Video editing on a budget.

[davelectronic]

Recently my 14 year old Son has shown an interest in video editing. Mainly clips of Marvel and super hero stuff etc up until now he's used his tablet and mobile phone to do this. I've ask him if he would like a pc that is capable of doing this. I'm just a general web surfer, social media etc. I have no experience in video editing or gaming (my Sons other interest) So I'm tasked with putting together a desktop pc to do these to things.

As my Son does flit about with hobbies and interst, i didn't want to throw a fortune on hardware. From what I've read, its the cpu and ram that does the lions share of the editing rendering etc. So i was looking at used hardware for this desktop PC, with the intention of upgrading if he sticks with it. I'm not sure about what socket to build it round , but intel 1155 H2 and AM3+ systems is what I've been looking at. I would prefer to purchase a bundle, but not sure on which processor to go for. Anyone with experience in video editing could suggest a socket and processor to start this build off would be a great help. I know a fare amount of ram is needed, and a reasonable graphics card also. What I'm unsure about is how high a specifications the hardware needs to be. For example I've been looking at AMD FX and earlier i7 generations.
Any advice and help greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading.

[NiHaoMike]

Get a used server and add a cheap GPU.

[davelectronic]

Never considered a server, my Son wants to game on it as well. At the moment I have been looking at editing software, as a general PC user my go to is Linux. I have used almost all the modern Windows OS from XP onwards. I'm not a windows fan, but i think windows is a must probably for software compatibility.

[NiHaoMike]

Then go with a used server and add a somewhat better GPU to it. Steam runs on Linux so going Windows free is an option even for gaming.

Anything from AMD older than Ryzen is basically worthless nowadays and it seems like Ivy Bridge servers are dirt cheap and maybe even Haswell servers if you're lucky.

[tunk]

Servers are big and quite noisy (at least those for 19" racks).
And many of them don't come with power cables for GPUs.

[NiHaoMike]

The 2U servers I have worked with (Ivy Bridge and Haswell) are not particularly noisy and are smaller than many ATX form factor desktops. 1Us do tend to be noisy but you probably don't want one of those anyways since they rarely support 2 slot GPUs. 3U and up are great from an expandability perspective but less common.

As for the GPU power cables, it's trivial to figure out which pins on the riser are 12V and ground and make your own.

[Halcyon]

Honestly, I'd start your son off on the "free" route, at least until he decides he wants to get more serious with it and perhaps start saving up for his own rig.

For software, have a look at OpenShot Video Editor, it's completely free and open source. Although it's not anywhere near as polished as the big players (Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, AVID Media Composer etc...) it still has a familiar interface and quite a lot of features for a free product. Later on if he wants something more powerful, you could consider getting a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.

As for hardware, you don't really need anything special. Whilst GPU rendering is very much a thing, CPU rendering is still quite reasonable, particularly if you're talking resolutions of 720P and below. The quality of the output won't be any different, it will just take longer to render on a slower machine and previews will probably need to be reduced in quality.

A reasonably good Intel i5 or i7 will do the trick (a Xeon would be even better). RAM is important. If your son is mostly dealing with HD content, 8 GB would be the absolute minimum I would recommend. 16 GB is good, 32 GB is even better.

Ultimately it comes down to how much you're willing to spend. We can throw specifications at you all day long, but if it's beyond your budget, it won't really help you.

[hans]

I would not recommended using servers for desktop use. Server chips are mostly optimized for multi-threading performance with fairly low boost clocks (hence many cores at low clocks), and thereby they may decrease performance in applications like gaming. Sure the extra cores are nice during video encoding, but an unresponsive machine is the worst for day to day use.

If you get consumer Intel gear (Sandy Bridge and later I think), you can make use of the Intel's GPU with Intel Quicksync (if the editor supports it) to get your son started. Even if you don't use it, almost all i5's (2000 series up) are quad cores, and remain fairly capable for CPU encoding. I would skip the i3s, because the old ones are only dual cores with hyperthreading.

The AMD chips don't have internal GPUs with this functionality, and their CPU performance in that day and age wasn't that impressive that I can't necessarily recommended them. Unless you can get them like real cheap, maybe.

