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Null

Null

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general thread for part picking


Someone I know needs a computer for basic video editing. It needs to render 60 minute 1080p clips in a reasonable amount of time. Desktop or laptop.

I've had a suspicion that there are more affordable GPUs that are optimized for media processing and apparently Nvidia Quadros are a thing, but are they more cost effective for video editing?
 
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Your friend should try out this computer.
1000016212.jpg
This bad boy carries a whopping 64 KB of RAM!
 
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Null said:
It needs to render 60 minute 1080p clips in a reasonable amount of time. Desktop or laptop.
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Clips can be everything from simple cuts strung together to highly edited segments with loads of filters and effects.
If its specifically for MATI clips then I don't think you need much in terms of render heavy effects like color grading or special effects so the benefits you'd get out of a workstation grade Quadro are minimal.
Depending on your budget you can skimp out a lot on the GPU, a last gen RTX 4080/4090 or even a 3080(ti)/3090 will get you quite far. (or equivalent AMD GPU).
But make sure to combine that with a decent CPU and loads of available RAM (talking anywhere in the 32 - 64gb range).

You'll probably want some M.2 NVMe disk as a primary storage for fast file loading. When choosing an NVMe SSD look for the PCIe version and make sure the CPU and motherboard can handle those speeds. PCIe 5.0 is the newest generation. Can't go wrong with a Samsung NVMe.

For a mobile/laptop option, this might be controversial but honestly if mobile video editing is a must (and you have the budget) you can't go wrong with a Macbook pro. Most windows based "workstation" laptops are bulky behemoths that shred through their battery. Apple's offering in terms of performance and comfort is not bad, it just costs boatloads of money.

Uber budget tier: you can pick up a secondhand GTX TITAN Xp with 12 gigs of VRAM for about $200 - 250, it still kick ass even in 2025. This card should be able to eat 1080p renders for breakfast.
 
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Avenue said:
For a mobile/laptop option, this might be controversial but honestly if mobile video editing is a must (and you have the budget) you can't go wrong with a Macbook pro. Most windows based "workstation" laptops are bulky behemoths that shred through their battery. Apple's offering in terms of performance and comfort is not bad, it just costs boatloads of money.
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these new Macbook Pros don't have transparent GPUs. I did some research and apparently they've completely scrapped Nvidia GPUs to build their own silicon with shared RAM for CPU and GPU work.

Are these still good to use?
 
Null said:
these new Macbook Pros don't have transparent GPUs. I did some research and apparently they've completely scrapped Nvidia GPUs to build their own silicon with shared RAM for CPU and GPU work.

Are these still good to use?
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Yes extremely but you need to use adobe products or other software that explicitly supports hooking into apples asic chips
 
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Null said:
Even the cheapest 14"?
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Any of the M processors including some ipads are surprisingly good at video editing (to the point a friend cast an application onto a newer ipad and finished the render faster than the older laptop could)

If you mean the new 1600 dollar 14 inch macbook pro then yea M4 is supposed to be even better than any of the ones my apple friends have experience with (highest is m3 for them). The m4 pro and max are supposed to be fairly big performance boosts but the basic M4 still has the fancy support chips
 
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Null said:
to build their own silicon with shared RAM for CPU and GPU work
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This is correct, Apple invested into their own chip designs and don't use Nvidia or intel hardware anymore. Due to now developing the entire hardware/softwarea stack they can make their laptops efficient yet performative. At the cost of being an ultra propritary ecosystem.

However I should note that Apple's newest soc's mostly help accelerate effects/filters on video, cutting and pasting of 1080p podcast footage doesn't require that much power.
 
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Null said:
these new Macbook Pros don't have transparent GPUs. I did some research and apparently they've completely scrapped Nvidia GPUs to build their own silicon with shared RAM for CPU and GPU work.

Are these still good to use?
Click to expand...
Would avoid apple silicon for a little longer if any dev is planned on this machine, particularly if containerized work.
Better market share for non-ARM container images and I think a fair number of libraries that work on 386/AMD still need some love to make happy on Mn silicon.

If just media shit, Apple is probably a safe bet.
 
Null said:
It needs to render 60 minute 1080p clips in a reasonable amount of time.
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define 'reasonable amount of time'

overnight? a 1 hour video taking 3 hours? according to husband in IT he says this information is important to know

edit: he elaborates, "it matters because 'reasonable time' can go anywhere from like a 1k card to a 30k card. depends on how fast he wants to churn shit out."
 
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You should also consider the M4 Mac Mini if portability isn't a concern. It's a little cheaper than the laptops.
 
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Null said:
I've had a suspicion that there are more affordable GPUs that are optimized for media processing and apparently Nvidia Quadros are a thing, but are they more cost effective for video editing?
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The CPU GPU thread might know about that.

From what I understand, hardware encoding tends to be oddly restrictive, and is mainly used for realtime video capture. Some CPUs have it these days. Which brings me to-

Null said:
It needs to render 60 minute 1080p clips in a reasonable amount of time. Desktop or laptop.
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Would a basic bitch AM4 cpu be good enough? For 1080p, assuming you're not piling on the video effects, then it should be about to render "x264 slow" faster than real time. That's what I have and it works for such tasks without breaking a sweat. No special hardware, just good old fashioned horsepower. You could likely get away with a few generations older if you wanted to go really cheap.

If you're planning to use AV1, that's a completely different standard, and relying on CPU compression is too slow. Intel ARC GPUs are the only ones I know of that can hardware encode av1, but I might be out dated as I've not checked in a while. The good thing is you can go with the cheapest card available. I've not tried it though.
 
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Semi related note: worlds most engaging podcast clips (read: those with the most views) are almost always made with mobile first editing software like capcut, which can run on most smartphones/tablets.

yea this also depends on who your editor is and their preferences and the kind of audience you want to attract and blah blah blah
 
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Is it possible to build a PC that can handle the latest games at a good performance and be an emulation machine (GameCube, PSP, PS3) for around $1000-1200?
 
The Last Stand said:
Is it possible to build a PC that can handle the latest games at a good performance and be an emulation machine (GameCube, PSP, PS3) for around $1000-1200?
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Yes. Emulation requires high single-threaded performance, i.e chips with good individual cores. That should be most of the modern Ryzen Zen 5/Zen 4 and Intel 12th-15th gen CPUs.
 
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