Southern_Man 0 #1 August 29, 2012 I am building a new desktop computer. I've built a couple but not in quite a few years, so I am trying to familiarize myself with all the specs again. I would like to be able to do good video editing on it--again I am not very experienced in this realm. What are the parts that are important to spend money on and what should I be looking for in those parts? Quad processor? How much RAM? Is speed important, or mostly just size? Graphics card? Do I need a firewire port? Will using Linux limit my options for editing programs?"What if there were no hypothetical questions?" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dragon2 0 #2 August 29, 2012 Your question is kinda broad. I'm presuming here you are wanting to edit tandemvideos in a quickish manner. CPU: get a recent intel i7 or quad (!) i5. Some of the AMDs like x6 or x8 might work as well but I'm not that familiar with them. RAM: more = good. I have 16GB RAM in mine, these days you can get mobos with 32GB option as well. RAM is cheap these days too. Graphics card: if you are going to use Premiere Pro, get a Nvidia CUDA card. No idea about other video editing software, some do not care about the GPU at all. Firewire port: you only need this if you are going to edit from tape cameras. Modern (skydiving) cameras do not have firewire anymore, rather you input through USB or a cardreader. I'd use windows 7 as OS. Linux limits you severely when editing video, at least AFAIK there is no pro or semi-pro video editing suite for linux. might be wrong there, but I've never heard of any DZ using linux for editing at all. HDD: I'd get a 120GB-256GB SSD for the OS. This will not help you do the editing any faster but it does make your pc run smooth as butter. Get an separate biggish HDD (7200 rpm) for the video footage. ciel bleu, Saskia Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Southern_Man 0 #3 August 29, 2012 I'm in the beginning stages of research, which is why my question is broad. I am not currently doing video except editing some occasional fun jump videos when I get footage from a friend but I expect this computer to last quite a few years, so I am willing to put extra $ into it up front to allow me room to grow. No firewire, thanks! I am planning to cannibalize the hard drive from my existing setup as a way to save money. It is a 120 GB, so not that large but it can be upgraded later."What if there were no hypothetical questions?" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Icon134 0 #4 September 5, 2012 I built this system just about 2 years ago and it's still pretty darn solid... you could get a more current Motherboard, a newer i7 and more ram. More then one hard drive is important for video editing and in fact I use more then that... one for raw footage, one for rendered footage and a solid state drive for the OS. Editing footage is very efficient on this system running windows 7 and Sony Vegas 11. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4058366;search_string=sandy%20bridge;#4058366Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