[Mr. Scram]

Unfortunately video editing and gaming are some of the most resource intensive things you can do on a conputer and the workloads don't have matching requirements. I'd shy away from buying old hardware as that's really on the way out. Without a target budget it's hard to give a detailed advice but I'd start your boy off with too massive an investment and see how it goes. Maybe focus more on gaming as that's more likely to stick.

[Halcyon]

The AMD chips don't have internal GPUs with this functionality, and their CPU performance in that day and age wasn't that impressive that I can't necessarily recommended them. Unless you can get them like real cheap, maybe.

My experience with AMD CPUs and GPUs are that they are less stable/reliable. Of course I'm generalising here and my opinion is based on many years of largely anecdotal evidence over a wide range of models and I know it will cause a stir among the AMD community, but heat-related and general instability is not unknown in the AMD world.

In over 20 years in the IT industry and having built or worked on thousands of computers, I don't think I've ever had a single Intel processor fail on me, where as I can probably think of about 5-10 instances where an AMD processor has. I've also had my fair share of failed AMD GPU's.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Recently my 14 year old Son has shown an interest in video editing. Mainly clips of Marvel and super hero stuff etc up until now he's used his tablet and mobile phone to do this. I've ask him if he would like a pc that is capable of doing this. I'm just a general web surfer, social media etc. I have no experience in video editing or gaming (my Sons other interest) So I'm tasked with putting together a desktop pc to do these to things.

As my Son does flit about with hobbies and interst, i didn't want to throw a fortune on hardware. From what I've read, its the cpu and ram that does the lions share of the editing rendering etc. So i was looking at used hardware for this desktop PC, with the intention of upgrading if he sticks with it. I'm not sure about what socket to build it round , but intel 1155 H2 and AM3+ systems is what I've been looking at. I would prefer to purchase a bundle, but not sure on which processor to go for. Anyone with experience in video editing could suggest a socket and processor to start this build off would be a great help. I know a fare amount of ram is needed, and a reasonable graphics card also. What I'm unsure about is how high a specifications the hardware needs to be. For example I've been looking at AMD FX and earlier i7 generations.
Any advice and help greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading.

It's a good thing when you say you want to purchase a bundle, as opposed to a pre-built system which is likely to have upgrade restrictions and problems. What I am wondering is if the 14 yo has expressed any desire to maintain the computer hardware. A kid that age should be starting to understand what hardware powers the software packages and not just simply using the software packages.

I would give the kid a ball park budget and let him figure out what parts he wants, bang for buck. While he is waiting for a video to render on the phone, there are -lots- of websites and videos scrutinizing the various CPU and GPU combos. See if you can get your kid excited about building something.

[Mr. Scram]

My experience with AMD CPUs and GPUs are that they are less stable/reliable. Of course I'm generalising here and my opinion is based on many years of largely anecdotal evidence over a wide range of models and I know it will cause a stir among the AMD community, but heat-related and general instability is not unknown in the AMD world.

In over 20 years in the IT industry and having built or worked on thousands of computers, I don't think I've ever had a single Intel processor fail on me, where as I can probably think of about 5-10 instances where an AMD processor has. I've also had my fair share of failed AMD GPU's.

There always seem to be plenty of people with similar opinions for brand X or against brand Y. Without much to go on those seem to be just opinions. That being said, Intel has had series which degraded to the point of impacting functionality or malfunction. They don't exactly have a spotless record and that's by their own admission. Hardware is going to break and fail whichever brand it is and luckily the major brands are so reliable that little hard evidence to show a difference either way is around and what's left are just opinions flapping about.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The AMD chips don't have internal GPUs with this functionality, and their CPU performance in that day and age wasn't that impressive that I can't necessarily recommended them. Unless you can get them like real cheap, maybe.

My experience with AMD CPUs and GPUs are that they are less stable/reliable. Of course I'm generalising here and my opinion is based on many years of largely anecdotal evidence over a wide range of models and I know it will cause a stir among the AMD community, but heat-related and general instability is not unknown in the AMD world.

In over 20 years in the IT industry and having built or worked on thousands of computers, I don't think I've ever had a single Intel processor fail on me, where as I can probably think of about 5-10 instances where an AMD processor has. I've also had my fair share of failed AMD GPU's.

I've had two, I think. One was that K6-2. Supposed to be compatible, but there was something about the Dos version of Norton Ghost that it didn't like. Only bought the computer because it was cheaper as a 2nd computer and only intended for offline tasks. That was the last time. 21 years ago. It's not like I hold a grudge or anything.

