then there's a few key things you need to keep in mind

to really maximize your video editing performance.

In this video, we'll step through the key features,

the specs, and components to consider

if you wanna maximize the performance

of your next video editing PC.

(electronic music)

Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video,

where we help entrepreneurs and business owners

amplify their business and brand with video.

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then make sure you click that subscribe button,

and all the links to everything we mention in this video,

you can find the link in the description box below.

Let's jump into it.

Now there's a lot of options out there

when it comes to PC parts and components,

and a massive range of features to chose from.

If you're building or buying a PC for video editing,

then there's some key decisions

that can make a big difference

to your overall editing performance and workflow.

Recently, it was time for us to upgrade

our main video editing PC.

So we thought it would be a great time run through

the key things anyone else in the same boat

should consider when deciding what to get.

Now fortunately for us,

right as we were looking at upgrading,

one of my favorite PC and component manufacturer,

MSI, reached out to us

and offered to send us a pretty awesome new system.

Now, I actually used to work in a computer shop,

building gaming PCs,

and they were always one of my go-to manufacturers

for solid quality and always having

a big focus on performance.

So I was pretty pumped when they reached out.

So here is what they sent us.

And we'll be using this as a guide

to step you through the key decisions

when deciding what systems and parts you should use

when you're buying your own system.

So before we jump in,

I do wanna be completely clear

that this PC and all of its components

were provided by MSI at no cost to us.

So, technically, this is a sponsored video.

As always though, before we agreed to accepting it,

we provided them with our standard terms.

It sounds great, but we'll only ever present

our full, unfiltered, unbiased opinions,

both good and bad.

So not only did they agree,

they insisted we go all out

with our thoughts on the good, the bad,

the awesome, and the ugly,

and we'd have it no other way.

I will give you a full rundown on this system

and how it performs in another video,

which will be out really soon,

but now onto the good stuff.

When it comes to computers,

video editing is actually a fairly unique workflow.

Not only is editing incredibly intensive

on most aspects of a computer,

the software that you use

and the combination of parts that you choose

can make a big difference to your end performance

and the efficiency of your workflow.

So there's five key things to consider.

The first one is RAM.

Now RAM plays a huge role

in the overall power and the performance of your system.

It is definitely a case of the more the merrier

when it comes to RAM.

So having extra RAM in your system

won't just help with the render times and export times

of your video projects,

it will also help with how smooth

and how seamless everything plays back

while you're actually editing.

Having extra RAM in your system

will also help you keep that performance

if you've got multiple applications

running at the same time.

So an example would be you might be editing

in Adobe Premiere,

but you also might wanna open up Adobe After Effects

to fix up some animations or to edit titles,

effects, or motion graphics.

Or maybe you've got Adobe Photoshop open as well

so you can fix up some of your graphics.

Having these applications open at the same time

takes up a heap of system resources,

and chews through your RAMs.

So having additional RAM is gonna make that process

much more seamless,

and give you the power to be able to actually do it,

and do it well.

Now, it's important to note that is not just about

the amount of RAM that you've got.

RAM actually comes in different speeds.

It's also important to look at the

speed of the RAM that you're buying,

and to try and get the fastest RAM possible as well.

So my MacBook Pro is currently maxed out at 16 gig,

and this new system here currently has 32 gig

of DDR4 RAM in it.

Now I might even upgrade this to 64 gig some time soon

to get a bit more performance,

again, with multiple application running.

One cool thing about the RAM and the motherboard

that MSI sent us

is that this system supports DDR4 Boost Technology.

So what that does is it helps you get

the maximum performance out of your RAM

while it's talking to your CPU without any interference

from any of the other components on your motherboard,

but it also helps with the stability of the RAM

and the overall system as well.

So what I'd recommend when it comes to RAM

if you're on a budget

is to still try and get at least

16 gig of RAM in your system,

and to try and get the fastest RAM

that you can on your budget.

