Budget build for video editing

[safehaven]

My in-laws need a new computer. It needs to be capable of video editing, but please keep something in mind. While it needs to be capable of video editing, I suspect it will be used very little for this purpose. They just got a gopro and want to play with it, but they are not tech savvy in the least. My guess is that this build will eventually be used only to surf the net. On the other hand, I do not want to be completely frustrated with its speed during the hundreds of times I get the call to help them out with their videos.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Web browsing primarily, possibly video editing.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$500, shipping included. No tax to Oregon

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Portland, Oregon. Have a Frys near by. Prefer Amazon or Newegg

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, mobo, PSU, RAM, HDD large enough to store videos. Will it need a GPU, or is on board video sufficient?

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Antec Sonata 3 mid tower case

6) Will you be overclocking?
No.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920X1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Immediately.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
It is not a requirement, but if the budget allowed, it might be nice to have and onboard memory card reader.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No. Will need an OS. Win7 64-bit preferable.

 

[E4g1e]

Here's the deal:

1) The new build needs to be relatively heavy on the CPU and RAM. Unfortunately, the desired quad-core i5 or i7 CPU plus 16GB of RAM and a motherboard will eat up most, if not all, of that $500 budget - and even at that, you will not have enough room for any additional components that aren't shitty (especially the PSU, which at whatever that's left over will likely explode and damage and/or destroy some of the expensive components with it). As such, I would recommend adding an additional $300 or so to that budget just so that you won't get any shitty parts.

2) Which video editing software are you planning to run on that new build? If it's a cheapo consumer program or the free GoPro Studio, you may be able to get away with using just the integrated graphics that's on the CPU. If on the other hand you're going to use something like Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014, I'd recommend a middle-of-the-road Nvidia GeForce GPU such as the GTX 750 Ti (CC 2014 supports OpenCL for AMD GPUs; however, performance is about twice as slow as the CUDA for Nvidia GPUs).

3) Mainstream support for Windows 7 will end this coming January 13 - just over two weeks from today. (After that date, extended support for consumers will be restricted to security patches only, and no new features and no support for new hardware will be added.) As such, I'd recommend going with Windows 8.1 rather than Windows 7 at this point.

I'll let others chime in with suggestions for other hardware.

 

[tiraides]

What are they using for video editing?

Can you allocate more money for this build? With an OEM copy of Windows costing around $100, we only have $400 left to complete the rest of this build.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

I would imagine that the software they'll be using for their GoPro camera would be GoPro Studio Software. I do not know how well it scales with multiple cores and/or hyper threading.

 

[safehaven]

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately, I am not a video guy. I do photos, hence why I really need help figuring this all out. I will be learning video on the fly.

That being said, I have not researched any editing software. I will probably be looking for something free. If GoPro's software is free, then that is where I will probably start with them. If there is other, better freeware available, I would be game for that as well.

As to the build. I do not need the mother of all video editing machines. I need something that is moderately capable. I might be able to get them allocate some more funds, but $500 was a bit of a battle already.

Let me know if something can be done with the given budget, without short cutting too bad. If not, I will see about hitting them up for more money. Do not waste a lot of time trying to price something for $500 if it is futile. If it cannot be done, then that is what it is and we will go from there.

 

[Zepher]

For what it's worth, the HTPC in my sig used to be a video editor and Pro Tools Audio editing machine until last year when I upgraded my friends PC to an i7 4770K, he gives me some money and the old parts when I upgrade his machine.

I recently had to use it to edit a wedding that was shot in HD and edited in HD then encoded to SD for DVD, and it worked great for that, encoding was a bit slower than the 4770K, but it did great for an older machine.

I edited the project with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

What are the specs of their current machine?

 

[safehaven]

Since to date they only really surfed the internet, their current rig is a budget machine i found for them at an office store years ago. I am not sure what it is, but it is likely a celeron or an older AMD with probably 2GB of RAM. It is definitely not up to the challenge. Even if it were, it is experiencing frequent BSOD's.

 

[Dangman]

Let me know if something can be done with the given budget, without short cutting too bad. If not, I will see about hitting them up for more money. Do not waste a lot of time trying to price something for $500 if it is futile. If it cannot be done, then that is what it is and we will go from there.

See if they can spare another $30:
$180 - Intel Core i5-4430 CPU
$70 - ASRock H97M Pro4 Intel H97 ATX Motherboard
$74 - Kingston HyperX Blu HX316C10F/8 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$53 - Western Digital Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$61 - XFX TS Series XFX TS 550W PSU
$92 - Windows 8.1 64bit
---
Total: $530 shipped

Should do the job. It may not be the best but it'll do the job.

 

[safehaven]

---
Total: $530 shipped

Should do the job. It may not be the best but it'll do the job.

They agreed to the $530 with no issue. However, after talking to them and explaining that by spending more now, they will not be sacrificing on performance and will be future proofing a lot better. I told them they really needed something more like my rig to achieve this. Here is a rig that you spec-ed out for me a 4 months or so ago:

$239 - Intel Core i5-4690K CPU
$140 - Asus Z97-A Intel Z97 Motherboard
$140 - 2 x Kingston HyperX Blu KHX1600C10D3B1/8G 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$130 - Samsung 840 Evo Series 250GB SSD
$60 - XFX TS Series XFX TS 550W PSU
$65 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Case
$50 - Cooler Master Seidon 120V Liquid Cooling System


I would like to alter this a bit and add, sub, and delete a couple of items:

Add DVD RW drive ASUS $22
Add GPU - you decided what is best
Add HDD - need a storage drive, 2TB min
Add OS - Win8 64-bit OEM $92
Sub case - love the 230T plain, but is not instock, possibly black windowed $77
DEL cooler - no OCing, don't think the cooler is necessary, correct?

Should the CPU, Mobo, and RAM be substituted for something else since this machine will not be overclocked? Or leave it as is, just in case in the future something changes?

Total cost - $800-$1000

 

[Dangman]

I would not recommend that setup. Not only should the mobo and CPU be changed out since there's no overclocking involved, changing prices has made the case, kinda RAM, and DVD burner not worth getting.

Now, what's the new max budget?

 

[safehaven]

Max budget $1000.

 

[Dangman]

$180 - Intel Core i5-4430 CPU
$100 - ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Performance Intel H97 ATX Motherboard
$131 - G.Skill Sniper Gaming Series F3-1600C9D-16GSR 2 x 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$105 - Crucial MX100 256GB SSD
$80 - Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$19 - Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD Burner
$70 - SeaSonic S12G-450 450W PSU
$68 - Fractal Design Core 2300 ATX Case
$92 - Windows 8.1 64bit
----
Total: $845 shipped

Compared to my original build list:
- Better quality motherboard
- Twice as much RAM for a better price
- A SSD and larger HDD
- Significantly better quality power supply.
- An actual case.

 

[safehaven]

CPU you quoted being sold by third party, not amazon. OOS via amazon. Any reason not to ante up $20 and get the 4590? Wouldn't the faster stock speed be beneficial?

Also, no gpu needed?

 

[Dangman]

CPU you quoted being sold by third party, not amazon. OOS via amazon. Any reason not to ante up $20 and get the 4590? Wouldn't the faster stock speed be beneficial?

If the 4430 is not back in stock at Amazon.com at its $180 shipped price, then go for the 4590 since the Newegg price for the 4430 is $191.

IMO, for their use, the normal $20 difference isn't worth it. At a $10 difference, yeah it's worth it-ish

Also, no gpu needed?

The onboard GPU is fine. More than likely they're not going to be using applications that take full advantage of a dedicated GPU.