[Halcyon]

My experience with AMD CPUs and GPUs are that they are less stable/reliable. Of course I'm generalising here and my opinion is based on many years of largely anecdotal evidence over a wide range of models and I know it will cause a stir among the AMD community, but heat-related and general instability is not unknown in the AMD world.

In over 20 years in the IT industry and having built or worked on thousands of computers, I don't think I've ever had a single Intel processor fail on me, where as I can probably think of about 5-10 instances where an AMD processor has. I've also had my fair share of failed AMD GPU's.

There always seem to be plenty of people with similar opinions for brand X or against brand Y. Without much to go on those seem to be just opinions.

Sure, and ordinarily I would absolutely agree with you. I too am skeptical of anyone offering anecdotal evidence, but I think the opinion of an experienced person in the industry does carry some weight, as opposed to someone who might have built 10 computers in their life and just happen to like a particular brand "just because".

I fully admit that when I build a machine, it's absolutely going to be Intel based, but not only due to the past reliability issues involving AMD, but general compatibility with Linux and FreeBSD is also a big one for me. There is no compelling reason for me to switch to AMD. Have I recommended AMD machines to others in the past? Absolutely, but that largely comes down to their budget.

[Mr. Scram]

Sure, and ordinarily I would absolutely agree with you. I too am skeptical of anyone offering anecdotal evidence, but I think the opinion of an experienced person in the industry does carry some weight, as opposed to someone who might have built 10 computers in their life and just happen to like a particular brand "just because".

I fully admit that when I build a machine, it's absolutely going to be Intel based, but not only due to the past reliability issues involving AMD, but general compatibility with Linux and FreeBSD is also a big one for me. There is no compelling reason for me to switch to AMD. Have I recommended AMD machines to others in the past? Absolutely, but that largely comes down to their budget.

You're very careful to correctly label your reports as anecdotal, only to then try and upsell it as something more. The reliability argument can be twisted in any way even with proper sources included. I could point at the woeful situation of Intel's hardware security and seemingly endless parade of vulnerabilities in their speculative threading or ME. I could point at Intel's chips that degrade over time or their SATA controllers that were outright broken. All of that's true and verifiable and not based on some handwavy self reporting. There's little doubt something similar could be done for AMD so it's best to stick to more factual and immediate matters. Even if we assume your report is on the nose the practical implication of a few defects in "over 20 years in the IT industry" is that it's so unlikely to happen as not to matter at all. What does matter is possibly limiting someone's options based on some anecdotal feelings which may either impact the budget or the performance of the hardware purchased. This kid needs decent hardware, not stories.

[Halcyon]

Sure, and ordinarily I would absolutely agree with you. I too am skeptical of anyone offering anecdotal evidence, but I think the opinion of an experienced person in the industry does carry some weight, as opposed to someone who might have built 10 computers in their life and just happen to like a particular brand "just because".

I fully admit that when I build a machine, it's absolutely going to be Intel based, but not only due to the past reliability issues involving AMD, but general compatibility with Linux and FreeBSD is also a big one for me. There is no compelling reason for me to switch to AMD. Have I recommended AMD machines to others in the past? Absolutely, but that largely comes down to their budget.

You're very careful to correctly label your reports as anecdotal, only to then try and upsell it as something more.

I say it how it is. I'm not trying to pass off my experiences as being some kind of solid scientific fact. Anecdotal doesn't mean that it's wrong or can be dismissed as being false, it's simply based on my experience. These forums are more than just what is evidence-based, I think expert opinions and experience matters quite a lot.

I'm not saying don't buy AMD. I'm just saying why I personally don't buy AMD. As I said, I have no compelling reason to change and cost alone is not an important factor for me.

[Mr. Scram]

I say it how it is. I'm not trying to pass off my experiences as being some kind of solid scientific fact. Anecdotal doesn't mean that it's wrong or can be dismissed as being false, it's simply based on my experience. These forums are more than just what is evidence-based, I think expert opinions and experience matters quite a lot.

I'm not saying don't buy AMD. I'm just saying why I personally don't buy AMD. As I said, I have no compelling reason to change and cost alone is not an important factor for me.

