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Question about computers (speed and video/photo editing, specifically)

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  • TennJeep1618

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    I use computers a lot, but I'm not very knowledgeable about hardware specs. I'm trying to decide if it's worth buying a new laptop to speed up my video and photo processing time.

    I bought a cheap (<$400) laptop about a year and a half ago (AMD A8 2.3GHz, 6GB Ram, 1TB HD, no SSD). Right now it takes about 30-45 minutes to render a 5 minute match video, depending on how much I'm using the computer while it's rendering. If I were to buy a new laptop in the $700-$800ish range (no idea of specs, just throwing that price range out there), would it really save me a lot of time processing photos and videos?

    Note, my current laptop struggles to preview videos in the editor in anything higher than the lowest quality setting (low res draft). Would a better laptop allow to preview videos in higher res to better determine where to cut the vids?
     
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    bohica793

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    Short answer - Yes. Unfortunately, in another year you will be back where you are now as the software gets more advanced and the pictures get to be even higher resolution. Buy the biggest processor you can get (I7 Quad) along with the most memory you can cram in the box. These two items are going to be the most important to video processing. Go SSD if you can as this will help also, but it is not as important as the first two. If you REALLY want to get froggy, go Apple as they seem to excel at video.

    EDIT: I neglected to mention video card. NVIDIA - biggest, fastest you can afford.
     
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    Viking1204

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    What operating system are running? While Apple excels at video so does Windows 10. Windows 10 also really makes the most of the hardware you have. If you really want a good laptop find one built for gaming. I picked up a Dell gaming laptop for my son for about $1k, it has Windows 10, I7 processor, plenty of memory with a bad ass video card. He hasn't done a lot of video editing on it yet but says it handles the GIS stuff he's been working on with ease. The key I think is make sure you have Windows 10, I7 processor, 16 gigs of ram or more and good video card that has it's own onboard memory.
     

    TennJeep1618

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    What operating system are running? While Apple excels at video so does Windows 10. Windows 10 also really makes the most of the hardware you have. If you really want a good laptop find one built for gaming. I picked up a Dell gaming laptop for my son for about $1k, it has Windows 10, I7 processor, plenty of memory with a bad ass video card. He hasn't done a lot of video editing on it yet but says it handles the GIS stuff he's been working on with ease. The key I think is make sure you have Windows 10, I7 processor, 16 gigs of ram or more and good video card that has it's own onboard memory.

    I've got Windows 10. IIRC, mine has a 4GB stick and a 2GB stick of RAM. I tried to put in an 8GB stick, but I could never get it to work right.
     

    TennJeep1618

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    Short answer - Yes. Unfortunately, in another year you will be back where you are now as the software gets more advanced and the pictures get to be even higher resolution. Buy the biggest processor you can get (I7 Quad) along with the most memory you can cram in the box. These two items are going to be the most important to video processing. Go SSD if you can as this will help also, but it is not as important as the first two. If you REALLY want to get froggy, go Apple as they seem to excel at video.

    EDIT: I neglected to mention video card. NVIDIA - biggest, fastest you can afford.

    Just ballpark, if I were to buy an $800ish laptop, are we talking cutting down the render time to 5 minutes? Or 20 minutes?

    I'm thinking it would have to make a HUGE difference for it to be worth spending the $$$.
     

    TennJeep1618

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    Looks like I have Windows 10 Home 64 bit and an AMD Radeon R5 series video card with shared memory.

    I can't seem to even find the video card on the benchmark website, Droshki. That's probably not a good sign.
     

    Droshki

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    Probably.

    To further clarify, video processing is largely a parallel processing task, and video cards use (sometimes multiple) GPUs very well for this. Your computer's CPU has very little to do with it.
     

