17Aug What’s under the hood of my editing computer?
I get e-mails now and again asking about the computer I edit on. These stats aren’t a requirement by any means. In fact most people don’t need 24GB of ram for editing. If i’m working on editing with little to now effects, 6 or 8GB of ram work just fine. I only really notice the effects of 24GB of ram when i’m working in after effects. With that much ram I can watch an AE preview of 2 to 4 min without much problem. My 2.67GHz i7 processor is a little bit dated, but it still handles HD footage with out a problem.
I know a few of you might cringe at the fact that i’m running Windows Vista on my primary editing computer, but despite all the complaints I’ve seen, I haven’t had much of a problem. Ram is cheap these days so there isn’t any good reason to skimp and i7 desktops are starting to show up for under $600 all over the place. So if you’re on the hunt for a new editing computer there are a lot of options out there to choose from.
I haven’t had time to post results of my AMD server running Premier pro but it does manage to handle it without much problem. It’s nice to know that a good editing computer isn’t nearly as expensive as it used to be. Chances are, even a low budget system will handle your next project without much problem.
August 18th, 2011 at 7:44 am
I am looking to buy a Windows laptop soon to do some minor video editing in the field and a lot of Lightroom work. I know you got one recently, do you have an recommendations around the $800-$900 range?
Dave
August 18th, 2011 at 9:44 am
For that type of work you shouldn’t have any problems with either an i5 or i7 based laptop. It seems like Dell is really offering the best deals right now. Most of their laptops also have Nvidia graphics cards so you can get a little boost from that script hack.
I’ve been very happy with my Dell Desk top and laptop for editing. Anything in their selection with a dedicated graphics card and 4GB of ram (or more) will give you good results and they have a lot to choose from in the $600 to $900 range. Then it just depends on size and screen resolution.
August 18th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Hi Dave. I actually purchased the same laptop he has, the l702x Dell. I’m not 100% certain if he has the 15 or 17” version, but I decided to go with the 17” version as it has a higher resolution.
I highly, highly, highly recommend this for Premiere work. Coupled with the Nvidia chip, it really shines with canon footage. Not only that, but if you wait around on slickdeals, you can usually pick one up for an absolute steal. Out the door, I was able to get mine for a little under $1000, and it’s more than likely gone down from then.
I have had no problem whatsoever with the laptop, and recommend it highly, as it’s probably one of the best options out there right now, in terms of performance vs. price.
August 18th, 2011 at 8:27 am
Also, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at brandonmrsh@gmail.com with any questions about the laptop, etc.
August 18th, 2011 at 10:09 am
I went with the 15 inch model, but paid for the 1080p screen upgrade. The slightly smaller size fits a bit better into my backpack. My only complaint is that the laptop is a little chunky, which stands out when you set it next to the new mac book pro.
August 18th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Good to hear you went with the 1080p screen. It is a beast in terms of size, but I don’t think its too big of an issue 🙂
August 19th, 2011 at 7:26 am
Thanks everyone for your help I will look at what Dell has to offer.
Dave
August 22nd, 2011 at 10:32 am
I just recently upgraded to 16gb of ram to help out with some of the post work. Your processor, while a little dated, is still newer then mine.
I’m still rocking the old LGA775 socket with a Core2Quad. But it’s still blasting through the HD footage, so I can’t bring myself to upgrade… yet.
Moving from 4gb to 16gb of ram has been a blessing though.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:16 am
From my experiences anything quad core or better will handle HD footage with out much of a problem. At 12GB of ram I was running into a few problems in AE when I started to work with time lines longer then 2min and above 30 elements. It probably didn’t help that I had nested After effects projects in my Premiere timeline. At 24GB I can allocate 12GB to AE, 6GB to Premiere, 2GB to Photoshop, and still have enough left over to run Audition.
I felt the pain of less ram this weekend when I was working on some motion graphics on my laptop. Four crashes and playback speeds of 21FPS started to give me a headache. I ended up having to split the project into three 30 second rendered files to get things to run smoothly. 8GB of ram isn’t quite enough to handle a complex 90 second AE project. Once I broke things down to 30 second chunks Life was good.
August 24th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
I have been poking around on the Dell site and talked to a rep and this is what I am thinking of getting:
XPS15 $1620
Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM processor 2.00 GHz w/Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M 1GB graphics with Optimus
6GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory
256GB Solid State Drive
Will the Mercury playback engine hack work with this card?
August 24th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
I have the 2GB version of the 525M card and it works fine with the playback hack. The 1GB version is on the supported list for the hack as well. You could probably cut the price down by $400 or $500 if you go with a 640GB spinning drive. SSD’s are fast, but the fail rate is pretty high.
Other wise those specs are pretty close to my Dell XPS 15. I have the Core i7-2720QM 2.20 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.30 GHz, 8GB of ram, and 525M 2GB graphics card.
August 24th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Thanks DeeJay for all your advice!
August 31st, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Similar to my setup, except I have half the RAM and edit on OSX (hackintosh). However I’m migrating to Adobe from Final Cut because of FCPX, so I’ll be switching the machine over to win7 primarily for main edit with adobe and getting a $300 cuda(570) card.