I'm not saying your statements are intentionally false but I am saying they are effectively meaningless for reasons discussed. Posting them is essentially just an attempt at skewing opinions ever so slightly based on nothing solid or of value to OP at all. If there was any kind of distinct difference there would be hard numbers. This isn't an industry where companies just guess at things when serious investments are at stake. Let's get back to factual matters and get this kid a decent computer. The first order of business is establishing a budget.

[Halcyon]

I say it how it is. I'm not trying to pass off my experiences as being some kind of solid scientific fact. Anecdotal doesn't mean that it's wrong or can be dismissed as being false, it's simply based on my experience. These forums are more than just what is evidence-based, I think expert opinions and experience matters quite a lot.

I'm not saying don't buy AMD. I'm just saying why I personally don't buy AMD. As I said, I have no compelling reason to change and cost alone is not an important factor for me.

I'm not saying your statements are intentionally false but I am saying they are effectively meaningless for reasons discussed. Posting them is essentially just an attempt at skewing opinions ever so slightly based on nothing solid or of value to OP at all. If there was any kind of distinct difference there would be hard numbers. This isn't an industry where companies just guess at things when serious investments are at stake. Let's get back to factual matters and get this kid a decent computer. The first order of business is establishing a budget.

I disagree. I'm not attempting to "skew" anything, what the OP ends up doing doesn't have any bearing on how I live my life in the slightest. I'm just speaking about my experiences (which also involves about 5-6 years of professional video production for theaters etc...). If you want to hear about my professional video production experience when I worked at both a community television station and Network Ten in Australia, all of their workflows were all Intel-based workstations, edit suites and servers (but that's starting to get a bit off-topic).

I think swapping stories is just as important as reading about the facts. If you come to an online forum to purely get facts which are evidence-based, peer reviewed or otherwise proven, then you're in the wrong place. Forums like this one are getting people with all kinds of experiences together to share their thoughts. Sure, sometimes it ends in tears, but that's life.

Feel free to disagree on my thoughts, I absolutely don't mind. But don't hide behind "it's not proven so therefore don't mention it".

[NiHaoMike]

The FX series was infamous for running hot which likely contributes to a higher failure rate. But that would not make a very good PC nowadays so the point is moot.

[beanflying]

I was playing around with 1080P footage on an I3 with 8Gb of Ram (Old ex lease box with a very modest GPU) and it was Painful at best. At 720P you would likely be ok with or without a GPU but it would soon run out of legs.

So an old I5 or better ex lease and a 'reasonable' GPU (RX 580 or 590'ish) making sure the Power supply and case will cope with it is the cheap option. 8GB memory minimum would get him started and some ok gaming at 1080P.

For new the GPU requirements are much lower than for Gaming so buy what your budget can afford him (RX580 was handling 4K but sucked a bit for games). Memory 16GB of fairly fast preferably DDR4. Processor if you are building last years Ryzen 2600 still stacks up very well for video even toward 4K. B450 Motherboard will kill it and a 500Gb SSD plus some spinny storage for bulk. Costs of this with new gear circa $7-800 USD at a guess.

Servers are cheap but allow $20 for earmuffs 

[davelectronic]

A lot to be going on there in reply's, i did think a server would be noisy but didn't realise the cores where low clock speeds. i
I would like to get him to build the pc with guidance. I dont want to sped a fortune until i know his serious about it. Workstations crossed my mind, but i have no idea if they are suitable or not

[davelectronic]

 i didn't want to spend out on ddr4 hardware. is socket 775T intel with a core 2 quad worth considering ? 

[beanflying]

If you are buying new memory DDR4 is fairly well priced compared to not long ago. Video editing is a hog for memory and clock speed and cores help a lot. As the 2600 I mentioned in my last post is now 'old tech' they are popping up secondhand and even some systems in limited numbers are showing up in Oz as people chase better gaming PC's in particular.

Others might like to weigh in on the CPU/Board you are looking at I don't have any idea where in the food chain it fits. The issue I would see  with it is the complete lack of upgrade path later on. This is one of the issues with looking at older Intel CPU's.

[NiHaoMike]

I was playing around with 1080P footage on an I3 with 8Gb of Ram (Old ex lease box with a very modest GPU) and it was Painful at best. At 720P you would likely be ok with or without a GPU but it would soon run out of legs.

If the editing is mostly splicing the video and the use of effects and transcoding is kept to a minimum, the requirements will decrease significantly.

i didn't want to spend out on ddr4 hardware. is socket 775T intel with a core 2 quad worth considering ? 

