mini-ITX Video Editing Build

[joukevn]

Hi,
I'm looking for a ~€700 mini-ITX build for video editing. I'm not sure yet which software. The whole build should be as small, light, silent and power-efficient as possible. I'm planning on editing 1080p. I would love to be able to use it as a livestreaming machine too, that will do the encoding while my main PC is running the game.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

I've gotta tell you, your budget is a killer.

https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/FmjQ6s

I managed to fit a Ryzen 2600 (great budget editing CPU) into it with 8 GB of RAM. If you go with this build, add another 8 GB stick as soon as possible. I went with a 2TB HDD but if you don't need all that storage you should swap it for an SSD, but video editing needs storage so I wend with quantity over speed. I put it all in a reasonable ITX case with a good power supply. I picked the RX 550 because it displays video... also because it isn't that bad if you wanted to play a few games.

If you wanted to do this build differently you could take a hit in processor capability and use the Ryzen 5 2400G. This build drops the video card and relies on the integrated Vega graphics. It doubles the RAM and adds an SSD. It is the more balanced build, but the 2400G is a 4 core/8 thread CPU, as opposed to the 6 core/12 thread 2600.

https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/7MQntg

Either will give you great video editing power in a small and inexpensive system.

Hope that helps.

 

[logainofhades]

That budget is difficult to deal with.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor (€185.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (€113.93 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€152.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Toshiba - 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€56.73 @ Mindfactory)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GT 1030 2GB 2GH OC Video Card (€83.59 @ Alza)
Case: Cooler Master - Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case (€41.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€64.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €698.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-15 15:52 CEST+0200

 

[joukevn]

I've gotta tell you, your budget is a killer.

https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/FmjQ6s

I managed to fit a Ryzen 2600 (great budget editing CPU) into it with 8 GB of RAM. If you go with this build, add another 8 GB stick as soon as possible. I went with a 2TB HDD but if you don't need all that storage you should swap it for an SSD, but video editing needs storage so I wend with quantity over speed. I put it all in a reasonable ITX case with a good power supply. I picked the RX 550 because it displays video... also because it isn't that bad if you wanted to play a few games.

If you wanted to do this build differently you could take a hit in processor capability and use the Ryzen 5 2400G. This build drops the video card and relies on the integrated Vega graphics. It doubles the RAM and adds an SSD. It is the more balanced build, but the 2400G is a 4 core/8 thread CPU, as opposed to the 6 core/12 thread 2600.

https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/7MQntg

Either will give you great video editing power in a small and inexpensive system.

Hope that helps.

That budget is difficult to deal with.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor (€185.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (€113.93 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€152.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Toshiba - 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€56.73 @ Mindfactory)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GT 1030 2GB 2GH OC Video Card (€83.59 @ Alza)
Case: Cooler Master - Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case (€41.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€64.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €698.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-15 15:52 CEST+0200

Thanks for the replies!
What would be a better budget,and why did you both choose the R5 2600 over the 1600X? Is it because of the TDP?
Also, I don't need a hard drive. I will be using this as a silent build for on-the-go editing, so a SSD may be better. What do you think?

 

[logainofhades]

2nd gen Ryzen is faster, clock for clock, and comes with a cooler. SSD is a great idea, if you can afford the extra. If that is going to be your only storage solution, you are going to want a 1tb drive. Gaming is going to require a much better graphics card, also. For much easier 1080p gaming, and livestreaming, you are going to want to spend considerably more. The 2600x would possibly handle it, but the 2700x is the best cpu for the money, for such things. Sadly it doesn't look like x470 mini-itx boards are really out and available to you yet. You will need a bios update to run the 2xxx series ryzen chips. AMD has an upgrade kit, that you can get from them, or have a shop update the bios for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz 8-Core Processor (€319.00 @ ARLT)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (€109.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€152.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€209.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB GAMING Video Card (€308.90 @ Alza)
Case: Cooler Master - Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case (€41.71 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€64.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1207.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-17 20:17 CEST+0200

 

[joukevn]

Do you need a good graphics card for an encoding machine? I won't do much heavy gaming, just a few small games on low settings. The PC won't be my only storage, I have my main PC for that.

 

[logainofhades]

You don't need it for that. You could drop down to a GTX 1050, if the gaming isn't going to be all that intense.

