Question PC Build for low end video editing question.

simtcr

Prominent
May 19, 2020
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Hello All,

I am planning to build a pc for low end video editing.
my requirements are below,

Raw video is taken using iphone se in 4k format.
I need to cut, join these clips, speedup, slow down and add music tracks.
I will be using windows movie maker, openshot, shotcut such free software for editing.
The end video will be in original 4k resolution and around 10 min length.

Below is the build I have identified,
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX
Western Digital WD Green 240 GB M.2 2280 SATA
Corsair 16 GB Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000MHz
Corsair Spec 1 Cabinet+ 550W PSU

I can get above for 450$. Which is my budget.

Will I be able to get the editing done in hour or so with above build?
Any other suggestion to improve the build without exceeding the budget greatly?
Or is it possible achieve the same result with a lower build hence reduce the cost?

Note: The same pc I want to use as my daily runner for browsing, connect to 4k television and play 4k videos.

Thanks.
 
Hello All,

I am planning to build a pc for low end video editing.
my requirements are below,

Raw video is taken using iphone se in 4k format.
I need to cut, join these clips, speedup, slow down and add music tracks.
I will be using windows movie maker, openshot, shotcut such free software for editing.
The end video will be in original 4k resolution and around 10 min length.

Below is the build I have identified,
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX
Western Digital WD Green 240 GB M.2 2280 SATA
Corsair 16 GB Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000MHz
Corsair Spec 1 Cabinet+ 550W PSU

I can get above for 450$. Which is my budget.

Will I be able to get the editing done in hour or so with above build?
Any other suggestion to improve the build without exceeding the budget greatly?
Or is it possible achieve the same result with a lower build hence reduce the cost?

Note: The same pc I want to use as my daily runner for browsing, connect to 4k television and play 4k videos.

Thanks.

This is one of those situations where I would say "No" You really need quality H264/H265 support and that requires dedicated hardware, lots of memory and a large NVME drive. AMD has questionable H264 quality. And for a low end video editing rig I would stick with Intel for Quick Sync alone. Intel's quick sync has much better support in the video editing industry.

A professional video editing station would use an NVIDIA Quadro card with a high core count processor, 32+ Gigs Ram, and a 1TB+NVME + a large secondary HDD for project storage. That would roughly be a $3000->$10,000 Build
 
Last edited:

86zx

Upstanding
Nov 1, 2019
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If I’m being honest you might want to look into a higher end older dell precision machine and get the most cores you can. It might not game as well as a newer pc but it will take plenty good and will crush a new pc with that budget. Maybe a t5600 or t7910 or something
 

simtcr

Prominent
May 19, 2020
52
2
545
This is one of those situations where I would say "No" You really need quality H264/H265 support and that requires dedicated hardware, lots of memory and a large NVME drive. AMD has questionable H264 quality. And for a low end video editing rig I would stick with Intel for Quick Sync alone. Intel's quick sync has much better support in the video editing industry.

A professional video editing station would use an NVIDIA Quadro card with a high core count processor, 32+ Gigs Ram, and a 1TB+NVME + a large secondary HDD for project storage. That would roughly be a $3000->$10,000 Build

I am currently using a 7 year old laptop with i3 1.8Ghz 2 core cpu and 4 GB DDR3 1333Mhz to get this task done. It works, but takes several hours for the rendering to complete.

I was guessing Ryzen 5 2400G and 16 GB DDR4 3000Mhz would be big upgrade and get the task done much faster.

Once again, My intention is not to do large scale video editing or 3d rendering. Just the task I have outlined in original post.
 

simtcr

Prominent
May 19, 2020
52
2
545
I just wanted to let here mention that, I went ahead with same configuration with slightly different mother board and psu.
And happy to tell that I am now able to achieve what I aimed for.
 
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Jul 3, 2020
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I just wanted to let here mention that, I went ahead with same configuration with slightly different mother board and psu.
And happy to tell that I am now able to achieve what I aimed for.
Hi, I'm in a similar position with budget and video editing. Can you tell me what you went with in the end? Much appreciated as I'm a newbie to PC building.
 

simtcr

Prominent
May 19, 2020
52
2
545
Hi, I'm in a similar position with budget and video editing. Can you tell me what you went with in the end? Much appreciated as I'm a newbie to PC building.

ASRock B450 Steel Legend
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB DDR4 3000 x 2
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB PCIe NVMe M.2
Corsair CX Series 450 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified
Corsair Carbide SPEC-05 Mid-Tower Gaming Case

For Beautification,

Antec Spark 120 RGB Case Fan
8 Bit Ws2812 5050 RGB
Both Lighting I can control through software

With this setup, I can pretty much play any games in 1080p medium settings and get average 30FPS.
I know that reducing the resolution one lower will increase the FPS. But I dont see any lag playing 30FPS.

Regarding video editing,
I use shotcut-win64 and my source video is 4k 30FPS (from iphone SE) I dont see any issue while scrubbing.
Exporting typical 5 minutes video to same 4k 30FPS takes around 10 minutes.

If you do multi layer video editing, then scrubbing is bit slow. The more layer you add, slower it get.
 
Jul 3, 2020
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Hi Simtcr,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply in detail. I'm not a gamer but someone looking to try and move my art classes online during the Covid 19 shut down and my old ASUS laptop is struggling to do the job. Video editing is breaking new ground and I'm doing this on a shoe string as my income dried up after March. I'm using VSDC to edit 1080p video and as a complete novice this works well for what I need it to do. Maybe I'll venture into 4K if this new way of working proves viable hence my caution at spending lots of money before I know what works.
I guess my worse fear is buying a pre built only to find its not good enough. So my thought was to go the DIY route. Did you encounter any problems with BIOS set up or is it as 'simple' as folk make it look on Youtube? Sorry for all the questions but I'm sitting here waiting to pull the trigger on making the leap into tech heaven or hell. No pressure you understand!

regards
Paul
 

simtcr

Prominent
May 19, 2020
52
2
545
Hi Simtcr,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply in detail. I'm not a gamer but someone looking to try and move my art classes online during the Covid 19 shut down and my old ASUS laptop is struggling to do the job. Video editing is breaking new ground and I'm doing this on a shoe string as my income dried up after March. I'm using VSDC to edit 1080p video and as a complete novice this works well for what I need it to do. Maybe I'll venture into 4K if this new way of working proves viable hence my caution at spending lots of money before I know what works.
I guess my worse fear is buying a pre built only to find its not good enough. So my thought was to go the DIY route. Did you encounter any problems with BIOS set up or is it as 'simple' as folk make it look on Youtube? Sorry for all the questions but I'm sitting here waiting to pull the trigger on making the leap into tech heaven or hell. No pressure you understand!

regards
Paul
I did not have any problem in assembling and getting the components detected in BIOS.

CPU and CPU FAN Install - Pretty straightforward plenty of youtube videos on it.

SSD NVMe M2 Install - Straightforward, be sure whatever motherboard you are taking does support M2 NVMe and not just SATA SSD. The SSD model I chose is little high on price, but is highly compatible and many people bought this.

RAM Install - Again straight forward, be sure go with 2 RAMs (ie, 2 x 8 and not 1 x 16). This will improve performance and use slots A2/B2 to get maximum speed of RAM.

HDD - I did not install any normal normal SATA HDD or SATA SSD. All my storage and game installed are on to External USB 3.0 HDD.