That's ancient, don't bother with anything older than Ivy Bridge.

[Red Squirrel]

I do all my Youtube video editing on an i3 using Linux Mint and Kdenlive.   Sometimes I feel it's a bit limited in some respects compared to the pro grade stuff, but it's stable and it still does enough for my needs.    Even on my older lower end hardware the usability is fine and render times are ok.

I keep my videos relatively short though like 10-20 minutes so have not really tried super long videos yet.

[beanflying]

Even video scrubbing with an I3 on 1080P sucked which made editing suck. So even if you are splicing and adding a few bits in you need some processing and speed behind it. While the SSD it maybe optional at 1080P it still makes sense IMO.

[Someone]

Even video scrubbing with an I3 on 1080P sucked which made editing suck. So even if you are splicing and adding a few bits in you need some processing and speed behind it. While the SSD it maybe optional at 1080P it still makes sense IMO.

What is your source codec config? Proxies/intermediaries/cache/scratch?

Editing multiple 1080p streams in realtime has been practical for over 10 years, people got by ok with dual core processors under 2GHz (and much less). It takes very little skill to do something inefficiently/poorly, and throwing more hardware at the problem hides the real performance available if you'd just take some time to learn about the tools available.

I would like to get him to build the pc with guidance. I dont want to sped a fortune until i know his serious about it. Workstations crossed my mind, but i have no idea if they are suitable or not

If you're going second hand, old ex-lease workstations often have an unreasonable premium/markup over similar performance "consumer" PCs. If there will be gaming involved just build the computer to those required specifications and video editing won't be a problem.

[beanflying]

Even video scrubbing with an I3 on 1080P sucked which made editing suck. So even if you are splicing and adding a few bits in you need some processing and speed behind it. While the SSD it maybe optional at 1080P it still makes sense IMO.

What is your source codec config? Proxies/intermediaries/cache/scratch?

Editing multiple 1080p streams in realtime has been practical for over 10 years, people got by ok with dual core processors under 2GHz (and much less). It takes very little skill to do something inefficiently/poorly, and throwing more hardware at the problem hides the real performance available if you'd just take some time to learn about the tools available.

That system has been relegated to driving my Laser Cutter and CNC so I stripped Davinci off it so  on the last settings. Also it didn't have an SSD which won't have been helping. I had tried some tweaks done some looking at optimizing it but as my drones and Cameras shoot 4K it wasn't going to remain viable and keeping the resolution down to 1080P because of a PC limitation is less than ideal.

[Someone]

Even video scrubbing with an I3 on 1080P sucked which made editing suck. So even if you are splicing and adding a few bits in you need some processing and speed behind it. While the SSD it maybe optional at 1080P it still makes sense IMO.

What is your source codec config? Proxies/intermediaries/cache/scratch?

Editing multiple 1080p streams in realtime has been practical for over 10 years, people got by ok with dual core processors under 2GHz (and much less). It takes very little skill to do something inefficiently/poorly, and throwing more hardware at the problem hides the real performance available if you'd just take some time to learn about the tools available.

That system has been relegated to driving my Laser Cutter and CNC so I stripped Davinci off it so  on the last settings. Also it didn't have an SSD which won't have been helping. I had tried some tweaks done some looking at optimizing it but as my drones and Cameras shoot 4K it wasn't going to remain viable and keeping the resolution down to 1080P because of a PC limitation is less than ideal.

If you can't remember what you were doing, and don't understand why that might have been a bad choice, perhaps your advice might be equally misinformed? The codecs used are a fundamental part of a video workflow and have enormous impact on the processor load, disk bandwidth, and storage requirements. 1080 in a suitable intermediate codec is not a challenge for any recent computer.

[Mr. Scram]

A lot to be going on there in reply's, i did think a server would be noisy but didn't realise the cores where low clock speeds. i
I would like to get him to build the pc with guidance. I dont want to sped a fortune until i know his serious about it. Workstations crossed my mind, but i have no idea if they are suitable or not

Can you give an indication of what you want to spend? That's going to largely dictate your options. You could go for a gaming oriented build as you should be able to video edit fairly decently if you take that into account and little is lost if only the gaming sticks. I doubt a boy would get fed up with gaming too quickly. 

