowadays, I tend to actually get mine built by a website.
The website I use is PCSpecialist, which in the UK are fantastic.
They build it to my specification, they deliver it tested, and it has a warranty.
That’s all I want, and it saves any frustration.
And I’m sure our US viewers will have some great recommendations down in the comments
about where you can buy your new PC.
Now this video hasn’t touched upon all sorts of other areas.
It hasn’t touched on laptops, it hasn’t touched on really, really expensive systems
with RAIDs attached to them for professional applications, but what it has given you is
a grounding in the key components of your computer that are really going to help HitFilm
fly, and probably other editing software too.
If you have any comments, please do post them down below, and if you do like our videos
please subscribe.
We are releasing them every Thursday, so yeah, we’ll see you in a week.