Does Quad-Channel Memory Help for Video Editing?

Darkswordz

Darkswordz

Gawd
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I'm currently on the X299 platform with an i7-7820X and I've been thinking about getting into 4K video editing for YouTube and such.

I was wondering if quad-channel RAM helps in video editing, or if it would be worth changing to a Ryzen 3900X system instead, although that would cost a good deal of money. Thanks.
 
In your case, then not even quad-channel RAM will boost your current system's performance to that of a newer system. And that's because your CPU itself is not only of an older architecture, but also because your CPU has only 8 cores and 16 threads (the same number of cores and threads as a newer, more economical CPU and platform). And in general, at least at stock, the i7-7820X does not perform as well as even a much cheaper 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 3700X, let alone a 12-core/24-thread 3900X. Heck, even with quad-channel RAM it actually underperforms even an i9-9900K with dual-channel RAM, let alone Ryzen 3### series. Even an i7-9700K outperforms that 7820X in some areas.

In other words, they just are not the same architecture. And the 7820X itself has gotten long on the tooth to begin with as far as video editing is concerned (its architecture dates all the way back to 2015). Future-proofing just does not exist any more.
 
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It may help some small fraction, though you'll likely want to double your RAM regardless and add a few more SSDs (and maybe spinners if you don't already have a NAS).

Of course, you can try your hand at it all now and see for yourself, which I highly recommend that you do. Go get Davinci Resolve (free for the consumer-grade feature level) and give it a shot!

[If I were dropping bank on a video editing rig, I'd be going TR 3000-series. More cores, more cache per core, and more lanes overall.]
 
Everyone says spend more money - Try with what you have and if it isn't sufficient, then upgrade
 
Keljian said:
Everyone says spend more money - Try with what you have and if it isn't sufficient, then upgrade
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I did not mean it like that. In my own instance, I was forced to spend more money because newer versions of the software would no longer run properly on a machine that's more than a couple of years old. And Adobe has in recent years become a pro-elitist company with the change to the subscription software rental model. So, if I were the OP, then I would start looking for alternatives (though not necessarily BlackMagic Davinci Resolve, which if anything has started to become even more CPU-intensive than Premiere Pro in recent versions; in fact, since Version 15, it effectively requires a newer, high-core-count CPU just to run properly unlike older, no-longer-available or supported versions that ran well on even an old dual-core CPU, and is just one of a growing list of programs that now charge the user more money for features and performance that were formerly free - and that is done by completely stripping away features from the free version and moving them entirely and exclusively to the full-cost paid version).
 
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What memory bandwith do you get with the dual 3200 ram? With my 3000 1T quad channel setup I get 70-73000MBps according to AIDA64.
 
daglesj said:
What memory bandwith do you get with the dual 3200 ram? With my 3000 1T quad channel setup I get 70-73000MBps according to AIDA64.
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It depends. Two single sided? Two double sided? Four single? Four double?
 
Darkswordz said:
I'm currently on the X299 platform with an i7-7820X and I've been thinking about getting into 4K video editing for YouTube and such.

I was wondering if quad-channel RAM helps in video editing, or if it would be worth changing to a Ryzen 3900X system instead, although that would cost a good deal of money. Thanks.
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Quad channel no... amount of memory available is more important. the big things for production rigs are drive speed, especially the scratch drive and cpu cores if using cpu rendering or the nvidia gpu. The 3900x is a lot more capable in cpu rendering and not just because it has more cores but Zen 2 is a heck of a lot more efficient in multi threaded apps. That said production for youtube is not very taxing and I'm guessing most will be harnessing NVENC on their nvidia gpus to do the bulk of the encoding anyways. If that's the case for you the 7820x will be fine. Btw, I own both cpu platforms. I retired my 7820x which clocked to 5ghz delidded with clu, etc etc. It was a fire breather. There's no loss in just trying it out.
 
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