 

[joukevn]

And the 1030?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

And the 1030?

The 1030 will be fine for gaming and any programs that take advantage of GPU encoding. Generally if you want to use GPU encoding people would recommend something from much higher in the line, but you can get away with a low end Quadro like the P400 which prices in a like a 1050. That would give you better GPU rendering performance. I just found one on Newegg for around $120 USD. If you had the money for more performance you could step up to the P600 for around $180 USD.

You could also game just fine on either of them as they use the same architecture as the GeForce cards.

 

[joukevn]

And the 1030?

The 1030 will be fine for gaming and any programs that take advantage of GPU encoding. Generally if you want to use GPU encoding people would recommend something from much higher in the line, but you can get away with a low end Quadro like the P400 which prices in a like a 1050. That would give you better GPU rendering performance. I just found one on Newegg for around $120 USD. If you had the money for more performance you could step up to the P600 for around $180 USD.

You could also game just fine on either of them as they use the same architecture as the GeForce cards.

Would the Quadro cards actually be better than the GeForce 1050 cards? Didn't think about going with one, but it might be worth looking into.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

And the 1030?

The 1030 will be fine for gaming and any programs that take advantage of GPU encoding. Generally if you want to use GPU encoding people would recommend something from much higher in the line, but you can get away with a low end Quadro like the P400 which prices in a like a 1050. That would give you better GPU rendering performance. I just found one on Newegg for around $120 USD. If you had the money for more performance you could step up to the P600 for around $180 USD.

You could also game just fine on either of them as they use the same architecture as the GeForce cards.

Would the Quadro cards actually be better than the GeForce 1050 cards? Didn't think about going with one, but it might be worth looking into.

For rendering NVida works some voodoo magic to make them better. For gaming you can expect them to perform less than their price point. The P400 is going to game like a 1030 more often than not and the P600 like a 1050, but if you are doing GPU rendering they blow the 1030, 1050, 1060, and possibly the 1070 out of the water.

There is a Linus Tech Tips video about best for the budget CAD machines where they benchmark the Quadros rendering power vs the mainstream products... and there is a massive difference. Quadros are optimized for compute performance, so for programs that use the GPU for performing computations they are pretty impressive. Now, video rendering isn't much different than other kinds of rendering, it is a lot of computation. So the Quadros should punch well above their price point compared to gaming cards for video editing, however, that does come at a small cost of gaming, but they will still be superior to any integrated solution, even the 2400g with Vega graphics.

 

[joukevn]

And the 1030?

The 1030 will be fine for gaming and any programs that take advantage of GPU encoding. Generally if you want to use GPU encoding people would recommend something from much higher in the line, but you can get away with a low end Quadro like the P400 which prices in a like a 1050. That would give you better GPU rendering performance. I just found one on Newegg for around $120 USD. If you had the money for more performance you could step up to the P600 for around $180 USD.

You could also game just fine on either of them as they use the same architecture as the GeForce cards.

Would the Quadro cards actually be better than the GeForce 1050 cards? Didn't think about going with one, but it might be worth looking into.

For rendering NVida works some voodoo magic to make them better. For gaming you can expect them to perform less than their price point. The P400 is going to game like a 1030 more often than not and the P600 like a 1050, but if you are doing GPU rendering they blow the 1030, 1050, 1060, and possibly the 1070 out of the water.

There is a Linus Tech Tips video about best for the budget CAD machines where they benchmark the Quadros rendering power vs the mainstream products... and there is a massive difference. Quadros are optimized for compute performance, so for programs that use the GPU for performing computations they are pretty impressive. Now, video rendering isn't much different than other kinds of rendering, it is a lot of computation. So the Quadros should punch well above their price point compared to gaming cards for video editing, however, that does come at a small cost of gaming, but they will still be superior to any integrated solution, even the 2400g with Vega graphics.

It doesn't look like that when looking at the specs. There aren't a lot of videos about the P400/P600 regarding video editing. Do you have experience with the card?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

And the 1030?

The 1030 will be fine for gaming and any programs that take advantage of GPU encoding. Generally if you want to use GPU encoding people would recommend something from much higher in the line, but you can get away with a low end Quadro like the P400 which prices in a like a 1050. That would give you better GPU rendering performance. I just found one on Newegg for around $120 USD. If you had the money for more performance you could step up to the P600 for around $180 USD.