[Halcyon]

Do you have a "reference" PC you can use for comparison? i.e.: Load some software on it, get him to do some editing, see where it struggles. At least that will give you a "baseline" of where to go from there?

In a nutshell, take a look at CPU benchmarks and determine "bang for buck" based on your budget. PassMark's Low-to-Mid tier chart is a good place to start. It will include both old and new CPUs so you can compare them against each other. All decent video editors (including OpenShot) support multi-threading and will take advantage of multiple cores.

The other is RAM, as I mentioned earlier, the more the better.

Another thing you'll want to consider is the hard disk, definitely use an SSD, if not for the operating system itself, definitely for the scratch disk (although both is preferred). 512GB SSDs are relatively cheap these days.

Without knowing your budget and what kind of video he is editing, it's hard to be more specific.

[beanflying]

Even video scrubbing with an I3 on 1080P sucked which made editing suck. So even if you are splicing and adding a few bits in you need some processing and speed behind it. While the SSD it maybe optional at 1080P it still makes sense IMO.

What is your source codec config? Proxies/intermediaries/cache/scratch?

Editing multiple 1080p streams in realtime has been practical for over 10 years, people got by ok with dual core processors under 2GHz (and much less). It takes very little skill to do something inefficiently/poorly, and throwing more hardware at the problem hides the real performance available if you'd just take some time to learn about the tools available.

That system has been relegated to driving my Laser Cutter and CNC so I stripped Davinci off it so  on the last settings. Also it didn't have an SSD which won't have been helping. I had tried some tweaks done some looking at optimizing it but as my drones and Cameras shoot 4K it wasn't going to remain viable and keeping the resolution down to 1080P because of a PC limitation is less than ideal.

If you can't remember what you were doing, and don't understand why that might have been a bad choice, perhaps your advice might be equally misinformed? The codecs used are a fundamental part of a video workflow and have enormous impact on the processor load, disk bandwidth, and storage requirements. 1080 in a suitable intermediate codec is not a challenge for any recent computer.

Seriously take your superiority complex and place is somewhere else ! Perhaps you would like to make some CONSTRUCTIVE and helpful comments as to settings for limited hardware for us mere mortals. 

My current 3700X and associated bits chew up and spit out 4K so I am not having an issue of any sort that needs resolving.

[beanflying]

This is one of the videos I watched prior to building my latest box. I was building to CAD/Rendering with 'some' video so the mix is a bit different. He and Justin Brown are worth a watch among others https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO4Nw0vUpxgb0zsziJ1SaMg

[davelectronic]

I've got not a lot of experience in video editing, from what my Son shows me, he puts clips of super heroes together. It loks reasonably seamless with some fast action content. He also adds music tracks to the length of the video. I'm of little help with video editing, he has mentioned starting a YouTube channel in the near future.

From what i can glean from the internet is the cpu does a lot of the work, and a reasonable amount of memory is also a must. I have read a gpu can be less critical, although i wouldn't get a useless card for this system he wants. What sellers want for old hardware in some cases is just daft. For now i have crossed out AMD as pointed out it can be pedantic at times. I'm looking at the fastest 775T core 2 quad Q9650 or 1155 socket and an earlier I7 second or third generation processor. As for Ram, 16Gb in 4 slots. The memory can be a bit tricky to find second hand. Brand new hardware is out of the question for now.
Thanks for all the tips and replys.

[Halcyon]

Keep us updated on what you decide to get.

[jack-daniels]

I know this thread is mainly about the hardware, but have a quick look at this video, it might help. It does give some basic specs for each editor.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I know this thread is mainly about the hardware, but have a quick look at this video, it might help. It does give some basic specs for each editor.

I think I've mentioned it on here before but Chris Barrett (the video's host) is somewhat of a crusader of squeezing the best out of the hardware and software of these SBC's. You only have to watch a select few of his videos to have a good shopping list for a great set-up.

[peter-h]

I've been doing video editing for years and it is not a big deal unless you want to shoot in and render to 4K. Then you need a top spec machine.

For shooting in HD (1920x1080) you just need a quad core i7, or even a recent i5. I use a quad core i7 machine I built 5 years ago, for 4K in and HD out.

Re software, I now use Vegas Pro 16 but one of the cheap old Sony Movie Studio 13 Platinum ones will be fine. Much less buggy than the low end junk I used from say Pinnacle or Adobe. You can still buy cheap old stock online. Well under $100.

