Advice needed for a Video Editing pc to handle 4k footage with a £1000 budget

[denrex1]

Build Help/Ready:
Im trying to build a video editing pc for my uncle, he has a business doing wedding videos. His latest pc is still decent but its struggling to handle 4k footage and he is interested in upgrading. I told him it would probably be much cheaper if we built it ourselves rather than going to a shop.

He uses Edius 9 to edit. Currently hes ok editing 1080p but it is a bit stuttery at 4k and a slideshow when he starts putting effects on 4k such as stablisation, colour balancing, sharpening etc.

His current pc I think has an i7-4790K. Im a little confused as to the precise setup of this machine because what he tells me and what I observe doesnt entirely make sense. He tells me the shop told him he had to plug the monitor into the motherboard (integrated graphics) and not the graphics card otherwise it wont encode H.264 files quickly? He has a graphics card installed and it lights up but the fans dont spin and I opened GPU-Z while he was editing and the GPU was not being utilised atall. If that makes sense to anyone please let me know.

His budget is around £1000 and Im trying to build a pc with a Ryzen 3700x as that seems a beast of a processor to use for editing. I have skimped a bit on the graphics card because I dont think that will be needed much for editing, can anyone tell me if im wrong here and it will need a better graphics card?

The motherboard I choose is a B450 Tomahawk Max because I dont think the added features of the X570 will be needed and the Max is supposed to have an updated bios so I wont need to do a bios update for the new Ryzen chip.

He wont be using it for any gaming so that is not a concern. He doesn't need monitors/keyboards/mice/windows etc.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

[Vladiciu]

Hi, as you can see in my signature I also have an I7 4790K, and I work well in 4K I don't understand what problems your uncle is having.


Also as you can see in the link below the difference between the 2 processors is not much, so the Ryzen does not seem to me so much a ferocious beast.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4790K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-3700X/2384vs4043

[Ron Evans]

The big difference is that EDIUS uses the iGPU of the Intel CPU and for 4K that is needed. He got the correct advice from the shop to connect the monitor to the motherboard to get the QS working that EDIUS uses to decode etc. If you search there are lots of posts that show how to do this. If he was using Resolve then the advice would be different and the 3700 would be the choice but with a powerful GPU. I have both a 4790K system and a Threadripper system and for EDIUS use there is not a lot of difference in performance. There is a big difference for Resolve that uses the 1080Ti in the Threadripper system.

Before upgrading I would wait and see what EDIUS 10 is able to use for hardware acceleration. However I think a powerful graphics card will be what is needed not just the CPU. If he wants a system now then go with the most powerful Intel CPU with iGPU that he can afford. Personally I would wait for EDIUS 10 and make his system work properly now by using QS hardware acceleration. Lots of us have the 4790K and it works fine. If EDIUS10 uses the GPU then I would go for an AMD system but with a powerful GPU. 3700 and a 5700 GPU would the use PCI 4.0 etc to advantage.

[Vladiciu]

Sorry a question, with edius 8 you have to connect the monitor to the motherboard (integrated graphics) and not to the graphics card, otherwise it won't quickly encode H.264 files?
Why didn't I know this and I connected the second monitor to watch the video in full screen, on the HDMI output of the RX 580 8gb, so I was wrong?
thanks

[David Clarke]

With EDIUS 8 you have to have a monitor connected to the on-board graphics to get Quick Sync working. With the latest versions of EDIUS 9 you don't have to any more.

With an ATI or nVidia card as well you need a monitor connected to both the ATI/nVidia and the on board. The main monitor should be the ATI.

Quick Sync helps for both making H.264 files and playing them back to so would probably make the editing better. It makes quite a difference and I would not get a PC which does not have QS.

We have no indication that EDIUS 10 will use the GPU in a much bigger way than EDIUS 9 as yet. I would assume it does what we know EDIUS 9 does now until we hear otherwise.

[Ron Evans]

That is interesting that EDIUS 9 does not need monitor connected David but I assume it is still necessary to make sure that the iGPU is enabled in bios permanently or some motherboards will automatically disable if set at auto and no monitor connected ?

As to EDIUS 10 not using GPU I think would be a big mistake as it would place EDIUS at more of a disadvantage to the other NLE's. Threadripper and fast GPU make Resolve fly in comparison to EDIUS. Others can also use the GPU for encoding too. Anyway, we will see shortly.

[BernH]

Sorry a question, with edius 8 you have to connect the monitor to the motherboard (integrated graphics) and not to the graphics card, otherwise it won't quickly encode H.264 files?
Why didn't I know this and I connected the second monitor to watch the video in full screen, on the HDMI output of the RX 580 8gb, so I was wrong?
thanks

This isn't new information. It had been discussed many times on the forum. Many of us run 2 monitors, one connected to each card as noted in my signature so that we can avail of the quicksync capabilities as well as the acceleration offered by the nVidia or ATI card in other softwares.

[Vladiciu]

With EDIUS 8 you have to have a monitor connected to the on-board graphics to get Quick Sync working. With the latest versions of EDIUS 9 you don't have to any more.

With an ATI or nVidia card as well you need a monitor connected to both the ATI/nVidia and the on board. The main monitor should be the ATI.

Quick Sync helps for both making H.264 files and playing them back to so would probably make the editing better. It makes quite a difference and I would not get a PC which does not have QS.

We have no indication that EDIUS 10 will use the GPU in a much bigger way than EDIUS 9 as yet. I would assume it does what we know EDIUS 9 does now until we hear otherwise.

thanks for your advice.

[Vladiciu]

This isn't new information. It had been discussed many times on the forum. Many of us run 2 monitors, one connected to each card as noted in my signature so that we can avail of the quicksync capabilities as well as the acceleration offered by the nVidia or ATI card in other softwares.

thanks for your advice.

[Vladiciu]

Build Help/Ready:
Im trying to build a video editing pc for my uncle, he has a business doing wedding videos. His latest pc is still decent but its struggling to handle 4k footage and he is interested in upgrading. I told him it would probably be much cheaper if we built it ourselves rather than going to a shop.

He uses Edius 9 to edit. Currently hes ok editing 1080p but it is a bit stuttery at 4k and a slideshow when he starts putting effects on 4k such as stablisation, colour balancing, sharpening etc.

His current pc I think has an i7-4790K. Im a little confused as to the precise setup of this machine because what he tells me and what I observe doesnt entirely make sense. He tells me the shop told him he had to plug the monitor into the motherboard (integrated graphics) and not the graphics card otherwise it wont encode H.264 files quickly? He has a graphics card installed and it lights up but the fans dont spin and I opened GPU-Z while he was editing and the GPU was not being utilised atall. If that makes sense to anyone please let me know.

His budget is around £1000 and Im trying to build a pc with a Ryzen 3700x as that seems a beast of a processor to use for editing. I have skimped a bit on the graphics card because I dont think that will be needed much for editing, can anyone tell me if im wrong here and it will need a better graphics card?

The motherboard I choose is a B450 Tomahawk Max because I dont think the added features of the X570 will be needed and the Max is supposed to have an updated bios so I wont need to do a bios update for the new Ryzen chip.

He wont be using it for any gaming so that is not a concern. He doesn't need monitors/keyboards/mice/windows etc.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

Hi, have you decided something about your new purchase?
I'm curious to know if you made your choice with your friend.
thanks

[CameronMungo]

How's that B450 Tomahawk Max holding up? It was a popular choice back then and probably still is for many budget builds.