You could also game just fine on either of them as they use the same architecture as the GeForce cards.

Would the Quadro cards actually be better than the GeForce 1050 cards? Didn't think about going with one, but it might be worth looking into.

For rendering NVida works some voodoo magic to make them better. For gaming you can expect them to perform less than their price point. The P400 is going to game like a 1030 more often than not and the P600 like a 1050, but if you are doing GPU rendering they blow the 1030, 1050, 1060, and possibly the 1070 out of the water.

There is a Linus Tech Tips video about best for the budget CAD machines where they benchmark the Quadros rendering power vs the mainstream products... and there is a massive difference. Quadros are optimized for compute performance, so for programs that use the GPU for performing computations they are pretty impressive. Now, video rendering isn't much different than other kinds of rendering, it is a lot of computation. So the Quadros should punch well above their price point compared to gaming cards for video editing, however, that does come at a small cost of gaming, but they will still be superior to any integrated solution, even the 2400g with Vega graphics.

It doesn't look like that when looking at the specs. There aren't a lot of videos about the P400/P600 regarding video editing. Do you have experience with the card?

Honestly, no. The last Quadro I owned was an FX series and that was a long time ago. I used it for home video editing and it did a great job. They are workstation cards, so people doing 3d rendering will get more out of them, but there are advantages to video editing too. People claim you need Titans and high end Quadros to do it faster, but the truth is that there is almost no difference between a GTX 1050 and a GTX 1080 or a P400 and a P1000. The video encoder in the GPU is universal across all products of a lineup, with the exception of the GT 1030 as far as I've found.

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk

More info can be found here. As far as I can tell, the hardware encode/decode is a Quadro specific capability, but I've heard things here and there that the GTX 1000 series cards have support. That hardware encode capability will save you a lot of time and take a lot of the load off of the CPU.

 

[joukevn]

And the 1030?

The 1030 will be fine for gaming and any programs that take advantage of GPU encoding. Generally if you want to use GPU encoding people would recommend something from much higher in the line, but you can get away with a low end Quadro like the P400 which prices in a like a 1050. That would give you better GPU rendering performance. I just found one on Newegg for around $120 USD. If you had the money for more performance you could step up to the P600 for around $180 USD.

You could also game just fine on either of them as they use the same architecture as the GeForce cards.

Would the Quadro cards actually be better than the GeForce 1050 cards? Didn't think about going with one, but it might be worth looking into.

For rendering NVida works some voodoo magic to make them better. For gaming you can expect them to perform less than their price point. The P400 is going to game like a 1030 more often than not and the P600 like a 1050, but if you are doing GPU rendering they blow the 1030, 1050, 1060, and possibly the 1070 out of the water.

There is a Linus Tech Tips video about best for the budget CAD machines where they benchmark the Quadros rendering power vs the mainstream products... and there is a massive difference. Quadros are optimized for compute performance, so for programs that use the GPU for performing computations they are pretty impressive. Now, video rendering isn't much different than other kinds of rendering, it is a lot of computation. So the Quadros should punch well above their price point compared to gaming cards for video editing, however, that does come at a small cost of gaming, but they will still be superior to any integrated solution, even the 2400g with Vega graphics.

It doesn't look like that when looking at the specs. There aren't a lot of videos about the P400/P600 regarding video editing. Do you have experience with the card?

Honestly, no. The last Quadro I owned was an FX series and that was a long time ago. I used it for home video editing and it did a great job. They are workstation cards, so people doing 3d rendering will get more out of them, but there are advantages to video editing too. People claim you need Titans and high end Quadros to do it faster, but the truth is that there is almost no difference between a GTX 1050 and a GTX 1080 or a P400 and a P1000. The video encoder in the GPU is universal across all products of a lineup, with the exception of the GT 1030 as far as I've found.

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk

More info can be found here. As far as I can tell, the hardware encode/decode is a Quadro specific capability, but I've heard things here and there that the GTX 1000 series cards have support. That hardware encode capability will save you a lot of time and take a lot of the load off of the CPU.