    Droshki

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    GPUs are much more powerful the CPUs. The main reason they haven't replaced CPUs entirely is that regular software code is pretty much a linear task execution. Even multithread CPUs sit around with a lot of idle threads, most of the time. Besides things like branch prediction and pre - fetching, nobody's really figured out how to implement code execution on them well. Linear code is usually very dependent on what happened earlier, so very hard to parallel process.
     

    Fear21

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    Looks like I have Windows 10 Home 64 bit and an AMD Radeon R5 series video card with shared memory.

    I can't seem to even find the video card on the benchmark website, Droshki. That's probably not a good sign.

    If you're really serious about it, I'd go with a desktop unless you need the portability. Intel i7, a good Nvidia card (I haven't bothered with Radeon since the early 2000s) and at least 16 GB of RAM would be a good start, IMO. Nvidia GeForce 1060s are running pretty low right now, but graphics cards in general are a little hard to get with the sudden boom of crypto currency mining. There was one online retailer that was actually imposing a $10,000 charge on orders with multiple GFX cards to try and temper the buying craze down a little bit. Like someone suggested earlier, though - Apple is king for media. It pains me to say that because I don't like their computers / OS much, but I can't deny the fact that they rock for those sorts of applications.

    I don't know what your budget might be, but the sky's the limit if your wallet will allow it.
     

    FrankT

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    Jeep at Best Buy for $500 I got an HP Pavilion I7 notebook, 8G ram, 64bit 17" monitor last year that I believe has all Viking's specs, just so you know it does not have to cost an arm and a leg.
     

    TactiNormal

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    Brant,

    You're going to be primarily looking for CPU speed to speed up your rendering as most of the work to render a video is being done inside the CPU rather than the GPU.

    You've got a AMD A8-7410 which is a low/mid end CPU/GPU combo.

    Here's a comparison of your CPU with the current laptop sweet spot, the i7 7700HQ.

    https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2537&cmp[]=2906

    It's about 3x faster overall and you can expect about the same benefit rendering videos, so your 45 minute render time will be closer to 15 minutes.

    Here's a search of all laptops that sport the chip. Some of them come with dedicated GPUs but if you're not gaming the integrated graphics will work just fine.

    https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...34&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=36

    The refurb Dell Inspiron would work well for your needs. $830
    https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9SK62T9086

    For another $30 or so the next step up is about 10% faster than that. $860
    https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9SK62U1045

    If you don't want a refurb then the next cheapest platform is going to be a Lenovo Yoga convertible laptop/tablet at $999 but they often go on sale for less than that:
    http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptop...01TUS&ef_id=VnOlZAAABTwq2UIP:20170912144751:s
     

    TennJeep1618

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    Hmm...

    Thanks for all of the info.

    I'm thinking it's probably not worth upgrading right now when I'm only doing 2-4 videos a month and my current computer still works. I considered building a desktop to suit my needs, but I really need the portability of a laptop. Whenever my current laptop starts to crap out, I'll probably go ahead and spend the extra to get one better suited to my needs.
     

    SAWMAN

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    Suggestion - - - -> Use the money for more training. Shoot better. Get more exposure. Pick up big name sponsors. They will buy you vid equip. Become rich and famos. Quit talking to us little guys. Start your own competition shooting forum. Make Stanley a mod as you leave here.
    THERE . . . . --- SAWMAN
     

    TennJeep1618

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    Suggestion - - - -> Use the money for more training. Shoot better. Get more exposure. Pick up big name sponsors. They will buy you vid equip. Become rich and famos. Quit talking to us little guys. Start your own competition shooting forum. Make Stanley a mod as you leave here.
    THERE . . . . --- SAWMAN

    New life plan. Thanks, SAWMAN!
     

    FelixH

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    If you're really serious about it, I'd go with a desktop unless you need the portability.

    This!

    You get more horsepower for your money with a desktop, or a mini or mid-tower.
    With a laptop, you're paying a price for the portability aspect. And it's easier to upgrade components in a mini or mid tower to squeeze more useful life out of an aging PC.
     
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