There is a significant learning curve on video editing but basic operations are easy.

[Mr. Scram]

I've got not a lot of experience in video editing, from what my Son shows me, he puts clips of super heroes together. It loks reasonably seamless with some fast action content. He also adds music tracks to the length of the video. I'm of little help with video editing, he has mentioned starting a YouTube channel in the near future.

From what i can glean from the internet is the cpu does a lot of the work, and a reasonable amount of memory is also a must. I have read a gpu can be less critical, although i wouldn't get a useless card for this system he wants. What sellers want for old hardware in some cases is just daft. For now i have crossed out AMD as pointed out it can be pedantic at times. I'm looking at the fastest 775T core 2 quad Q9650 or 1155 socket and an earlier I7 second or third generation processor. As for Ram, 16Gb in 4 slots. The memory can be a bit tricky to find second hand. Brand new hardware is out of the question for now.
Thanks for all the tips and replys.

If you're looking at that generation I'd avoid AMD as they weren't producing the fastest hardware around back then. Avoid the Core 2 models too. It's fairly old hat you're looking at either way though. If you can find a decent 2700K or 3700K you have something not too terrible. Sandy Bridge tends to overclock better if you want to go that route. Be sure not to spend too much on old hardware when a comparatively modest increase in budget could get you a new system. For gaming you'll need a more modern video card.

[Electro Detective]

Give those old Intels a miss unless they are dirt cheap, heaps of older well priced used multicore AMD rigs out there,
gamers would not touch them if they were no good.

I think our EEVblog host uses AMD, and one or two of the Moderators = ?

I can vouch an old x4 or x6 with 4 gigs of ram and stock onboard graphics will do video editing and fast conversions without a problem

Up the ram to 8 gigs and a 1 or 2 gig graphics card for more oomph,
parts which I still haven't gotten around to fitting, as the system working fine as is, and I'm forgetful/slack.. 

[Mr. Scram]

Give those old Intels a miss unless they are dirt cheap, heaps of older well priced used multicore AMD rigs out there,
gamers would not touch them if they were no good.

I think our EEVblog host uses AMD, and one or two of the Moderators = ?

I can vouch an old x4 or x6 with 4 gigs of ram and stock onboard graphics will do video editing and fast conversions without a problem

Up the ram to 8 gigs and a 1 or 2 gig graphics card for more oomph,
parts which I still haven't gotten around to fitting, as the system working fine as is, and I'm forgetful/slack.. 

The new AMD chips are excellent and are used in demanding situations like supercomputing. The older architecture models were slow and hot although it obviously depends what's compared with what.

[Wimberleytech]

Tagging on to this kinda old thread.

I recently bought a gopro 8 to take on a 10-day canoe trip in Sep.  My buddy is bring one too.  We will generate tons of video that will need editing.  I have noticed that my current system just does not cut it.
Current system:
i5 2400 processor @ 3.1GHz
AMD Radeon HD 6800
Samsung 860 EVO

I am in the process of configuring a new system:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Gigabyte X570 Aorus
GTX 1660 graphics card
Intel Optane SSD 905P Series - M.2 22110 380GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D XPoint SSD - SSDPEL1D380GAX1
Either 32G or 64G of memory.

So the BIG NUT here is that Intel Optane NVMe...like 500 bucks or so.  My son recommended it.  He has built my last three or four computers. 
Is this overkill?  Until a couple of days ago, I was not aware of NVMe stuff, but the concept seems compelling.

To some degree...I suppose...money is not the issue...just would like all of the components in the system to be balanced (not pay for performance of any one item that will never use its potential).

Thoughts?

--This will be my first build.  I was smart enough to raise a son that learned this stuff before puberty and went on to get a degree in computer science.  I am trying to do this myself this time 

[engrguy42]

I strongly recommend you first look at DaVinci Resolve. It's free. It's a professional-level editor with an insane amount of features. It recently came out with a whole new compositing and visual effects suite ("Fusion") that's amazing. There's also a ton of video how-to's out there.

Just be aware that, while it would be nice if you could buy a fancy GPU and get lots of benefit by speeding up renders, that's rarely the case. Often they will use the GPU for some specific features, but rarely the ones you want. Usually for some special effects it taps the GPU, but regular rendering not so much. I think many editors still rely on multi-core CPU's for rendering.

