i5 vs i7 Video editing

daninozz

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Jan 26, 2009
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Hey all,

So im just looking at buying a laptop for video editing and have come across two laptops im interested in. However I'm not sure which one to choose as one is an i5 and the other one is a i7.

I need to know which CPU would perform better for my video editing. is there a massive difference between the i5 and i7 for rendering? the programs im going to use for my video editing are Sony Vegas 13.0 and Adobe After Effects. CS5

The CPUS im talking about are the i75500U 2.4Ghz and the i5 5200U 2.2Ghz.

I did a quick check on CPU boss which showed the i7 was .7 better than a i5 (scored 8/10) if thats the case can I get away with getting the laptop with the i5?

heres the laptops im thinking of getting.

http://www.umart.com.au/umart1/pro/Products-details.phtml?id=10&id2=76&bid=2&sid=261865


Asus P2520LA-XO0231G

CPU : Intel 5th Gen. Core i7-5500u 2.4Ghz
OS : Windows 7 Professional 64bit.
RAM : 4GB DDR3
HDD : 500GB SATA
Graphics : Intel HD Gigabyte Intergrated.
Screen : 15.6" LED
1 year warranty DVD writer HDMI
Wifi-N Spk,Mic HD, Webcam card reader USB 3.0

p.s sorry for soo much info very old model couldnt find link :/

any help/ advice greatly appreciated

Cheers

Daninozz
 
Solution
Another important point is that you should watch out not to get a dual core i7 or i5. Many laptops come with i7s but they are dual core only. Specifically check if the laptop has a quad core i7 (not 4 threads, 8 threads) and at least 8gigs or RAM (or preferebly more), and you should be OK for basic editing.

You can then think about replacing the CD ROM bay with an SSD, perhaps later.

The i7 that you mentioned (Core i7-5500U) is dual core only get a i7-6700HQ rather for video editing.
The i7 is better but video editing on any laptop will usually end up being thermally constrained. Also 4GB of ram is not jack when it comes to video editing. You should think more like 16GB+.. The hard drive is pretty small as well as video takes tons of space. Any reason why you must use a laptop and not a desktop HEDT platform?
 
Another important point is that you should watch out not to get a dual core i7 or i5. Many laptops come with i7s but they are dual core only. Specifically check if the laptop has a quad core i7 (not 4 threads, 8 threads) and at least 8gigs or RAM (or preferebly more), and you should be OK for basic editing.

You can then think about replacing the CD ROM bay with an SSD, perhaps later.

The i7 that you mentioned (Core i7-5500U) is dual core only get a i7-6700HQ rather for video editing.
 
Solution
Cheers for advice guys, going to keep shopping

can anyone recommened a better laptop?

I know video editing meant to be done on a desktop. but im looking to do freelance work and need the freedom of it being portable.

Cheers
Daninozz
 
The 6700HQ that other people have suggested is your best bet. In fact, any quad-core i7 with Hyper Threading will be fine. The 'Q' part in the CPU model denotes it as being quad-core. 8GB of RAM will be fine and an SSD will help to reduce rendering times immensely, but you may have to compromise on disk space. Personally, I'd use an SSD to render the files and then copy them to an external HDD.

This is all under the assumption that the videos are rendered at 1920x1080 resolution and 25Mbit/s, which is standard fare.
 


The i5 has no hyper threading, the i7 does. Hyperthreading is when each core is being given two threads to work with at once. So if you're planning to video edit, spend the extra hundred, the i7 will crush the i5
 


Both the 5500U and 5200U are dual-core CPUs with Hyper Threading. The only significant difference is that the i7 is clocked slightly higher.

http://ark.intel.com/products/85214/Intel-Core-i7-5500U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_00-GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/85212/Intel-Core-i5-5200U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz
 
@OP: I'm not familiar with most laptops, for many, many years I exclusively buy Lenovo (since when it was IBM). Look at this as the flagship mobile Workstation: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/w-series/w550s/

and some in this range seem like they might fit the bill as well. Even a mobile Xeon chip.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/
 
To summarize everything so far:
1. The i5s has HT too but only 2 real cores, the i7 with U is similar. You need real quadcores with HT in order to work comfortably. e.g. i7 6700HQ.
2. If you really need a robust working horse with excellent warranty, get Lenovo Thinkpad series. (long time personal experience e.g. on my 8 years old T400)
 



That summary isn't wholly accurate. OP doesn't *need* quad cores with hyper-threading. Any number of cores would work proportionately as well. However, the major issue is with the U-model. Those are "ultra-low" power and will rapidly throttle down their clock speed to stay within their thermal envelope of 15W.

U-processors are usually responsive with light workloads, but will not sustain high performance with processor-intensive workloads.

Even a dual-core i3 desktop processor might outperform a 15W i7 xxxxU processor in video editing.
 


I didn't check, just based it off desktop, had no idea it was mobile.
 
HT is definitely not required[/q].
It really depends on the programs you are using and how good at multi-threading they actually are.
For example Maya '12 and 3ds '11 both see a slight slowdown with HT enabled.
With the software I use I might shave a have hour off a 5 hr render with HT enabled. And thats only like 10% saving. With a 30 minute render that would be 3 minutes... <yawn>

The main ingredient to look for is cores, plain and simple. The more the better. If you need to compare processors of the same or similar families just multiply the number of cores by the non-turbo clock rate. so a dual core at 3ghz gives you a 6 and would be slower than a quad core at 1.8 (=7.2)

as already mentioned, all cpu's can render, its just how much patience do you have.

- Good recommendations are and listed in order of importance (IMO) -

SSD (an HDD would literally double your render times, they don't like reading and writing at the same time)
Quad core
16GB ram or more

 
Hey guys,

So ive always had intel systems never had AMD setup before, but you guys mentioned if it has 4 cores ( Quad Core) 8 gb of RAM and a SSD for rendering I should be set.

Also forgot to mention Storage isnt a problem so 500GB HDD is fine.

Found a laptop im interested in its an AMD laptop. Specs below

HP Pavilion

CPU : AMD A4-6210 APU
AMD Radeon R3 Graphics
Screen : 15.6" HD LCD
RAM : 8GB RAM
OS : Windows 10
HDD : 500GB SATA 3

what do you guys think about AMD? always have thought that for intensive tasks that Intel was the winner hands down?
 

Don't do it. That system would totally suck for anything other than watching movies, web surfing, facebook, office work. It is very slow when it comes to video editing. It has the AMD equivalent of Intel's Atom cores which are very low clocked and much slower than regular cpus, but they use very little power (good for tablets and super light notebooks). If you were to get AMD I would get the highest end laptop cpu they make. You are way better off going with an intel cpu with 4 cores (not 2 cores 4 threads) and get 16GB of ram as it will allow the video data to be in ram while it is editing which speeds things up a crap load..