I think that I'm just going to go with that then. Probably a P400, but if I can get a good deal on a P600, I'll go with that.

I have one more question; would it be worth to go with a really really small Kickstarter case (like the LOUQE Ghost S1 or the NFC Skyreach 4 Mini, both $199)?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

I think that I'm just going to go with that then. Probably a P400, but if I can get a good deal on a P600, I'll go with that.

I have one more question; would it be worth to go with a really really small Kickstarter case (like the LOUQE Ghost S1 or the NFC Skyreach 4 Mini, both $199)?

Eeeesh. That is a really hard sell. Sure they are probably fine, but price for what you get is pretty far off. I've said before that a case is an intensely personal decision. Just because I don't see value in it, doesn't mean there isn't any in it for you. The hardware would be ok going into it, but then you are worrying about making coolers fit and if you can fit a storage drive in there. You'll be there with a tape measure and the tabs open to the product dimensions, trying to work out if your setup will work

 

[joukevn]

I think that I'm just going to go with that then. Probably a P400, but if I can get a good deal on a P600, I'll go with that.

I have one more question; would it be worth to go with a really really small Kickstarter case (like the LOUQE Ghost S1 or the NFC Skyreach 4 Mini, both $199)?

Eeeesh. That is a really hard sell. Sure they are probably fine, but price for what you get is pretty far off. I've said before that a case is an intensely personal decision. Just because I don't see value in it, doesn't mean there isn't any in it for you. The hardware would be ok going into it, but then you are worrying about making coolers fit and if you can fit a storage drive in there. You'll be there with a tape measure and the tabs open to the product dimensions, trying to work out if your setup will work

I'll probably just go with a Cooler Master or Silverstone case.
But how do I power the thing? When I take it to school, there aren't a lot of outlets.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, if you use headphones it will be 2 power cables. One for the monitor and one for the PC. Mini-ITX cases will either have an external brick like a laptop or a standard PC power cable as there are SFX power supplies that are small enough to fit into many ITX cases.

I guess my only suggestion if you are worried about not enough outlets is to bring a power strip. Other than a laptop running on battery power there isn't a whole lot else you can do. A battery system for a full power desktop (which this will be despite its size) will not last long.

 

[joukevn]

Well, if you use headphones it will be 2 power cables. One for the monitor and one for the PC. Mini-ITX cases will either have an external brick like a laptop or a standard PC power cable as there are SFX power supplies that are small enough to fit into many ITX cases.

I guess my only suggestion if you are worried about not enough outlets is to bring a power strip. Other than a laptop running on battery power there isn't a whole lot else you can do. A battery system for a full power desktop (which this will be despite its size) will not last long.

It isn't that the power outlets are occupied, they just don't exist. Could I maybe downgrade some things so that it could work on a battery?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, if you use headphones it will be 2 power cables. One for the monitor and one for the PC. Mini-ITX cases will either have an external brick like a laptop or a standard PC power cable as there are SFX power supplies that are small enough to fit into many ITX cases.

I guess my only suggestion if you are worried about not enough outlets is to bring a power strip. Other than a laptop running on battery power there isn't a whole lot else you can do. A battery system for a full power desktop (which this will be despite its size) will not last long.

It isn't that the power outlets are occupied, they just don't exist. Could I maybe downgrade some things so that it could work on a battery?

At that point you are going to be better off going with a laptop that is purpose built for running on battery... and even those have horrible battery life compared to the average non-powerhouse laptops.

Although, someone makes a laptop that has a full desktop Ryzen 5 1600 in it. I remember it has RX 580 graphics as well which are fairly good for rendering. I can't for the life of me remember who makes it... but its battery lasts somewhere on the level of an hour or so.

EDIT: It is the Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC. Specs and stuff below.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Strix-GL702ZC-Ryzen-5-1600-Radeon-RX-580-FHD-Laptop-Review.281526.0.html

 

[joukevn]

Well, if you use headphones it will be 2 power cables. One for the monitor and one for the PC. Mini-ITX cases will either have an external brick like a laptop or a standard PC power cable as there are SFX power supplies that are small enough to fit into many ITX cases.

I guess my only suggestion if you are worried about not enough outlets is to bring a power strip. Other than a laptop running on battery power there isn't a whole lot else you can do. A battery system for a full power desktop (which this will be despite its size) will not last long.

