Mid range HD video editing PC.

[lousykid]

I am looking to spend 1200 give or take. i'm trying to build a midrange video editing tower. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I would rate my tech xp around medium to low. i once built a gaming pc back in 2004. need more current info. Thanks.

 

[photonboy]

I recently read an article comparing video quality between video transcoded with the CPU-only and with various methods of Graphics enhanced transcoding.

In all cases with the graphics card helping out the video quality was not as good as the CPU-only.

Personally, I'd just get a basic graphics card like this (if you don't play video games):
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=60742&vpn=11190-02-20G&manufacture=SAPPHIRE

I recommend building an 1155 system based around the Intel 2500K unlocked CPU. I gave some good information on a setup but make to check that everything's compatible and modify as need be:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/291717-30-good-starting-combo#t1987682

To be clear, I'm recommending an "1155" Sandy Bridge motherboard with this CPU:
Intel Core i5 2500K Quad Core Unlocked Processor LGA1155 3.3GHZ Sandy Bridge 6MB

*I don't know if Video Editing requires more than 4GB of RAM or not. You'd need to investigate that as well as whether using one more SSD's is a good idea (such as reading from one and writing to another). If the CPU is the bottleneck it might not make a difference but I'm not an expert on that area.

I have a Gigabyte motherboard and it has software to automatically overclock the CPU. I use to overclock my CPU to transcode videos then I set it back to normal mode when not needed because it runs cooler and quieter.

**Another option worth considering, depending on how important speed is, is to get a dual-CPU motherboard. That requires some planning and reading on the parts involved. I haven't got the time to investigate that.