If you've got a bigger budget,

then I'd definitely recommend to get at least

32 gig of RAM in your system,

and again, the fastest RAM that you can afford as well.

Number two is storage.

Now when it comes to storage and setting everything up

for your video editing systems,

there's a heap of different options out there.

You've got things like SSDs, hard drives,

you've got RAID setups,

you've got external drives as well.

So there's a heap of different options,

but what I would recommend

is that you setup a multi drive system.

That way your computer is gonna have at least

two drives in it.

One of them will be a high-speed drive,

and the other one would be a much larger drive

to hold all of your video files.

And we recently did a video covering of

on all the different hard drive options for video editing

and what we recommend and what we use,

and I will link that up in the cards now.

But essentially, the high-speed drives, the SSDs,

will be a lot more expensive,

but they won't have the capacity, the storage capacity,

that the larger, cheaper hard drives have.

So what I would recommend is to get

at least one SSD drive in your system,

something that you're gonna install

your operating system on, your applications on,

so that all of that load fast

and that your system is gonna run fast.

And then you can get at least on regular hard drive

to save all of your video files on.

Now if you've got the budget,

you can also consider adding a second SSD drive

for added performance.

So you can use that second drive

as your working drive.

So all the files and everything that you're using

on your current project,

you could copy over to that drive and work from that,

and the speed and the performance you'll have

working from that drive will be much, much faster

than working off a spinning disk or a regular hard drive.

Number three is the CPU.

Now this is essentially the brain of your computer,

and it plays a huge role

in the performance on your video editing system.

But before you look at the CPUs,

you also should look at your video editing software

to see what the software will actually utilize

inside of the different CPUs.

Because when you're looking at the CPUs,

you've got things like cores.

There'll be different cores.

You can get a four-core, six-core,

eight-core, 12-core CPUs.

And you've also got a clock speed

or the actual speed that, that processor will run at.

And the impact of those two things on your video editing

will really be determined by

what video editing software you're using.

So whether the software that you're using

will support having multiple cores,

having eight core processor,

whether it's gonna use that,

or whether it's only gonna be based off

the clock speed of the processor itself.

Now there's two main manufacturers of CPUs.

You've got AMD and you've got Intel.

Now without jumping in to all the nitty-gritty there,

AMD has just released an new Ryzen CPU,

which offers incredible performance for gaming.

But when it comes to video editing,

there's really been mixed reviews out there.

As far as I'm concerned,

Intel has the edge for video editing, at least right now,

but I definitely wouldn't discount what AMD is up to.

So your CPU is definitely

a critical piece of the puzzle here.

And what I suggest is that you spend

a decent chunk of your budget in this area.

I'd also recommend targeting a higher clock speed,

so a faster processor over a processor with more cores.

And as you spend more money on your processor,

you'll actually increase both.

If you're on a low budget,

then something like the Intel Core i3 range of CPUs

or Core i5 range would be the place to start.

Or if you've got the budget,

then definitely check out the Intel Core i7 range.

We're currently using the Intel Core i7-8700k,

which is a six-core CPU clocked at 3.7 gigahertz.

Number four is your video card.

Now this plays a massive part in video editing.

But surprisingly, a lot of people disregard it,

and will focus more on CPU.

Now the CPU and your GPU or your video card

definitely go hand in hand,

but they actually do different things

and solve different problems when it comes to

high-end video editing.

So what you'll find in a lot of the video editing

application around these days

is that if you're using a compatible GPU

that a lot of the processor intensive tasks,

like rendering effects and color corrections and things

are all off loaded.

Instead of sending them to the CPE,

they're off loaded to your GPU.

So it's a much faster way of processing those effects

and rendering those out,

which in turn speeds up your whole editing process.

But it definitely comes down to

which video editing software you're using

as to how much is off loaded from your CPU to your GPU

to speed everything up.

In some cases, like Adobe Premiere,

everything is CPU until you use a GPU-enabled effect.