It isn't that the power outlets are occupied, they just don't exist. Could I maybe downgrade some things so that it could work on a battery?

At that point you are going to be better off going with a laptop that is purpose built for running on battery... and even those have horrible battery life compared to the average non-powerhouse laptops.

Although, someone makes a laptop that has a full desktop Ryzen 5 1600 in it. I remember it has RX 580 graphics as well which are fairly good for rendering. I can't for the life of me remember who makes it... but its battery lasts somewhere on the level of an hour or so.

EDIT: It is the Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC. Specs and stuff below.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Strix-GL702ZC-Ryzen-5-1600-Radeon-RX-580-FHD-Laptop-Review.281526.0.html

That's kinda out of my budget... And I need more than 1 hour battery life.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, they DO sell battery packs, but the wattage that this little thing requires is pretty extreme for those. Also, if you are familiar with the battery units that you can use to jumpstart your car, it is like carrying one of those around. They are also EXPENSIVE.

Here are two that I've found:
https://www.amazon.com/Rockpals-250-Watt-Generator-Rechargeable-Emergency/dp/B075SSMR6K/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1527160891&sr=8-19&keywords=battery+pack+with+ac+outlet
https://www.amazon.com/AIVANT-42000mAh-Rechargeable-Cellphone-Appliance/dp/B073GKVNLT/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1527160891&sr=8-20&keywords=battery+pack+with+ac+outlet

They are going to eat into your budget pretty harshly.

Now, either of those SHOULD power your system. PC Part Picker claims that the full power draw of the Ryzen 5 2600 system with the P400 (https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/7GCwgw) is 152W, which is within the limits of both those battery packs. However, I have no solid idea of what sort of battery life you can expect, but the average laptop battery is 55Wh with a power draw of 90W or so, and that 250W battery pack claims 222Wh, so you can probably get a few hours out of it, even with a monitor.

You really have the most unique build I've ever helped with.

So, I've adjusted your build here ( https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/zWph3b ) to help absorb the cost of the battery pack, but without compromising its capability I can't downgrade it any further. You are still going to be over budget with the battery pack.

 

[joukevn]

Well, they DO sell battery packs, but the wattage that this little thing requires is pretty extreme for those. Also, if you are familiar with the battery units that you can use to jumpstart your car, it is like carrying one of those around. They are also EXPENSIVE.

Here are two that I've found:
https://www.amazon.com/Rockpals-250-Watt-Generator-Rechargeable-Emergency/dp/B075SSMR6K/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1527160891&sr=8-19&keywords=battery+pack+with+ac+outlet
https://www.amazon.com/AIVANT-42000mAh-Rechargeable-Cellphone-Appliance/dp/B073GKVNLT/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1527160891&sr=8-20&keywords=battery+pack+with+ac+outlet

They are going to eat into your budget pretty harshly.

Now, either of those SHOULD power your system. PC Part Picker claims that the full power draw of the Ryzen 5 2600 system with the P400 (https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/7GCwgw) is 152W, which is within the limits of both those battery packs. However, I have no solid idea of what sort of battery life you can expect, but the average laptop battery is 55Wh with a power draw of 90W or so, and that 250W battery pack claims 222Wh, so you can probably get a few hours out of it, even with a monitor.

You really have the most unique build I've ever helped with.

So, I've adjusted your build here ( https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/zWph3b ) to help absorb the cost of the battery pack, but without compromising its capability I can't downgrade it any further. You are still going to be over budget with the battery pack.

Thanks! I will swap out the HDD for a SSD, and take a look at the battery packs.

 

[joukevn]

I might as well just buy a suitcase and take that to school... lol

 

[joukevn]

But if it's 222 Wh, that means that I can only have a 37 Watt power consumption if it needs to run for 6 hours right?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

In theory, yes. There is a little loss but for the most part it is a good transfer. I'd expect your system to idle around 40W and under full load draw about 155W. None of these components are optimized for laptop levels of power use, but you should get 2.5 to 3 hours out of it in the worst case. You are going to need a suitcase though... ITX systems are small, but when you factor in a monitor, keyboard, mouse, battery pack, and anything else you want, it's going to be a lot to carry.