Computer Advice: Upgrade or Build (System Specs Provided)

[JPW]

I've had a HTPC that doubles for video editing for 8 years now. However, as my video editing becomes bigger I'm finding this PC is choking. Rendering a 26 minute video takes a little over 90 minutes. That is a pretty big video so I don't exactly dink it for that, but it is the actual editing where I'm finding most of my frustration.

The preview window will drop numerous frames and stutter trying to keep up with the audio. Navigating through the timeline can cause hesitations. Doing FX like Mercalli will run around 9 - 10 frames per second and I find I'm waiting on it quite a bit.

So what I'm wondering is whether its worth it to upgrade this build or buy a new budget-friendly video editing machine from the ground up. Here is what I have now:

Motherboard: Zotac GF9300 mATX
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400
Video Card: NONE, using the motherboard's onboard video (can playback 1080i just fine)
Ram: 4 gigs
HDD: WD 640 Gig

So to upgrade I thought I might add a Video Card for less than a $100. I have no clue which one might be best at this price point, but I assume this alone would drive a relatively big performance increase for video editing. Add another 4 gigs of RAM. Unfortunately, I'm currently using Windows 7 32-bit, but I think if I upgrade to Windows 10 (for free) I can then load a new OS from scratch and choose 64-bit to take advantage of all 8 gigs of RAM. Finally, add 2 250 Gig Solid State Drives. The current 640 gig drive would be just for the OS, but I thought the 2 solid state drives could be used for source and destination data when rendering. I'm not sure if that is the best way to approach it, but it was a thought.

So I suspect I'm around $330 to do this upgrade. Does this seem like a worthwhile upgrade and will it likely allow me to use VideoStudio smoothly or am I better off with a new system?

[asik1]

Hi,
8 years are enough for any system that is not just for web surfing or office work.
You better get a brand new system. It doesn't need to be with all the bells and glitts but a any reasonable ~1450$ one will do.

[JPW]

Wow...I wouldn't have thought you needed ~$1450 for a reasonable new build. As you said, even without the "bells and whistles?"

[Ken Berry]

I suppose it depends where in the world you live, and what asik has to pay in Israel for computers. This is a sore point for many. Computer prices in North America are very much lower than in some places. In Australia and NZ (where I live) we probably pay 50% or more than an American would pay for the same produce -- and this is not just because of exchange rate variations.

Even so, I too would have thought (US)$1450 would buy you a very good computer indeed, and if you live in North America, you would probably get a very good one around the $1000 mark or even less, if you shop around.

Then again, "very good" is very much a personal assessment too!

[pogonips]

I probably sound like a broken record, but in the VS editor, going to a 64 bit OS and doubling your memory will probably yield almost no performance improvement because the VS editor code has not been rewritten to use memory above 4 GB (upgrading to 8 GB is probably a good idea for other applications). I'm guessing you would get the most performance improvement in the editor by upgrading to the SSD's. As for the graphics card, I don't know, but others on this forum have suggested that the VS editor makes minimal if any use of a GPU. Good luck and please let us know what kind of results you get (if you did the upgrade a piece at a time it would provide a much better idea of which components provide the most improvement in performance).

[JPW]

I probably sound like a broken record, but in the VS editor, going to a 64 bit OS and doubling your memory will probably yield almost no performance improvement because the VS editor code has not been rewritten to use memory above 4 GB (upgrading to 8 GB is probably a good idea for other applications). I'm guessing you would get the most performance improvement in the editor by upgrading to the SSD's. As for the graphics card, I don't know, but others on this forum have suggested that the VS editor makes minimal if any use of a GPU. Good luck and please let us know what kind of results you get (if you did the upgrade a piece at a time it would provide a much better idea of which components provide the most improvement in performance).

Wow...this is powerful information and thanks for passing it on. From the sounds of it CPU speed and read/write speeds from the hard drive are where the real work takes place. If this is all true it seems like a decent laptop could perform just as easily as any desktop in this space since it doesn't sound like VS is all that GPU-intensive. I'll have to give this more thought.