I think it's best to first decide on the software, and then decide what hardware you'll need. 

[Mr. Scram]

I strongly recommend you first look at DaVinci Resolve. It's free. It's a professional-level editor with an insane amount of features. It recently came out with a whole new compositing and visual effects suite ("Fusion") that's amazing. There's also a ton of video how-to's out there.

Just be aware that, while it would be nice if you could buy a fancy GPU and get lots of benefit by speeding up renders, that's rarely the case. Often they will use the GPU for some specific features, but rarely the ones you want. Usually for some special effects it taps the GPU, but regular rendering not so much. I think many editors still rely on multi-core CPU's for rendering.

I think it's best to first decide on the software, and then decide what hardware you'll need.

Some applications benefit from GPU acceleration a lot, also during regular editing.

[EEVblog]

For <$500 you can get an AMD Ryzen 3400G build, which has a very decent integrated GPU (more than enough for casual gaming, video encoding and video playback) and 4 modern cores.
It's $150 on Amazon with cooler, $80 for the motherboard, $80 for 16GB of DDR4 3200 RAM, and $80 for an 500GB/512GB NVMe SSD. Add in a cheap power+case combo for $60, you are all set for $450.

Yep, something like this would be fine.
There is a huge variability in "video editing" requirements. My videos for example (and the 4K ones) can be done on practically any system, even a 10 year old dumpster PC will work just fine, because there is little to no special effects etc, it's mostly just re-rendering existing footage. My current  i7 7820X is actually way overkill for what I need for both the editing part and the rendering part, but I like to be able to render 4K video in at least "real time". Sound like your son is just doing basic splicing and re-rendering, and literally any machine can do that, as evidenced by him currently doing it on a tablet.

If you are you making some hollywood production with green screen, colour grading, and all sorts of fancy visual effects processing, that's where you start to need the serious hardware.

[cdev]

Thats changed, the Ryzen CPUs are quite good.  They have some models with integrated GPU which does not add much to the cost. An entry level ryzen would be super cost efective. You can buy a used case but get a new CPU/ram/gpu. These is a chart at PCPartsPicker that lets you figure out the best deal for the money. You could also get a cheap but newer NVIdia GPU as well. That may be better for encoding. Ask Dave what he thinks is best.

[EEVblog]

Thats changed, the Ryzen CPUs are quite good.  They have some models with integrated GPU which does not add much to the cost. An entry level ryzen would be super cost efective. You can buy a used case but get a new CPU/ram/gpu. These is a chart at PCPartsPicker that lets you figure out the best deal for the money. You could also get a cheap but newer NVIdia GPU as well. That may be better for encoding. Ask Dave what he thinks is best.

I don't know about the Ryzen GPU. Depends entirely upon what package you use and what GPU's it supports, and what kind of videos you produce. Videos like mine are actually mostly CPU intensive instead of GPU intensive because of the lack of video effects. So often things like a memory and drive bottlenecks matter more than GPU.
When actually editing for example I have GPU acceleration turned off.

[andre_teprom]

It's really cool that your son is getting into video editing – it’s a fun and creative hobby! I've been through a similar situation, setting up a budget-friendly PC for my cousin who started with gaming and then got into video editing. Based on that experience, I'd say starting with used hardware is a smart move, especially since he's just exploring this interest.

For video editing, a good balance between CPU, RAM, and GPU is key. An AMD FX or earlier i7 processor would work just fine for starters. They have enough power to handle video editing tasks without breaking the bank. 

And if he's looking for software that isn’t too demanding for beginners, video editor Movavi is a user-friendly option that should run smoothly on moderate specs. It’s great for beginners and has enough features to get his creativity rolling without overwhelming him. Hope this helps, and all the best with the PC build!

[armandine2]

I had to do some video editing the other day - I have next to no experience and haven't used one for years.

Anyhow, I used clipchamp and it did what I had to do relatively quickly.

I see though that it doesn't make the recommended lists of free video editing software ?

[SiliconWizard]

This is what happens when you get a new video editing rig 

You seem to have a knack for toilets, but that's again not too surprising.

[Marco]

 

Servers are big and quite noisy (at least those for 19" racks).
And many of them don't come with power cables for GPUs.

Refurbished HP workstations are available for reasonable money and they aren't even that power hungry. You get ECC and build quality and really CPU hasn't made that much advance recently.